BEIRUT: Houthi militia and forces loyal to deposed President Ali Abdullah Saleh repeatedly and indiscriminately shelled populated neighborhoods of Taiz, Yemen’s third largest city, in violation of the laws of war, a rights group said on Wednesday.
At least 30 civilians died and more than 160 were injured in the artillery bombardment over a 10-day period in May.
“Houthi-Saleh forces’ shelling of populated areas of Taiz has taken a terrible toll on civilians,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the group’s Middle East director. “Their commanders should immediately halt these indiscriminate attacks.”
Houthi-Saleh forces have repeatedly fired mortar bombs and artillery shells from an elevated area in Al-Hawban district indiscriminately into populated areas in Taiz over the past two years, Human Rights Watch said.
The government-affiliated forces of internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi have controlled most of Taiz since March 2016. Local monitors, including one in Al-Hawban district, have reported numerous indiscriminate attacks by Houthi-Saleh forces into the city.
Mwatana, a leading Yemeni human rights organization, said Houthi-Saleh forces were responsible for most of the dozens of indiscriminate shelling incidents they documented in Taiz between April 2015 and March 2016.
A local activist, Faris Al-Obidi, prepared a list of casualties from attacks over the three days in May when shelling in Taiz was particularly heavy, after speaking with witnesses and survivors and consulting logs at Taiz’s three hospitals. The list, which he shared with Human Rights Watch, had the names, ages and dates of injuries for 54 civilians. Among the 14 dead were three children and two women.
Dr. Ahmad Al-Dumaini, technical director at Al-Thawra, Taiz city’s main hospital, said the hospital received 58 war-wounded civilians between May 20 and 26, including 20 children, plus three people who died before arrival, including a child. He said the vast majority of these casualties were from shelling.
Dr. Walid Al-Watiri, the laboratory chief at Al-Safwa Hospital, said Al-Safwa, Al-Thawra, and Al-Rawda hospitals received the bodies of 31 people, including six children, and another 167 wounded, including 60 children, over a 10-day period.
The renewed shelling occurred after local government-affiliated forces pushed Houthi-Saleh forces back from several locations east of the city, said a local activist, Maher Al-Absi.
The areas hit on May 21 were about 800 meters from the front lines while those hit on May 22 and 23 were in the middle of the city, far from the front lines, in “very crowded civilian places,” Al-Absi said.
Witnesses to the six attacks in Taiz that Human Rights Watch documented said no government-aligned military forces were in those areas at the time of the attacks.
Human Rights Watch has previously documented Houthi-Saleh indiscriminate shelling in Taiz. In June 2016, shelling killed at least 18 civilians and wounded 68 others over three days, hitting markets crowded with people shopping for Ramadan, according to the UN.
In August 2015, three Houthi-Saleh attacks on Taiz killed at least 14 civilians, including five women and five children. In February 2017, activists in Taiz provided the rights group with a list of dozens of attacks on Taiz since March 2015 that had resulted in scores of civilian casualties.
Houthi-Saleh forces ‘killed 30 in illegal Yemen shelling’
Houthi-Saleh forces ‘killed 30 in illegal Yemen shelling’
Iranian strikes kill two in UAE, injure eight in Qatar as regional conflict escalates
- UAE defense ministry said Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones at the territory
- Qatar intercepted most of the 65 missiles and 12 drones launched by Iran, said officials
ABU DHABI: Explosions rocked cities across the Gulf on Saturday, killing two people in Abu Dhabi, while smoke and flames rose from Dubai landmark The Palm as Iran launched waves of attacks in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes.
The attacks hit airports in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Kuwait, as well as Gulf military bases and residential areas, raising fears of a wider conflict and rattling a region long seen as a haven of peace and security.
Across the UAE, Iran fired 137 missiles and 209 drones at the territory, the country’s defense ministry said, as projectiles streaked across the skies of every Gulf state but Oman, a mediator in the recent US-Iran talks.
The UAE defense ministry said most of the missiles and drones were intercepted but at Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport officials said at least one person was killed and seven wounded in an “incident.”
Earlier, falling debris killed a Pakistani civilian in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates’ capital, officials said.
At Dubai International Airport four people were injured according to airport authorities and four others were also hurt at the luxury Palm development.
In Qatar, officials said Iran launched 65 missiles and 12 drones toward the Gulf state, most of which were intercepted, but eight people were injured in the salvos, with one of them in critical condition.
“We are scared of what the future is for us now, and we can’t say how the next few days are going to be,” Maha Manbaz, a nursing student in Doha told AFP.
Terrified’
Smoke poured from US bases in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain’s capital Manama, home of the American navy’s Fifth Fleet, witnesses saw.
A drone struck Kuwait’s international airport and a base housing US personnel was targeted. Three Kuwaiti soldiers and 12 other people were wounded, authorities said.
After Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported missile strikes, US Central Command (CENTCOM) said on X that no American naval vessels were hit, damage to US facilities was minimal, and no US casualties had been reported.
Residential buildings were also targeted in Manama, with officials saying firefighters and civil defense teams had been dispatched to the scene.
“The sound of the first explosion terrified me,” said a 50-year-old retiree living near the US base in Manama’s Juffair area, where residents were quickly evacuated.
The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar warned they reserved the right to respond to the attacks.
The oil-and-gas-rich Arab monarchies, lying just across the Gulf from Iran, are long-term American allies and host a clutch of US military bases.
“The Gulf states are sandwiched between Iran and Israel, and have to bear the worst inclinations of both,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University.
“Iran’s attacks on the Gulf are misplaced. They’ll only alienate its neighbors and invite further distancing from Iran,” he added.
Conflict is unusual in the Gulf, which has traded on its reputation for stability to become the Middle East’s commercial and diplomatic hub.
‘Significant damage’
The unprecedented barrage targeted Qatar’s Al Udeid base, the region’s biggest US military base, as well as Riyadh and eastern Saudi Arabia.
The UAE, Qatar and Kuwait all announced that their airspace was closed.
An AFP journalist in Qatar saw one missile destroyed in a puff of white smoke, while another in Dubai saw a volley of Patriot interceptors taking off.
Iran fired missiles at Al Udeid last June after US strikes targeted Iranian nuclear facilities during a brief war with Israel.
The escalation also saw Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed speak for the first time since a public row in late December.
The Saudi de facto ruler called the Emirati president and the pair discussed Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the Gulf and expressed solidarity and sympathy.
In Kuwait, an Iranian missile attack caused “significant damage” to the runway at an air base hosting Italian air force personnel, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying.
Late on Saturday, Kuwaiti officials said a drone targeted a naval base there with air defense forces intercepting the projectile, according to a post by the defense ministry on X.
For many residents in the Gulf, which has drawn a cosmopolitan, largely expat population, the reaction was one of shock.
“I heard the explosions, I don’t know what I felt,” a Lebanese woman living in Riyadh told AFP.
“We came to the Gulf because it’s known to be safer than Lebanon. Now I don’t know what to do or how to think really.”
