SHINZO ABE hoped this was a moment for diplomacy. His visit to Tehran this week, the first by a Japanese prime minister since the Islamic revolution in 1979, was meant to reduce tensions between America and Iran. After a meeting with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, Mr Abe warned that the region could “accidentally” slip into conflict. And then, a few miles off Iran’s southern coast, came an illustration of how that might happen.
On June 13th two tankers in the Gulf of Oman sent distress calls after they had been damaged by large explosions. The Front Altair, flagged in the Marshall Islands and owned by Frontline, a Norwegian shipping company, was hauling a cargo of naphtha, an oil derivative, from Abu Dhabi; the Kokuka Courageous, registered in Panama and operated by the Japanese company Kokuka Sangyo, was laden with methanol. Both were bound for Asian ports. Photos from Iranian news agencies showed a fire burning on the starboard side of the Front Altair. The plume of black smoke overhead was thick enough to appear in satellite images. One-fifth of the world’s supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz, an important chokepoint for international shipping.
This is the second time in just over a month that tankers have been damaged in the Gulf. On May 12th four ships anchored off Fujairah, a port in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had holes blown in their hulls. A preliminary investigation suggests that they were damaged by limpet mines. The latest explosions caused far more damage, forcing crews to evacuate both ships as they were underway. It will take weeks to probe what happened, amid reports of torpedoes being used. But the explosions do not seem accidental. The president of Kokuka Sangyo said the Kokuka Courageous vessel was “attacked” twice in a three-hour period.
Nor is it likely that two sets of explosions, weeks apart and in the same area, were mere coincidence. Though a UAE-led investigative team did not assign blame for last month’s sabotage, it said an unnamed “state actor” carried it out. America has blamed Iran for both sets of attacks. Iran, which is a regional rival of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both American allies, has denied responsibility and hints that the latest explosions were orchestrated by its rivals. “Suspicious doesn’t begin to describe what likely transpired,” tweeted Iran’s foreign minister, Muhammad Javad Zarif, on June 13th.
Iran has in the past threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz if it were ever attacked. Some will see the strikes against ships in the area as a veiled warning of its readiness to make good on its threat. Messrs Zarif and Rouhani probably understand that attacking regional shipping would be to play with fire. But they do not call all of the shots in Iran. They are stuck in an internal battle with Iran’s ruling mullahs, who are more distrustful of the West, and their Revolutionary Guards, who back local forces in Syria and Yemen that have fought against Emirati- and Saudi-backed forces. Iran has a history of irregular warfare that allows it to maintain a measure of plausible deniability. In the 1980s it fought the so-called tanker war with Iraq. The conflict ravaged international shipping.
Tensions in the region have been rising since last spring, when Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, signed in 2015, that loosened sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on its nuclear programme. Mr Trump reimposed sanctions and added new ones, in effect cutting Iran off from the global economy. After a year of abiding by the agreement, a bid to win European sympathy, Iran last month said it would begin enriching uranium in excess of the prescribed limits. Mr Rouhani warned that he would abrogate other provisions unless other signatories—Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union—helped his country bypass American sanctions, which is unlikely to happen. Critics of Mr Trump’s approach have long warned that economic distress would lead Iran to lash out.
For the Arab states across the Gulf, these latest explosions fit into a troubling pattern. In May, two days after the Fujairah incident, two blasts in the centre of Saudi Arabia, 700km north of the Yemeni border, damaged an oil pipeline that carries crude across the kingdom. On June 12th a rocket hit the international airport in Abha, a Saudi city 200km from the Yemeni border, injuring 26 people. Both attacks were carried out by the Houthis, a Shia militia that controls large parts of Yemen and is fighting a Saudi-led coalition there. A United Nations panel of experts has said that Iran supplied weapons to the Houthis, including drones and missiles, though the group does not always act at Iran's behest.
But Saudi Arabia and its allies have tried not to escalate directly a conflict that would wreak havoc on their oil exports, and thus their economies. The UAE has been particularly circumspect in its public statements about last month’s sabotage (though in private officials evince little doubt about Iran’s involvement). If there is to be a response, they would like it to come from America. Mr Trump’s hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, has long supported regime change in Iran, and even military action against it. But the president, as ever, is erratic, toggling between fiery threats and offers of dialogue. He is reported to have given Mr Abe a message to pass to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei (who declined to reply). “We do not believe at all that the US is seeking genuine negotiations with Iran; because genuine negotiations would never come from a person like Trump,” said Ayatollah Khamenei.
Mr Trump has already bolstered America’s military presence in the region. Last month he rushed an aircraft-carrier strike group to the region. Those vessels have not transited the Strait of Hormuz, an effort to avoid further tension. They will probably step up their patrols; an American destroyer picked up some sailors from the stricken tankers (Iran says it rescued some too). The Pentagon is deploying an extra 1,500 troops to bases in Qatar, Bahrain and Iraq, and Mr Trump is invoking emergency powers to override congressional objections and sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
All sides insist they do not want war. But even if they are sincere, good intentions go only so far. The Gulf states (and their American protector) cannot tolerate threats to shipping. Mr Abe was right to push for diplomacy between America and Iran. But his visit, and the events that overshadowed it, underscore how difficult that will be.
GENEVA - A Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen has killed 109 civilians in air strikes in the past 10 days, including 54 at a crowded market and 14 members of one family in a farm, the top U.N. official in the country said on Thursday.
A man walks past a destroyed house at the site of air strikes in Sanaa, Yemen December 26, 2017. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
U.N. resident coordinator Jamie McGoldrick called the fighting futile and absurd, an unusually direct criticism of the war in which the coalition, backed by the United States, Britain and others, is fighting the Iran-allied Houthi armed movement.
Citing initial reports from the U.N. human rights office, a statement by McGoldrick said air strikes hit a crowded market in Al Hayma sub-district of Attazziah in Taiz governorate on Tuesday, killing 54 and injuring 32.
Eight of the dead and six of the injured were children, according to the reports.
On the same day an air strike on a farm in Attohayta district of Hodeidah governorate killed 14, and air strikes elsewhere killed a further 41 civilians and injured 43 over the past 10 days.
“These incidents prove the complete disregard for human life that all parties, including the Saudi-led Coalition, continue to show in this absurd war that has only resulted in the destruction of the country and the incommensurate suffering of its people, who are being punished as part of a futile military campaign by both sides,” McGoldrick said.
Under international law, the warring sides must spare civilians and civilian infrastructure, he added.
The United Nations has no up-to-date estimate of the death toll in Yemen, having said in August 2016 that according to medical centers at least 10,000 people had been killed.
The United Nations says Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with about 8 million people on the brink of famine, a cholera epidemic that has infected 1 million people, and economic collapse in what was already one of the Arab world’s poorest countries.
Image copyrightReutersImage caption Saudi-led air strikes have been taking place over Yemen for almost a year, striking targets across the country
The United Arab Emirates has said that one of its warplane taking part in a mission against Houthi rebels in Yemen is missing.
The country's official news agency, WAM, announced the disappearance without giving further details.
The Saudi-led coalition of which UAE is a part has been carrying out airstrikes in Yemen since March 2015 in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi.
Some 6,000 people have been killed in the Yemen conflict.
It is the first known loss of an Emirati jet in the conflict.
In December, a Bahraini F-16 crashed in Saudi Arabia due to a "technical error", while in May a Moroccan warplane came down over Yemen.
Both jets were taking part in the Yemen campaign, which has the codename "Operation Decisive Storm"
Image copyrightAFP/Getty ImagesImage caption A Saudi-led coalition has been battling Houthi rebels in Yemen
At least four people were killed when a missile hit a hospital supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in northern Yemen, the aid agency says.
MSF said the strike in Saada province, a Houthi rebel movement stronghold, had injured a further 10 people.
The Houthis are fighting the government and its allies, including Saudi Arabia.
MSF said it was unclear whether the hospital was hit in an air strike by warplanes of a Saudi-led coalition, or by a rocket fired from the ground.
But it added that planes were seen overhead at the time one projectile flattened hospital buildings, and at least one other landed nearby.
The agency said three of those injured in the strike were its staff, two of whom were in a critical condition.
It condemned the strike, saying: "This is the third severe incident in the last three months. Our teams struggle on a daily basis to ensure the respect of health facilities... we reiterate to all parties to the conflict that patients and medical facilities must be respected."
Another MSF hospital in Sadaa was destroyed last October, while a clinic in Taiz was hit last month. Both strikes have been attributed to coalition aircraft.
Last October, US aircraft bombed an MSF hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, causing heavy loss of life. Image copyrightEPAImage caption Houthi rebels control the capital Sanaa Meanwhile, US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has accused the Houthi rebels of arbitrarily detaining their opponents in the capital, Sanaa, which they have held for more than a year.
HRW says it documented the detention of 35 people last autumn, most of whom remain in custody.
It also reports a Yemeni legal group's assertion that it is working on behalf of more than 800 detainees and individuals who have disappeared, most of them from a political party called Islah which opposes the Houthis.
HRW says the arrests have generated a climate in which politicians, lawyers and journalists say they have never been more afraid.
At least 2,795 civilians have been killed in Yemen since last March, when the Saudi-led coalition began a military campaign to restore the government and drive back the Houthis and allied security personnel loyal to ex-President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
In the past six months, coalition and pro-government forces have retaken Aden, but the rebels still control the capital Sanaa.
The already dire humanitarian situation has also deteriorated, with more than 21 million people - four-fifths of the population - now requiring aid.
A new UN-brokered humanitarian ceasefire in Yemen has been broken shortly after coming into force.
Residents
say the Saudi-led coalition carried out air strikes in the capital
Sanaa. Clashes have also been reported in the south-western city of
Taiz.
The UN had earlier urged all sides to observe the six-day truce which started at midnight on Friday (21:00 GMT).
More than 3,000 people have been killed since the coalition began air strikes in March to drive back Houthi rebels.
Aid
agencies say a blockade on Yemen has worsened the humanitarian crisis
after months of conflict. More than 80% of Yemen's 25 million people now
need some form of aid.
Despite the ceasefire, fighting resumed
early hours on Saturday. Witnesses reported air raids on Sanaa, which is
controlled by the Shia Zaidi rebels - or Houthis.
"We heard four to five loud explosions, which shook my house far away
from the west of Sanaa," said Hussain al-Bokhaiti, a journalist based
in Yemen.
One strike targeted a military camp used by the rebels, the Associated Press news agency reported.
There were also reports of air strikes in Taiz and Aden, both in the south.
The truce had called to allow vital supplies to reach Yemen's stricken people.
Displaced by conflict
In
recent months Yemen has descended into conflicts between several
different groups, although the main fight is between forces loyal to
beleaguered President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi and the Houthis, who forced
Mr Hadi to flee Sanaa in February.
After rebel forces closed in
on the president's southern stronghold of Aden in late March, a
coalition led by Saudi Arabia responded to a request by Mr Hadi to
intervene and launched air strikes on Houthi targets.
Gulf Arab states have accused Iran of backing the Houthis financially and militarily, although Iran has denied this.
About a million civilians have been displaced by the conflict.
Charities say a lack of fuel in Yemen is making it difficult to reach those in need and to provide adequate care in hospitals.
The coalition allowed a five-day humanitarian ceasefire in May, but much of the aid promised to those in need has failed to materialise.
Yemen
is strategically important because it sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait,
a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, through
which much of the world's oil shipments pass.
Several mosques have been hit by a
series of explosions in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, causing dozens of
casualties, officials say.
At least two blasts were caused by car bombs. Health and security officials said at least 23 people had died.
A building reportedly used as the headquarters of Houthi rebel officials was also hit.
In March, attacks by Islamic State (IS) on mosques in Sanaa used mainly by Houthis left more than 130 people dead.
Pictures
posted on Twitter showed flames leaping from the site of one of
Wednesday's blasts, and residents said ambulances were rushing to the
scene.
Yemen has been in turmoil since Houthi rebels overran Sanaa
last September, forcing the government of President Mansour Abdrabbuh
Hadi to flee.
In late March, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia began targeting the rebels with air strikes.
At least one of four Americans held by Houthi rebels in civil war-torn Yemen has been released, US officials say.
The hostage was flown to Oman where he was met by the US ambassador, they say.
Last week, the Washington Post reported that at least four Americans were being held by Houthi rebels.
Meanwhile,
a video of a Frenchwoman kidnapped in February has been posted for the
first time since her abduction. She appeals for efforts to be made to
secure her release.
Isabelle Prime, who worked as a consultant on a
World Bank-funded project, was seized with her translator - who was
later freed - as they were driving to work in the capital, Sanaa.
She
called for French President Francois Hollande and Yemeni President Abed
Rabbo Mansour Hadi to help secure her release, saying: "Please bring me
to France fast because I am really, really tired."
The identity of her captors remains unclear.
A French official has confirmed the authenticity of the video.
No details of the released American's identity were immediately available.
Oman has been brokering talks between the Houthis and the United States to put an end to Yemen's civil war.
The
Houthis and army units loyal to Yemen's former leader, Ali Abdullah
Saleh, overran Sanaa in September last year and are now in control of
several other cities.
In December, US journalist Luke Somers and
South African teacher Pierre Korkie died during a failed attempt by US
commandos to rescue them from an al-Qaeda hideout in south-eastern
Yemen.
The UN says two months of fighting and air strikes have
left at least 1,037 civilians dead, including 130 women and 234
children, and displaced half a million others.
There has also been
massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, and a sea and air
blockade has caused severe shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel.
Houthi rebels in Yemen say they have
shot down a Moroccan fighter jet that was taking part in Saudi-led
coalition air campaign against them.
Rebel-controlled Al-Masirah
TV reported that the F-16 was hit as it flew over Saada province, and
broadcast pictures of what it said was the wreckage.
The Moroccan Royal Armed Forces earlier said one of its planes was missing.
If confirmed, it would be the first coalition aircraft to be shot down since air strikes began on 26 March.
The bombardment has been stepped up in recent days ahead of the start of a proposed five-day humanitarian ceasefire.
Saudi Arabia says its offer of a pause in hostilities from 23:00
(20:00 GMT) on Tuesday to allow aid deliveries is conditional on the
Houthis reciprocating.
The rebels have agreed to the truce, but say they will "respond" to any violations.
'Air defence'
The
10-nation coalition launched air strikes against the Houthis and allied
army units loyal to Yemen's ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh
with the aim of restoring the government of exiled President Abdrabbuh
Mansour Hadi.
Morocco backed the intervention from the start and put at the
coalition's disposal a squadron of F-16s already stationed in the UAE
for the campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
On
Monday, a Moroccan Royal Armed Forces statement said one of the F-16s
had gone missing while flying over Yemen at around 18:00 (15:00 GMT) on
Sunday. A second F-16 on the same mission was not able to see whether
the pilot ejected, it added.
Later, al-Masirah reported that "air
defence of the tribes shot down a warplane over Wadi Nushur", a valley
in the Houthis' northern heartland of Saada province.
The channel broadcast footage of tribesmen celebrating around what
appeared to be the wreckage of a plane, and holding a piece bearing the
roundel of the Royal Moroccan Air Force.
Overnight, the Houthis'
northern heartland of Saada was bombed for the third consecutive day,
after the coalition declared the whole province a military target, the
AFP news agency said.
Rebels in the third city of Taiz and the eastern province of Marib were also reportedly attacked.
Along
Saudi Arabia's border with the provinces of Saada and Hajjah, Houthi
fighters traded heavy artillery and rocket fire with Saudi troops,
residents told the Reuters news agency.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. The UN says more than
1,400 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since 19 March.
Analysts
say the coalition appears to be trying to inflict as much damage as
possible on the Houthis and their allies before the humanitarian
ceasefire starts.
On Sunday, a group of 17 international aid agencies warned that five days was not sufficient to restock food, medicine and fuel supplies in a country under blockade.
Civilians in the city of Saada in
northern Yemen are struggling to flee Saudi-led coalition air strikes
targeting Houthi rebels, reports and aid workers say.
Teresa Sancristoval, of medical charity MSF, said fuel shortages meant many people were having to travel by foot.
The UN's representative in Yemen says the indiscriminate bombing of populated areas is against international law.
Air strikes have killed at least 1,400, more than half civilians, the UN says.
Saudi
Arabia says the offensive is to restore Yemen's exiled president to
power, weeks after the Shia Houthi rebels - backed by forces loyal to
Yemen's former president - took over the capital Sanaa.
The Saudis on Friday said they regarded all of Saada province as a "military zone" and told civilians to leave.
Trapped civilians
The UN's humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Johannes Van Der Klauuw, said he was "deeply concerned" by the impact of the latest air strikes on northern Yemen.
"Many civilians are effectively trapped in Saada as they are unable to
access transport because of the fuel shortage," he added.
Up to 130 strikes took place across the country on Saturday targeting
rebel buildings, weapons stores and camps, a coalition spokesman said.
A
spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brig Gen Ahmad Assiri, said it
was in response to Houthi rebels firing shells into Saudi Arabia earlier
this week, killing 10 people.
Hundreds of families have already fled Saada province, security officials and Houthi rebels say.
Population 'living in fear'
Teresa
Sancristoval, the emergency coordinator for Doctors without Borders
(MSF) based at Saada's al-Gumhary Hospital, described intense bombing
overnight, with reports of up to 140 strikes hitting the city in total.
"There is no electricity, no working telephones... many civilians are suffering the consequences," she said.
The
coalition's order to evacuate was not heard by everyone, she warned.
Leaflets were dropped in Old Saada - the rebels' stronghold in Saada
province - on Friday.
She said her team had been treating seven pregnant women who were in
labour, but five of them fled due to the intensity of the air strikes.
"The
population that remains is very scared and worried... The market,
storage facilities and government buildings have been destroyed and many
civilians are suffering the consequences," she said.
Gen Assiri
said the Houthi rebels were preventing residents from leaving areas
under fire. A Houthi spokesman, Hamed al-Bokheiti, later denied this.
Saudi Arabia on Friday offered a five-day truce, which would start at 23:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Tuesday.
But
senior Houthi official Mohamed al-Bukhaiti told the BBC that the
ceasefire had not been formally proposed and the Houthis would not
respond until a plan was properly laid out.
Air strikes have killed at least 1,200 people, more than half civilians, the UN says.
Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has accused Shia rival Iran of arming the Houthis, a charge Iran and the Houthis deny.
The Saudis have been sheltering the internationally recognised Yemeni President Mansour Abdrabbuh Hadi, who fled there in March.
