ABU DHABI: Britain will not send ground troops into combat against Houthi militants in Yemen, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said on Thursday, adding that air strikes had weakened the Iran-backed group.
The United States and Britain have, since January, hit Houthi targets in Yemen with air strikes following months of Houthi attacks on commercial and naval ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis say the attacks, which have disrupted global trade, are a response to Israel’s assault on Gaza.
“Let’s be absolutely clear from the start. We have no plans whatsoever to put boots on the ground,” Dowden said in an interview at the British ambassador’s residence in Abu Dhabi.
He said the air strikes, which have garnered some international support, were aimed at reducing the Houthis’ ability to threaten vessels in the Red Sea and not at ousting the group, which outlasted a years-long Saudi bombing campaign.
The attacks on Red Sea shipping have raised the profile of the Yemeni movement, which took control over large parts of the impoverished country a decade ago. Many citizens in the Middle East see the Houthis as the only Arab force taking on Israel.
Major shipping lines have largely abandoned the major Red Sea trade route for longer routes around Africa. This has increased costs, sparking concerns for global inflation and sapped Egypt of crucial foreign revenue it would normally earn from shippers sailing the Suez Canal to or from the Red Sea.
Dowden said he was confident the military strikes were a step in degrading the Houthis’ capability to threaten the Red Sea, and part of broader measures that include sanctions on Houthi figures.
“We need to tighten the pressure on the Houthis because at the root of this lies a commitment from the United Kingdom to ensure stability and free trade of goods and movement.”
Britain and the US have framed their coordinated effort as having broad international support. Australia, Bahrain, Canada, the Netherlands and others have provided some material support to the campaign but have not taken part in the air strikes.
But few of London and Washington’s closest Arab partners have joined the campaign or provided any public support.
The Houthis have remained defiant. Vessels in the Red Sea continue to come under drone and missile attacks and the Houthis have issued statements goading the British and Americans with threats of targeting their naval vessels.
The British and American air strikes are also taking place amid an unrelated peace process in Yemen. The UN in December said the Houthis and other warring parties had committed to ceasefire measures and political dialogue.
Dowden described the broader regional situation as “fragile and dangerous” and urged all sides to show restraint.
This week, Iranian-backed militants were blamed for a drone attack that killed three US service members in Jordan, the first such deadly strike against US forces since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October.
UK Deputy PM says strikes weakening Houthis, won’t send troops into Yemen
https://arab.news/zrkhw
UK Deputy PM says strikes weakening Houthis, won’t send troops into Yemen
- "We have no plans whatsoever to put boots on the ground,” Dowden said
- He said the air strikes were aimed at reducing the Houthis’ ability to threaten vessels in the Red Sea
Kuwait’s emir dissolves parliament, suspends some constitution articles
CAIRO: Kuwait’s Emir Sheikh Meshal Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah dissolved the parliament and suspended some of the constitution’s articles for not more than four years, the emir said in a televised speech aired on state TV on Friday.
Developing...
Lebanon’s Hezbollah says fires rockets at Israel after deadly strike
- Hezbollah fighters fired “a salvo of Katyusha rockets” at Israel’s north
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said it fired Katyusha rockets at Israel on Friday in retaliation for strikes, which state media said killed two people in the south of the country.
Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily cross-border fire following the Palestinian group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked war in Gaza.
Hezbollah fighters fired “a salvo of Katyusha rockets” at Israel’s north “in response to the Israeli enemy’s attacks on... civilians, most recently in Tayr Harfa,” the group said in a statement.
In a separate statement, the group also claimed a rocket salvo on an army base in northern Israel, later saying its fighters launched a second attack with “dozens of Katyusha rockets” at troops who were assessing the damage at the base.
Earlier Friday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) said a first responder from a rescue group affiliated with a Hezbollah-allied movement and a telecoms technician were killed “as a result of the Israeli aggression on Tayr Harfa.”
The rescuer belonged to the Risala Scout association, affiliated to Shiite Amal movement, while the technician worked for Power Tec, which undertakes maintenance work for private mobile service provider Touch.
The technician and colleagues from Ogero telecom provider were carrying out “maintenance on the transmission poles,” the NNA said, adding they had sought permission from the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, or UNIFIL.
The Risala Scout association, which operates in south Lebanon, said the rescuer was killed when his team went to a location that had come under Israeli bombardment.
“The second strike came quickly, and one of the young men was martyred,” a source from the association told AFP.
A source within Touch said the strike hit a team that had been doing maintenance work in Tayr Haifa.
“We lost communications with them because the station was hit,” the source told AFP, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“There were people from our team and from another company that does maintenance work for us, and there were also paramedics,” the source added.
At least 402 people have been killed in Lebanon in seven months of cross-border violence, mostly militants but also including 79 civilians, according to an AFP tally.
Israel says 14 soldiers and nine civilians have been killed on its side of the border. Three of the soldiers were killed this week, one of them on Wednesday.
Tens of thousands of people have been displaced on both sides.
Drone strike kills rescuer, technician in south Lebanon
- Head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc dismisses Gaza peace efforts as ‘theatrics’
BEIRUT: An Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon on Friday killed a first responder from a rescue team affiliated with a Hezbollah-allied group and a telecoms technician carrying out maintenance work.
Two Israeli military drones launched the attack on a maintenance team working in the southern Lebanese village of Tayr Harfa.
The victims were identified as Youssef Fadi Jalloul, an employee of Power Tech, a company that undertakes maintenance work for MTC Touch, and Ghaleb Al-Hajj, 53, a rescuer with the Islamic Risala Scout Association, a group affiliated with Hezbollah’s ally the Amal Movement.
Several civilians injured in the attack were taken to nearby hospitals.
Israeli attacks continued amid reports suggesting Hezbollah is set to declare a public mobilization.
The latest escalation came two days after Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant threatened to step up military activity in the border region in preparation for open war.
Sirens sounded in the Kiryat Shmona and Margaliot settlements warning of possible drone attacks.
Israeli drones raided Kfarkila and Blida in Marjayoun, while artillery targeted Rachaya Al-Fakhar in the eastern sector.
The outskirts of Zebqine, Yarin, and Jebbayn in the western sector were subject to heavy shelling. Israeli artillery also targeted Khiam and the Al-Labbouneh–Naqoura area.
Israeli attacks using phosphorus shells resulted in a fire in a forested area east of the town of Odaisseh.
Incendiary and phosphorus shells also struck Mount Labouneh, and areas near the towns of Naqoura and Alma Al-Shaab.
Hezbollah said that it destroyed recently installed surveillance equipment at the Israeli Misgav Am military site with a “direct hit.”
The militant group also targeted the Israeli Al-Malikiyah military site with a dawn artillery attack.
Israeli troops responded by shelling and destroying a house in the town of Alma Al-Shaab in an attack that also damaged nearby property, crops and homes.
MP Mohammed Raad, head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, warned that “what Israel is doing today in Gaza, it will do in any country it considers weak and from which it senses division and readiness for surrender.”
He described any attempt to achieve a settlement to the conflict as “theatrics,” and highlighted the importance of “cohesive ranks and understanding the seriousness of Israel’s goals.”
UN General Assembly backs Palestinian bid for membership
- Vote by 193-member General Assembly a global survey of support for Palestinian bid to become full member
- Palestinians currently non-member observer state, de facto recognition of statehood granted in 2012
NEW YORK CITY: The United Nations General Assembly on Friday backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.”
The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the United States vetoed it in the UN Security Council last month.
The assembly adopted a resolution on Friday with 143 votes in favor and nine against — including the US and Israel — while 25 countries abstained. It does not give the Palestinians full UN membership, but simply recognizes them as qualified to join.
The General Assembly resolution “determines that the State of Palestine ... should therefore be admitted to membership” and it “recommends that the Security Council reconsider the matter favorably.”
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes seven months into a war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN considers to be illegal.
“We want peace, we want freedom,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour told the General Assembly before the vote. “A yes vote is a vote for Palestinian existence, it is not against any state. ... It is an investment in peace.”
“Voting yes is the right thing to do,” he said in remarks that drew applause.
Under the founding UN Charter, membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in that document and are able and willing to carry them out.
“As long as so many of you are ‘Jew-hating,’ you don’t really care that the Palestinians are not ‘peace-loving,’” said UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan, who spoke after Mansour. He accused the Assembly of shredding the UN Charter — as he used a small shredder to destroy a copy of the Charter while at the lectern.
“Shame on you,” Erdan said.
The ambassador said on Monday that, if the measure was approved, he expected the US to cut funding to the United Nations and its institutions, in accordance with American law.
An application to become a full UN member first needs to be approved by the 15-member Security Council and then the General Assembly. If the measure is again voted on by the council it is likely to face the same fate: a US veto.
“The council must respond to the will of the international community,” United Arab Emirates UN Ambassador Mohamed Abushahab told the assembly before the vote.
The General Assembly resolution adopted on Friday does give the Palestinians some additional rights and privileges from September 2024 — like a seat among the UN members in the assembly hall — but they will not be granted a vote in the body.
The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the UN General Assembly in 2012.
US FUNDING
The Palestinian UN mission in New York said on Thursday — in a letter to UN member states — that adoption of the resolution backing full UN membership would be an investment in preserving the long-sought-for two-state solution.
It said it would “constitute a clear reaffirmation of support at this very critical moment for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State.”
The mission is run by the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Hamas ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in Gaza in 2007. Hamas — which has a charter calling for Israel’s destruction — launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered Israel’s assault on Gaza.
The United Nations has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The US mission to the United Nations said earlier this week: “It remains the US view that the path toward statehood for the Palestinian people is through direct negotiations.”
Under US law, Washington cannot fund any UN organization that grants full membership to any group that does not have the “internationally recognized attributes” of statehood. The United States cut funding in 2011 for the UN cultural agency, UNESCO, after the Palestinians joined as a full member.
On Thursday, 25 US Republican senators — more than half of the party’s members in the chamber — introduced a bill to tighten those restrictions and cut off funding to any entity giving rights and privileges to the Palestinians. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, which is controlled by President Joe Biden’s Democrats.
Iraq requests end of UN assistance mission by end-2025
- Prime PM said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission
BAGHDAD: Iraq has requested that a United Nations assistance mission set up after the 2003 US-led invasion of the country end its work by the end of 2025, saying it was no longer needed because Iraq had made significant progress toward stability.
The mission, headquartered in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was set up with a wide mandate to help develop Iraqi institutions, support political dialogue and elections, and promote human rights.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission, known as UNAMI.
The mission’s head in Iraq often shuttles between top political, judicial and security officials in work that supporters see as important to preventing and resolving conflicts but critics have often described as interference.
“Iraq has managed to take important steps in many fields, especially those that fall under UNAMI’s mandate,” Sudani said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Iraq’s government has since 2023 moved to end several international missions, including the US-led coalition created in 2014 to fight Islamic State and the UN’s mission established to help promote accountability for the jihadist group’s crimes.
Iraqi officials say the country has come a long way from the sectarian bloodletting after the US-led invasion and Islamic State’s attempt to establish a caliphate, and that it no longer needs so much international help.
Some critics worry about the stability of the young democracy, given recurring conflict and the presence of many heavily armed military-political groups that have often battled on the streets, the last time in 2022.
Some diplomats and UN officials also worry about human rights and accountability in a country that frequently ranks among the world’s most corrupt and where activists say freedom of expression has been curtailed in recent years.
Iraq’s government says it is working to fight corruption and denies there is less room for free expression.
Somalia’s government also requested the termination of a UN political mission this week. In a letter to the Security Council, the country’s foreign minister called for the departure of the Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), which has advised the government on peace-building, security reforms and democracy for over a decade. He provided no reason.
