Yemeni government accuses Houthis of planting mines near Hodeidah’s food stores
The local minister said the Houthis want to cut access to the relief assistance
He asked international organizations to take serious action against these violations
Updated 03 March 2019
SPA
The Houthi militia planted mines and explosive devices around United Nations food storages in Hodeidah, a local minister in Yemen said on Sunday.
The chairman of Yemen’s High Relief Committee Abdel-Raqib Fatah claimed that planting landmines near humanitarian aid was a violation that no other group in history has ever committed.
Fatah, who is also Minister of Local Administration, asked the UN and other humanitarian organizations to condemn this criminal act, which aims to deprive Yemen’s population of relief assistance.
The minister urged the international community to take serious measures to stop all terror acts committed by the militia against humanitarian and relief work in Hodeidah and other “occupied” provinces.
The silence of the international community in the face of the atrocities committed by the Houthis was unacceptable, the chairman added.
Turkiye arrests two on charges of spying for Israel
Security sources said Mehmet Budak Derya and Veysel Kerimoglu had been arrested in Istanbul
They had long been on the radar of Turkiye’s MIT intelligence agency
Updated 3 sec ago
AFP
ISTANBUL: Turkish intelligence has arrested two people on suspicion of spying for Israel’s Mossad and providing information that helped the spy agency target its enemies, state news agency Anadolu reported Friday. Security sources said Mehmet Budak Derya and Veysel Kerimoglu had been arrested in Istanbul, saying they had long been on the radar of Turkiye’s MIT intelligence agency. Derya, a mining engineer, allegedly first caught the attention of Mossad in 2005 when he opened a marble quarry near the southern coastal city of Mersin and began trading overseas, first contacting him via an individual called Ali Ahmed Yassin in 2012, the sources said. Investigators said Yassin, who ran an Israeli shell company, invited Derya for a business meeting in Europe in 2013 which is where he allegedly first met Mossad agents, they said. During the meeting, they discussed the marble trade and suggested he hire a Turkish citizen of Palestinian origin called Veysel Kerimoglu, they said. The men became friends and allegedly began sharing information with Mossad, who paid Kerimoglu’s salary, they said. Through Kerimoglu, Derya is alleged to have increased his Middle Eastern activities, building social and commercial ties with Palestinians opposed to Israel’s policies and allegedly sharing information about them with Mossad. The men are also alleged to have sent through technical information and photos of premises they were looking to acquire, notably in Gaza. In early 2016, Kerimoglu is alleged to have suggested to Derya to begin supplying drone parts, with the businessman making contact with Mohamed Zouari who was killed in Tunisia later that year, allegedly by Mossad, investigators said. Zouari — an engineer who specialized in drone development for the Palestinian Hamas movement — was gunned down in his car in the eastern city of Sfax in December 2016. Late last year, a Tunisian a court convicted 18 people in absentia over his murder. Derya is alleged to have used an encrypted communication system to send technical data to his handlers, and underwent two lie detector tests in 2016 and 2024. He was arrested while trying to set up a company that would have overseen three Asian shell companies whose aim was allegedly to hide the origins of various products that would have been supplied to buyers on Mossad’s radar. The plan was allegedly discussed in detail at their last meeting in January. Both suspects are currently being questioned by police, they said.
