Yemeni Government Seeks U.S. Support to Eliminate Terror Groups
On Tuesday, Brigadier General Mohsen Mohammed Al-Dhaheri, the Yemeni Minister of Defense, said during a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen and the U.S. Military Attaché "supporting the legitimate government and its forces on the ground is the optimal way to restore the [Yemeni] state and secure global maritime routes." Al-Dhaheri stressed that combating terrorism and eliminating it, including the Houthis, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS, requires the international community's support for the efforts of the Yemeni legitimate government and its armed forces. The meeting discussed the developments in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, the Houthi escalation in the Red Sea, and the frontlines inside Yemen.
Diplomatic efforts are underway to try to find a "climbdown" for Yemen's Houthis, the special U.S. envoy to Yemen said on Tuesday. Tim Lenderking recorded his comments on Friday for a think-tank conference before flying to Oman for talks on the crisis that has triggered retaliatory U.S. and British strikes against Houthi weapons sites. Diplomatic efforts are "being made to try and find a climbdown for the Houthis that would enable (the) situation to improve and to move away from the kinetic aspect" of the Red Sea crisis, Lenderking said. He accused Iran of aiding Houthi attacks by providing them with weapons, intelligence and "determining which are the more lucrative targets." Tehran denies backing the strikes.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has announced the organization of a new journey for dozens of Ethiopian migrants stranded in Yemen, marking the third such journey in about a week. In a statement, the organization said it assisted 148 stranded migrants in Yemen to return to Addis Ababa from Aden Airport safely. Last week, the organization facilitated the return of 291 Ethiopian migrants who were stranded in Yemen over the past year. The total number of migrants stranded in Yemen, mainly Ethiopians, was reported to be 43,000. According to U.N. agency statistics, Yemen received 97,210 African migrants last year, the majority of whom were from Ethiopia.
Hamas proposed a ceasefire plan that would halt the war in Gaza for four-and-a-half months, during which all hostages would go free, Israel would withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip, and an agreement would be reached on an end to the war. The proposal comes amid the biggest diplomatic push yet for an extended halt to the fighting in the Gaza Strip. There was no immediate public response from Israel, which has said it will not pull its troops out of Gaza until Hamas is wiped out. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived overnight in Israel after meeting the leaders of mediators Qatar and Egypt in the most serious diplomatic push of the war to reach an extended truce.
