War and Conflict Journal
Fatah vs. Usbat al-Ansar Fighting in the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Four killed.
Fatah vs. Usbat al-Ansar (Feb. 2010)–Fighting in the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Four killed. Renewed combat in the permanent Palestinian “refugee camps” of Lebanon as Fatah and the Islamist militia Usbat al-Ansar battle for territory and control. Under a 1969 agreement between the Palestinians and the Lebanese government, the Lebanese Army does not interfere with in-fighting within the Palestinian camps.
http://www.historyguy.com/palestinian_civil_wars_conflicts.htm
Iran War Creeping Upon Us
The world is slowly creeping toward the long-awaited and long-feared Iran War. What is this ‘Iran War?” At some point, Iran will be attacked, most likely by Israel, perhaps less likely by the United States or some coalition of Western powers. But the ongoing concerns regarding Iran’s continued nuclear weapons development and the collapse of any reasonable diplomatic scenarios will lead Israel’s leadership with the belief that they have no choice but to strike the Islamic Republic of Iran before they can attack Israel with the nuclear weapons Iran is developing.
Two recent developments in particular shows that Israel is growing increasingly concerned. First, the Israeli cabinet decided to fund a program to provide gas masks to all Israelis. This is an obvious preparation for the possibility of missile attacks on Israel from Iran and/or Iranian allies Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.
Second, on January 12, 2010, a leading Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated by a remote-controlled bomb in Tehran. It is widely assumed that Israel is behind this killing in an apparent attempt to delay the Iranian nuclear program.
See also: http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm
Saudi Forces Hit Yemeni Rebels Hard Along Border
Saudi Arabia and Yemen are two arabic speaking Sunni
Muslim-majority nations on the Arabian penisula with a
long history of hostility toward each other. However,
both nations are battling al-Qaida rebels, and both have
concerns about the growing influence of Shiite-majority
Iran and its growing influence in the Arab world. Yemen
has battled a local Shiite insurgency (called the Houthi
Rebellion or the Saadah Insurgency), in the northernmost
region of the country near the Saudi border.
As the Shiite rebellion in Yemen grew, and appeared to
be receiving aid from Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran, the
Saudis in turn aided the Yemeni government. The Yemeni
rebels launched an incursion into Saudi Arabia in early
November, and a Saudi soldier was killed by the so-called
al-Houthi rebels along the border on Novermber 4, 2009,
and on November 6, Saudi forces openly intervened in the
Yemeni war with air strikes near the border and artillery
fire on rebel positions inside Yemen.
Saudi officials reported that as of Nov. 8, Saudi
military casualties included three killed, 15 wounded,
and four missing. Saudi Arabia claimed to have regained
control Saudi territory seized by the Yemeni rebels the
week before. Smoke from airstrikes rose above the Jebel
al-Dukhan, a 6,600-foot tall mountain on the border
between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, near the town of
Al-Khubah.
video of a Saudi
warplane over Yemen border
Web and News
Links on the Saudi-Yemen Border Wars:
http://www.historyguy.com/Saudi_Yemen_Border_Conflict_2009.htm
Saudi and Yemen battle Zaidi rebels–AFP, Nov. 8, 2009
Saudi Arabia says regains area seized by Yemen
rebels–Reuters, Nov. 8, 2009
Saudi
Forces Bomb Yemeni Rebels on Southern Border –Wall
Street Journal, Nov. 7, 2009
Houthis
Capture Saudi Soldiers, Saudi Bombing Yemen for Third
Day–Nov. 6, 2009
CIA
Factbook on Country or
conflict
–Click
on the country name (Yemen) at this site.
Security
Incidents in Yemen, 1998–From
the Al-bab website.
Tiny
Voices Defy Child Marriage in
Yemen–June
29, 2008
Massive
protest in south Yemen–by
Jane Novak, for the Long War Journal, May 27,
2008
Yemen’s
Intifada–by
Jane Novak, for the Long War Journal, January 2,
2008
Saudi Air and Artillery Strikes in Aid of Yemen
The Sa’dah insurgency in northern Yemen began in June of 2004 with a rebellion led by the Shiite cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, head of the Shi‘a Zaidiyyah sect. Most of the fighting has taken place in Sa’dah Governorate (province) in northwesternmost Yemen.
In November of 2009, the Sa’ada insurgency took on an alarming new dimension, as Saudi Arabia openly intervened to aid the Yemeni government with air strikes and artillery barrages on the Shiite rebels. Analysts see the Saudi participation partly as a pre-emptive strike to prevent the war from actually spreading into Saudi territory, but also as a move against Iran, which is believed to be aiding the rebels. Saudi Arabia and Iran have engaged in a long-running proxy conflict in the Gulf region, in the Iraqi civil war, and also in Lebanon, where Iran backs Hezbollah, and the Saudis support the Lebanese government.
Of interest is the fact that Saudi Arabia is aiding Yemen at all, given the fact they have a long history of dislike toward each other, but the mutual threat from both Iran and al-Qaida (and their mutual alliance with the U.S.) appears to trump past history.
See also:
Israeli Mossad Hacked Syrian Computer Prior to Airstrike
Mossad Hacked Syrian Official’s Computer Before Bombing Mysterious Nuclear Facility
From Wired
November 3, 2009
Agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service hacked into the computer of a senior Syrian government official a year before Israel bombed a facility in Syria in 2007, according to Der Spiegel.
The intelligence agents planted a Trojan horse on the official’s computer in late 2006 while he was staying at a hotel in the Kensington district of London, the German newspaper reported Monday in an extensive account of the bombing attack.
The official reportedly left his computer in his hotel room when he went out, making it easy for agents to install the malware that siphoned files from the laptop. The files contained construction plans for the Al Kabir complex in eastern Syria — said to be an illicit nuclear facility — as well as letters and hundreds of detailed photos showing the complex at various stages of construction.
At the beginning — probably in 2002, although the material was undated — the construction site looked like a treehouse on stilts, complete with suspicious-looking pipes leading to a pumping station at the Euphrates. Later photos show concrete piers and roofs, which apparently had only one function: to modify the building so that it would look unsuspicious from above. In the end, the whole thing looked as if a shoebox had been placed over something in an attempt to conceal it. But photos from the interior revealed that what was going on at the site was in fact probably work on fissile material.
Early in the morning of September 6, 2007, Israeli fighter jets bombed the complex, located in the desert near the Euphrates river about 80 miles from the Iraq border. The attack, dubbed “Operation Orchard,” seemed to come out of nowhere and was marked by a resounding silence from both Israel and the United States afterward.
Israel claimed the incident never occurred. The United States claimed ignorance, but a State Department official suggested the target was nuclear equipment obtained by “secret suppliers.”
The Syrians were said to have been building the reactor with help from North Korea. The Israeli military’s intelligence unit, known as 8200, was reportedly tipped off to this by the U.S. National Security Agency, which intercepted conversations between Syrian officials at the reactor and North Koreans.
Israel’s concern about the facility really kicked into gear when it discovered that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad traveled to Syria in 2006, according to der Spiegel. The paper alleges that Ahmadinejad promised the Syrians more than $1 billion to hasten their progress.
In early 2007, Iran’s former deputy Minister of Defense defected to Turkey and told the CIA that Iran was funding a top-secret nuclear facility in Syria in conjunction with North Korea. Days before the Israeli attack on Al Kabir, a ship from North Korea arrived in Syria loaded with uranium materials, according to the Mossad.
Israel’s attack on the facility commenced late in the evening of September 5, when 10 Israeli jets departed from a base in Northern Israel around 11 p.m. and headed west over the Mediterranean. Seven of them turned east to Syria, flying low, and took out a radar station with their missiles. About 20 minutes later they released their bombs on Al Kabir.
Afterward, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly sent a message to Syria through Turkey saying no further hostilities were planned.
Israel, Olmert said, did not want to play up the incident and was still interested in making peace with Damascus. He added that if Assad chose not to draw attention to the Israeli strike, he would do the same.
In this way, a deafening silence about the mysterious event in the desert began. Nevertheless, the story did not end there, because there were many who chose to shed light on the incident — and others who were intent on exacting revenge.
Syrian President Bashar Assad maintains that the facility was a conventional military installation. But Der Spiegel reports that in June 2008, a team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency analyzed soil at Al Kabir taken after the bombing and found traces of uranium that were “of a type not included in Syria’s declared inventory of nuclear material.” Assad says the Israelis dropped the samples from the air when they bombed the facility in order to frame Syria.
Iran War Scenarios Grow
The news out of the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit about the hitherto secret Iranian nuclear facility, coupled with Iranian missile tests near the Yom Kippur Jewish holiday raise the fears of a Western Powers/Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran.
See http://www.historyguy.com/iranwar.htm for more information and links.
Iran War Scenarios and Analysis
The Iran War Scenarios and Analysis page is now up and running. This page will track current news, rumors, and analysis related to possible attacks on Iran by the United States and/or Israel.
Yemeni Rebels Kill Baptist Hospital Workers
Nine foreign hostages were found dead in Yemen, near the Sa’dah region of northwestern Yemen. The obvious suspects are the al-Houthi Shiite rebels who live and fight in that region, but they deny any involvement in the deaths a British engineer, his South Korean wife, a German doctor, his wife and their three children, and two other German women, believed to be nurses. The dead foreigners all worked in a hospital in Sa’dah, and worked for a Baptist Mission. If that denial is true, then another suspect group, one which the Yemen government may prefer to blame, is al-Qaida’s local wing, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The long-running fear among Western governments and analysts is that al-Qaida may be setting up shop in chaotic Yemen.
Kidnapping is a common occurrence in Yemen, especially of foreigners, who may be worth some ransom money. Killing those hostages is not common, due to the aforementioned financial value inherent in healthy, breathing captives. This tends to make the possibility of the murderers being regular Yemeni rebels or entrepreneurs more remote.
The Yemeni government, embattled in the north by the al-Houthis, and facing a possible new front in the south around the port city of Aden with a new effort by southerners to secede, may welcome the chance to gain more Western aid if a threat by al-Qaida is seen. The bodies were found in the el-Nashour area, which is slightly to the east of the Sa’dah areas where the al-Houthis are fighting. Al-Qaida is known to have a base in the el-Nashour area.
Sources and Information:
3 foreign hostages found dead in Yemen, LA Times, June 15, 2009
British engineer among nine foreigners feared murdered in Yemen—Telegraph.co.uk, June 15, 2009
Hostages in Yemen Found Dead??!! Update: Six Alive??!!—-Armies of Liberation, June 15, 2009
Sa’dah al-Houthi Rebellion in Yemen (2004-Present)–www.historyguy.com
The Threat to Yemen: al-Qaida and the Perils of More War in Yemen
The Threat to Yemen: al-Qaida and the Perils of More War in Yemen
Yemen, that oddly-shaped nation on the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the world’s poorest nations with a very uneducated, illiterate population. It is also a hotbed of violence, tribalism, insurgencies and protests against the weak central government, along with a history of civil war and conflicts among Yemen’s very different regions. Most men in the rural mountains and deserts own guns, know how to use them, consider kidnapping foreigners a fun and profitable way to pass the time, and they don’t like their alleged central government telling them what to do.
Oh, and to top off the list of unfortunate things about Yemen, it is the traditional homeland of the bin Laden family, (yes, THAT bin Laden family!), and, according to U.S. military and intelligence sources, it is turning into a possible new safe haven for al-Qaida fighters and leaders as they look for a more out-fo-the-way place to lead their Jihad from. Yemen gained notice in the U.S. in 2000 with the al-Qaida attack on the American warship, the USS Cole. The U.S. did not publicly respond to that attack, but after the al-Qaida attacks of September 11, 2001, Yemen sided with the United States, and began dealing with its own militant problem with American aid. The U.S. also conducted Predator drone strikes against Jihadist/al-Qaida targets in Yemen, most likely with the knowledge of the Yemeni government.
In 2004, the Sa’dah Insurgency began in the northwestern tip of Yemen, with the Islamic cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the leader of the Shiite Zaidiyyah sect, launched an uprising against the Yemeni government. The Yemeni government also has problems in the south of the country, (which used to be the independent and avowedly Marxist/Socialist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen). Southern Yemen is making noises about seceding from the northern-dominated government, and some analysts and commentators (http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=35108&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=cf625c5341) claim that al-Qaida is getting involved in the southern protests and violence against the government.
So, why should the U.S. or any other Western nation care? Look at the map of where Yemen lies.
Map of Yemen and Surrounding Region
Yemen is next to Saudi Arabia, and across the Bab al Mandeb (narrow straits separating Arabia from Africa) lies Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Most of the Somali pirate action is in the Gulf of Aden, which lies between southern Yemen and Somalia. A LOT of the world’s oil supply travels through those waters, and a seriously unstable Yemen on the scale of pre-2001 Afghanistan or the present-day Somalia is bad news for Saudi Arabia and Western interests.
The potential for a new Yemeni North/South War (past North/South conflicts erupted in 1972, 1979, and 1994) is serious and could spell trouble for the whole region. This bears watching…
Some websites and blogs of interest regarding Yemen:
At Iraq War’s 6th Anniversary, U.S. Casualties Hit 4,260 Deaths
The Iraq War began on March 19, 2003 with the U.S.-British invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship. As the 6th anniversary of that invasion passes, U.S. war deaths reach 4,260. British deaths are holding at 179 deaths.
For more information: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/22/america/Iraq-US-Deaths.php
As of Saturday, March 21, 2009, at least 4,260 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,425 military personnel died as a result of hostile action, according to the military’s numbers.
The AP count is one fewer than the Defense Department’s tally, last updated Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.
The British military has reported 179 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand and Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan and South Korea, one death each.
Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2009/03/22/america/Iraq-US-Deaths.php
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