Thursday, March 26, 2015

The Dummies guide to what Happened in the past 48 in the Middle East

Okay from where shall I start ??  Maybe 24 hours earlier.

One unusual Wednesday

The news came from the Unhappy Yemen that Iranian-backed Houthi fighters stormed Aden. The Northern Yemeni Militant group aided by troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh stormed the presidential palace but they did not find Yemeni president Mansour Hadi.
Instead, they captured his minister of Defense Mahmoud El-Subaihi and put a 20 million Yemeni Riyal “Nearly $100,000” bounty for president Hadi. I do not recall that in our miserable modem Arabic history we have seen something like that, I mean a bounty for arresting a president !!

Houthi announcement
The announcement on Al Yemen official channel
which is controlled by Houthis 
For several hours we did not know where Hadi went.

News reports spoke that he was still there in Aden while other reports spoke that he fled to Saudi Arabia through the sea. Either way, all sources confirmed that the legitimate president of Yemen was going to attend the upcoming Arab Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh next Saturday.

Later the Yemeni foreign minister declared in a statement to Sky News Arabia TV channel that Gulf states and Egypt would participate in a military operation to liberate Yemen. After couple of hours
Egypt’s ministry of foreign affairs’ spokesperson said that the reports about a co-joint military operation were inaccurate and the situation of Yemen would be discussed later in the Arab Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh this week.

The Yemeni FM backtracked his statements and then said that it was the Yemeni government that asked for the GCC's help as well Egypt’s.

Pro-Sisi Supporters online claimed that Egypt would not help the Gulf states and stand against Iran as long as the Gulf states above them Saudi Arabia would not help Egypt in Libya. The Pro-Sisi supporters can not forget that Saudi Arabia left their President alone facing failure in Security Council in his quest for a military intervention in Libya resolution. Little they know.

On Wednesday there was a new fact in the Middle East, now Iranian-backed fighters are standing on the Southern borders of Saudi Arabia after controlling Iraq on the Northern Eastern borders. Whether you like it or not but Iran got a controlling influence in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. This is a new fact. We were waiting to know the next step for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Decisiveness Thursday

At nearly 2 AM Cairo Local Time Kuwaiti former tabloid journalist/Pro-Mubarak/Sisi/Current Military spokesperson Fajr El-Saeed announced on her official twitter account that the Gulf States would start a military operation against Houthis in Yemen.
 She was not bluffing as it turned out that Stratfor Global intelligence sent to its subscribers a report that the Kingdom would start strikes against Houthis that night.

On 2.30 AM CLT Saudi Arabia announced that it started air strikes against the Houthis. While most of the Saudi population was sleeping, the Saudi ambassador to the United States held a press conference in Washington D.C announcing the operation. The Saudi TV channels did not sleep that night.

Soon enough we know that the Kingdom was not alone as the GCC countries participated in the operation except One country “Oman”.
Yes, the Sultanate of Oman did not join its gulf sisters and it was not surprising because actually, Oman has been always the diplomatic channel between Iran and the West, America and the Arab world. Do not underestimate its role.

Already I believe Oman is still playing that role as the back door for talks with Iran when time comes. Saudi Arabia knows that very well.
At 10 AM I woke up to the news that Saudi Arabia led a coalition to support the legitimate president of Yemen against the coup of Houthis.

That military coalition included ten countries: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan and Pakistan.

Yes in a very silly bad cruel joke , Egypt’s current regime is participating in a military coalition to support the legitimate president of Yemen who is backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and is considered the Yemeni revolution’s president.
Oh, and the Prince of Qatar who was being called gay in the Egyptian TV channels in the past months is going to attend the Sharm El-Sheikh Arab Summit.

Okay, let’s repeat that slowly Egypt and Qatar are participating in a military operation against Houthis in order to restore the rule of the legitimate president of Yemen who is backed by Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood. Oh yes, the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood branch is another nemesis for Houthis and they had nasty fights.

Anyhow it seems that the enemies of yesterday will become the friends of tomorrow for the sake of Saudi Arabia at least for now.

A No-Fly zone was imposed on Yemen allegedly in 15 minutes only.
No fly zone
No fly zone over Yemen 

Now we got a massive military operation led by Saudi Arabia against Houthis in Yemen. The military operation is called by the Saudis Operation:: Decisive storm”. Photos of Saudi defense minister Prince Mohamed Bin Salman in the war room spread across the social media madly.

Mohamed Bin Salman
Prince Mohamed Bin Salman at the war room "SPA"
A trivial fact : Mohamed Bin Salman is currently the youngest minister of defense in the world.

Since late night the Saudi fighter jets destroyed allegedly Houthis’ targets including airports to prevent any Iranian military supplies.

The Saudis were the ones who spoke about the operation as well  Fajr El-Saeed.
The Kuwaiti writer claimed that the Egyptian navy forces reached to Bab El-Mandab strain and scared the shit out of the Iranian navy and made them run back to Iran.

 Interestingly once again she did not claim that alone but it turned out that Israeli intelligence website Debka claimed that Egyptian navy vessels controlled the strain. Ironically according to my informed sources the Egyptian vessels did not arrive to the strain in the first place when both Fajr El-Saeed and Debka claimed that claim.

Later that day we knew that Egypt officially sent 4 frigates to Bab El-Mandab strain. When it comes to the current conflict in Yemen,  that strain is the actually our true interest in that region for real when it comes to geopolitics and economy. That strain affects Suez canal.

As soon as the news of Egypt participating in a military operation in Yemen , I could not think in anything except the fact that Abdel Fattah El-Sisi needed a parliament to approve that military participation. Of course it does not matter.

 Needless to say when the words of “Military operation”, “Yemen” and “Saudi Arabia” were heard in the ears of many today in Cairo , it ranged a bad bell in the memory of many Egyptians whether old Egyptians or young Egyptians. It ranged the bad memory of “Yemen war” during the days of Nasser aka our Vietnam which preceded our worst military defeats ever in 1967.

That bell was screaming when news website spoke about ground forces. Of course for hours neither the Egyptian presidency nor the Egyptian armed forces spoke. Then it was announced Egypt sent only 4 vessels to Bab El-Mandeb.

At the same time we knew that Saudi Arabia participated in the operation with 100 fighter jets and nearly 150,000 soldiers spread all over the Saudi-Yemeni borders.

The Sudanese ministry of defense at the same time issued a statement announcing that Sudan participated in the operation to protect the Holy Land in Mecca.
Soon enough after couple of hours the Egyptian presidency announced that Egyptian navy and air forces participated in the Operation. Then the Presidency also released another statement saying that Egypt was participating in the operation to restore the legitimacy in Yemen and to preserve the Arab identity. 

For hours there was nothing on the official Facebook page of the Egyptian armed forces spokesperson. News websites were quoting Mrs. El-Saeed from Kuwait as a military source. Yet thank Goodness at the evening Brigadier general Ahmed Samir published the Presidency statement as it is.

Later we knew from the Saudi armed forces spokesperson that only Saudi Arabia had all the fun today and other countries would join it later. So yes we have not participated in the air strikes yet. The Saudi army also stressed that there was no need for ground invasion at the time being.

Interestingly through the day we found huge support the operation from the unlike parties including the Muslim Brotherhood whether in Egypt or in Yemen or their supporters or their prominent figures especially Sheikh Youssef El-Qradawy. Of course the reason behind this is sectarian more than anything.

The Yemeni channels controlled and owned by Houthis have been shut down on Nile Sat and Arab Sat.
Yemeni channel
No more EL-Yemen channel on Nile Sat
"Hisham Al-Omeisy"
There have been many facts on Thursday.
I will speak about the Arab summit later on Friday as I want to sleep so much now.
Amazingly there is not much attention in the world TV channels , may be because that news of the war in the Middle East has become something frequent and so it is another day in the boring region. I can not blame them to be honest.
Of course this diagram by Karl reMarks summarizes the political situation perfectly.
Karl reMarks's diagram of geopolitical relations in Mideast 

We leave sarcasm to reality. We are in a very critical time now in the Middle East as well the in the Muslim World. Let’s just pray for the Yemeni people in the upcoming hours because they are the ones who are paying the price just like the Syrians , Lebanese and  Iraqis. 

6 comments:

  1. Sisi is a war criminal who has committed atrocities in both Libya and, at the very least, rabidly aided them, in Yemen. The Sisi cult has joined with Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and many others in turning what was a problematic power grab by the Houthis and Saleh into an sectarian and imperialist war. Saudi occupation is not a popular proposition in Yemen and is utterly insane if that is the plan. This is despite the fact that the Houthi power plan was unjustified. GCC imperialism is not a solution to Yemen's issues. It worked terribly in Bahrain.

    Every single thing that the Sisi cultists attribute to Turkey or claim that Turkey is going to do, Sisi does. The Egyptian regime, not Turkey, is the one conducting offensives in Arab states. Sisi cultists will now sound even more petulant when they criticize Turkey's Syria policy.

    It is fitting that Sisi and Omar al-Bashir now join wars together in which to further their extensive list of war criminalities.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This articke is nice, but needs some serious proof reading and editing .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Z has heard that many times and she doesn't care. She favors spontaneity over spelling, apparently.

      Delete
    2. I have now read the article from end to end and feel fully caught up on the last 48 hours. It is really good in substance, but also Z has made great strides in her exposition, editing, spellchecking, punctuation, etc. I feel your criticism is misplaced, as far as this article is concerned.

      Also, articke isn't a word and that period is lonely, so those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

      Delete
  3. Per us pray for òur brothers and sisters in Yemen, Syria, Iraq ánd Gaza.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Zeinobia said: "I do not recall that in our miserable modem Arabic history we have seen something like that, I mean a bounty for arresting a president !!"

    The US put a 25 million dollar bounty on Saddam Hussein, you may have forgotten. There were bounties on his sons too. I don't know whether any of these were ever paid.

    ReplyDelete

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