Yemeni Conflict: News

Book. wrote:Saudi special forces in #Aden International Airport yesterday securing #Saudi military cargo arrival -@sakirkhader










Saud arab show the AK

Ivan the Colorado wrote:Never seen Saudi forces with AK-103s before. Nice find Book and a big thank you for your contributions and to anyone else who posted here. I've been using this thread to follow the conflict since I got to this site.

Yemen: Hundreds of Saudi tanks roll out of Aden to bolster Hadi loyalists

Published on Aug 4, 2015
Hundreds of Abraham M1 Abrams, provided by Saudi Arabia, rolled out of Aden, Tuesday, in a bid to strengthen forces loyal to ousted president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi as they continue to fight with Houthi militants for the al-Anad air base in Taiz. Reports emerging Tuesday claim that the base has been re-captured to those loyal to Hadi, with the forces reportedly aided by heavy aerial assistance from Saudi-led coalition forces.

Fighting for Yemen’s Largest Air Base Rages
Forces fighting for a Saudi-led military coalition say they control most of Al Anad air base

By ASA FITCH in Dubai and
Biography@asafitch MOHAMMED AL-KIBSI in San’a, Yemen
Updated Aug. 4, 2015 10:38 a.m. ET

DUBAI—The fight for control of Yemen’s largest air base raged Tuesday, with Saudi-led coalition fighters saying they were rooting out the last Houthi rebels holed up in the airfield.

Popular Resistance, an armed faction allied with Saudi Arabia, said it had captured the main buildings at Al Anad air base near the southern Yemeni city of Aden, but that fighting was continuing.

Through their official media outlet, the Houthis denied Tuesday the base had been captured but offered no details in a confrontation that has emerged as a key test in the four-month military campaign by Saudi Arabia and its allies to restore exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power.

The Iranian-backed Houthis currently control most of Yemen, but in recent weeks they have been driven from the southern city of Aden the start of what appeared to be a concerted push by coalition forces to retake territory.

Ali al-Ahmadi, a spokesman for Popular Resistance, said the anticipated seizure of Al Anad as a springboard to push further into Lahj province, where the base is located. “From there we will move ahead to liberating other towns in the north,” he said.

Indications of further fighting at Al Anad came amid claims by Yemeni defense officials in Saudi Arabia that the air base had fallen entirely to coalition forces.

The operation to retake the base was “a true representation of national will and noble sacrifices that are being made to liberate Yemen from the grip of overthrowing militias,” the officials said in a statement carried by WAM, the state-controlled news agency of the United Arab Emirates, which is part of the coalition.

The latest unrest in Yemen began last year when the Houthis, a group that hails from the northwest and adheres to the Zaidi offshoot of Shiite Islam, began to take over state-owned infrastructure and marched on the capital, San’a, in September.

The Houthis took control of government in February and sent the Saudi-backed Mr. Hadi fleeing into exile the following month. The Houthis took Al Anad in March as they consolidated control over southern Yemen. Before the war, the U.S. had used the base to carry out drone attacks against the local al Qaeda affiliate.

Saudi Arabia, which shares a long southern border with Yemen, responded by assembling the coalition and beginning a campaign of airstrikes that sought to oust the Houthis and restore Mr. Hadi to power.

The air campaign didn’t produce a reversal on the battlefield until last month, when coalition forces pushed the Houthis out of Aden.

AlfaT8 wrote:Damn, we need a map of the battlefield situation.

Saudi-led Coalition Gains Ground in Yemen

Edward Yeranian August 05, 2015 11:33 AM
CAIRO—A large force of southern Yemeni resistance fighters, backed by Saudi-led coalition armored fighting vehicles, has reportedly pushed Houthi rebels and their allies out of three southern provinces, including the strategic al-Anad air base.

Arab media report that the 3,000 ground troops, including 1,500 from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and 1,500 trained Yemenis, along with battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, mark a notable escalation in the Saudi-led coalition's involvement in Yemen.

Amateur video showed southern militiamen, supported by the Saudi-led coalition, firing into the air to celebrate the capture of Houtha, the capital of the south Yemeni province of Lahej.  Arab media report the coalition and its allies now control three southern provinces.

The Houthi's al-Masira TV, however, reported that Saudi-led coalition forces had been pushed out of Ma'arib province farther north. VOA could not independently confirm the claim.

Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah told Arab media that forces loyal to his internationally-recognized government have already taken control of the southern port city of Aden, along with the strategic al-Anad air base north of the city, and are moving to capture other areas:

He said the battle has now moved from Aden, on to Lahej province, with its important Anad air base, and his forces are focusing on a strategic triangle from the city of Aden, north to Taiz and Da'alah provinces, which hopefully will soon be liberated.

In this photo taken on Monday, Aug. 3, 2015, fighters against Shiite rebels known as Houthis stand on their armored vehicles on a road leading to Al-Anad base near Aden in the southern province of Lahej, Yemen.

المقاومة تستعيد السيطرة على محافظات عدن ولحج والضالع
Resistance to regain control of the provinces of Aden and Lahij and al-Dhali

Published on Aug 5, 2015
Popular Resistance Yemen regained control of the provinces of Aden and Lahij and Dali from the grip of al-Huthi and militia forces ousted Ali Abdullah Saleh.

قتلى وجرحى للحوثيين بمعارك في تعز Dead and wounded in the battles for the Houthis Taiz

Published on Aug 5, 2015
قالت مصادر في قيادة المقاومة الشعبية بتعز إن عددا من الحوثيين سقطوا بين قتيل وجريح في معارك دارت داخل المدينة وخارجها، وذكرت تلك المصادر أن المقاومة رصدت تحرك آليات عسكرية عائدة من لحج باتجاه مواقع الحوثيين بمدينه تعز.
Sources in the leadership of the Popular Resistance said in Taiz A number of rebels were killed or wounded in the battles inside and outside the city, and according to those sources that the resistance had noticed the movement returning from a pilgrimage military vehicles towards Houthi positions in Taiz.

Book. wrote:

Yemen: Hundreds of Saudi tanks roll out of Aden to bolster Hadi loyalists

Published on Aug 4, 2015
Hundreds of Abraham M1 Abrams, provided by Saudi Arabia, rolled out of Aden, Tuesday, in a bid to strengthen forces loyal to ousted president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi as they continue to fight with Houthi militants for the al-Anad air base in Taiz. Reports emerging Tuesday claim that the base has been re-captured to those loyal to Hadi, with the forces reportedly aided by heavy aerial assistance from Saudi-led coalition forces.

Let see BMP fight!

The impasse in Yemen's conflict appears to have been broken by the deployment of a powerful Emirati armoured formation: a logistical triumph that has helped pro-government forces push out of the southern port city of Aden and capture Al-Anad Air Base 48 km to the northwest.

The military deployment has not been announced by the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) or covered by the country's media, but its scale has become increasingly apparent as more photographs and videos have emerged from southern Yemen since 12 July, when Oshkosh M-ATV mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles were spotted in Aden for the first time during the battle to secure the city's airport.

The M-ATV is used by Emirati and Saudi special forces, but the vehicles in southern Yemen are crewed by men wearing civilian clothing, raising the possibility that they are Yemenis who have been trained and equipped by the Saudi-led coalition that has been bombing Yemen since late March in an attempt to reinstall President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

By the end of July it had become apparent that the UAE had deployed regular military forces. Two BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles were filmed by an Al-Jazeera news crew on 28 July and a Leclerc armoured recovery vehicle was photographed in Aden about the same time.

While these vehicles could potentially have been landed by the C-17 airlifters that the UAE confirmed were flying into the international airport, albeit on humanitarian rather than military missions, it subsequently became apparent that they were part of what must be an amphibious landing on a scale not seen in the Middle East since the liberation of Kuwait in 1991.

By 3 August the UAE had landed Leclerc tanks, additional BMP-3s (seemingly not carrying any infantry), at least one 155 mm G6 self-propelled howitzer, and Agrab mortar carriers. One video clip showed nine Leclercs driving out of Aden, meaning at least one tank battalion (squadron) has been landed.

Some - but not all - the Leclercs in Yemen are equipped with the AZUR urban warfare protection package. The UAE is known to have bought at least 13 AZUR kits, so the presence of Leclercs without the additional armour suggests a second battalion has been deployed to Yemen.

These tank battalions are presumably part of an armoured brigade that includes at least one battalion of BMP-3s in addition to G6 and Agrab batteries and all the associated support vehicles, including large numbers of Tatra trucks.

Photographs from Aden suggest the UAE military has used the roll-on/roll-off terminal next to the refinery at Little Aden as its main beachhead. Its navy has several tank landing craft as well as two larger 80 m amphibious warfare vessels that were almost certainly involved in the operation.

It is unclear if Swift , a former US naval logistics vessel that is now operated by the UAE and visited Aden on 29 July, contributed to the amphibious operation. The UAE's official news agency reported that a ship carrying humanitarian supplies docked in Aden that day.

Intermingled with vehicles operated by allied Yemeni forces, the Emirati armoured column moved northwards up the N1 highway towards Al-Anad Air Base on 3 August. Later that day President Hadi announced the base had been liberated. Al-Anad has been bombed heavily by the Saudi-led coalition, but once its runway is patched up, it could become a new forward operating base for the Emirati brigade and allied Yemeni forces.

After the fall of Al-Anad, pro-government forces reportedly continued to push northwards towards Taiz province, while a spokesman for UN special envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed said on 4 August that the warring parties had shown renewed interest in a peace plan.

Anas Ali wrote:

Yemen Mansour Hadi (Abd-Rabbo Mansour Hadi) of interim president faction army 15 days to recapture the administrative district of the southern Taiz (Taez) . (C) AFP 8月16日年2015 Forces loyal to Yemen's President Hadi Retook Control of the Governorate building in Taez on Saturday, Part of a broader push That HAS Seen fighters Representing Yemen's exiled Government make a number of recent Gains.