While the Saudi-led coalition imposes restrictions on Sanaa airport, forces in the south prevent those seeking treatment abroad from leaving through Aden.

Hussein Saeed, 45, has been suffering from liver cancer for the past year and has tried to receive proper treatment in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital currently held by Houthi rebels, without success.

The Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis imposed restrictions on Sanaa airport on 9 August 2016, and with no commercial flights able to leave or enter, medicines cannot arrive in the city.

Over the past year, Saeed’s health has declined, and although he has been moved between several hospitals in the capital he has failed to receive proper healthcare.

Having heard of dozens of cancer patients dying in Sanaa, Saeed decided his best option would be to leave the country to receive medical treatment in India, where many other patients have received treatment for the disease.

The Western public has been so poorly served, in recent years, by its supposed world-class media organisations that any semblance of a coherent narrative explaining world events and tying together their deeper, underlying, causes to one another, has almost completely disappeared from the programming of the major networks. More often than not, international affairs are presented to us as a series of apparently unrelated events that simply “occur”, in most cases without any meaningful context or background being provided, or else, with a completely one-sided and deliberately misleading interpretation being force-fed to us by our “impartial” broadcasters.

The US and their allies are damaging security in the Persian Gulf by “flooding” the region with arms, and sending a US-led naval force there will make the situation worse, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said.

US foreign policy undermines the security of the countries around the Persian Gulf, Zarif said on Monday during a trip to Qatar.

It has been reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman originally came up with the idea for the city when he “pulled up a map of his country on Google Earth and saw its northwest quadrant was a blank slate.” He ultimately decided that it would be an ideal location for “the city of the future”, and he enlisted an army of U.S. consultants to help him fulfill his dream.

But will his dream ultimately become a nightmare? There are some extremely alarming things that I want to tell you about, but first let’s talk about some of the cool stuff that is planned for the city…

The in-development Saudi Arabian city-state will have robot maids, flying taxis, and glow-in-the-dark sand, according to confidential planning documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. An artificial moon will light up the sky every night, and a Jurassic Park-style island will let visitors mingle with robot dinosaurs.

Sounds like a fun place to live, right?

The UN has issued a new statement expressing concern about the Saudi and UAE-backed government in southern Yemen and its recent treatment of people from the northern part of Yemen.

Since the Houthis, who control the north, attacked government military targets last week, there have been growing reports of arbitrary arrests and assaults on northerners in revenge attacks.

The UN report singled out UAE-backed security forces, saying they’d been both carrying out revenge attacks on civilians and enabling attacks by other groups against northerners.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz says he is working toward “transparent normalization and signed agreements” with a number of Persian Gulf littoral states as the countries do not shy away from disclosing their clandestine relations with the Tel Aviv regime following years of secretive contacts.

Katz told a ministers' meeting in Jerusalem al-Quds on Tuesday that he recently met with a "high ranking persona" from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to improve ties between Israel and Arab states.

The top Israeli diplomat further noted that the two reached “substantial agreements.”

“We do not have a conflict with them (Arab states),” Katz commented.

Until literally a couple of years ago, courtesy of its enviable position in Asia Minor positioned in direct proximity of USSR (during the Cold War), Iran (after the Islamic Revolution), Iraq, and of course Syria in most recent years, Turkey enjoyed remarkably positive press as “NATO’s Number 2 Army” and in general a stalwart and reliable ally. Greece, by contrast, even though a member of the same NATO alliance and the European Union to boot, and a country whose political institutions were more similar to those of the European members of NATO, was a neglected backwater. Whereas Greece currently has only one US military base, namely the Souda naval base on the island of Crete, Turkey boasts Izmir and Incirlik airbases, the latter of which having a nuclear weapons’ storage facility.

Dubai Customs has foiled a drug smuggling attempt, seizing 274,000 Captagon pills. Captagon has been dubbed the "amphetamine fueling Syria's war" or the "Jihadists' drug."

Drugs.com states that Captagon manufacturing has escalated in Europe and the Middle East over the past few years and that it has been by extremist groups such as Islamic State to enhance their soldiers abilities. The highly addictive, amphetamine-based drug is said to enhance courage.

Germany's point-blank refusal to support Washington's proposal for a maritime protection force in the Arabian Gulf to protect shipping from attacks by Iran is yet another example of Berlin's diplomatic and economic sabotage of the Western alliance.

Following the recent upsurge in Iranian aggression in the all-important Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf shipping artery through which flows one-fifth of the world's energy needs, Washington has sought international backing for Operation Sentinel, its naval operation to protect shipping in the region.

This search follows a series of Iranian attacks, including the shooting down of a US Navy drone operating in international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, as well as a number of attacks against merchant shipping, such as last month's seizure of the British-registered oil tanker Stena Impero.

Israel has reportedly volunteered intelligence and assistance in “other unspecified fields” to the US-led coalition against Iran after bonding with the Emirates over a shared opposition to Tehran’s influence in the Persian Gulf.
Israel and the United Arab Emirates have reached “substantial agreements” regarding the “Iranian threat,” foreign minister Yisrael Katz told a closed session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, according to Ynet News. Katz also said he has instructed the ministry to include Israel in the US-led “policing” mission, adding that participating in the initiative will improve its relationship with the Gulf Arab states.

US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, accompanied by a White House team including Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and State Department official Brian Hook, began last week a Mideast tour to rally support from Arab leaders for the White House’s Mideast peace plan aimed, they said, to tackle the Palestinian-Israeli long-standing conflict.

Kushner, the plan’s main architect, made stops at Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and Morocco reportedly to address roles of each Arab country in the suggested plan and to strengthen the situation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the general elections on 17 September as the latter seeks to be the Israeli leader who oversaw Trump plan came to effect, political analysts said.

However, Kushner’s tour included no Palestinian officials.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly announced the decision to launch a long-awaited military operation in Syria, east of the Euphrates River, and said that the United States (US) and Russia have been warned and provided with the information necessary.

Speaking at an inauguration ceremony in the north-western city of Bursa yesterday, Erdogan stated that “We entered Afrin, Jarabulus, and Al-Bab, and now we’re going to enter east of the Euphrates,” adding that “We shared this with the US and Russia.”

The military operation has been highly speculated on in recent weeks following talks between Turkish military figures such as Minister of Defence Hulusi Akar and US Envoy to Syria James Jeffreys regarding a proposed safe zone in northern Syria. At the start of the talks in July, Turkey warned that it would conduct the operation if an agreement was not reached for the establishment of the zone.

A report sheds light on the motive behind a surprise decision by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — a key member of a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia — to pull its troops out of Yemen, saying Abu Dhabi has come to the conclusion that the war being waged on Yemen is “unwinnable.”

“In background briefings last month for Western analysts, the Emiratis said they were pulling back because the war appeared unwinnable,” the New York Times revealed on Thursday.

Abu Dhabi has publicly been saying for more than a month that they have begun a phased withdrawal of forces participating in the Saudi-led campaign against Yemen.

According to earlier reports, Abu Dhabi had previously attributed the troop withdrawal to a handful of different reasons, including domestic security concerns and support for UN-led peace efforts.

Israeli forces killed and maimed some 2,800 Palestinian children in 2018, the highest number in years, and yet were not mentioned on an annual United Nations blacklist of armed forces that commit atrocities against youth.

Some 59 Palestinian children were killed last year and 2,756 more were injured — the highest number since 2014, according to a report by UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres that will be published this week, an advance copy of which was seen by Mondoweiss.

While Guterres called for a probe into the deaths and blasted Israel for endangering Palestinian youths, the UN chief did not embarrass Israel by naming it on his “list of shame” in the annexes of the survey.

“I am extremely concerned by the significant rise in the maiming of and injuries caused to children across Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory, including by tear gas inhalation requiring medical treatment,” Guterres said in the report.

Attacks by the Shi’ite Houthi movement against pro-Saudi and pro-UAE targets in southern Yemen have killed at least 51 people, most of them military forces loyal to the UAE, and a high-ranking UAE official.

The largest incident was a missile fired by the Houthis, which hit a military parade in the southern capital of Aden. The casualties included a number of military commanders, and parading fighters.

Despite drone and missile attacks being launched by the Houthis, and the Houthis being very clear about that fact, Saudi Arabia wasn’t going to miss a chance to use anything bad happening to blame Iran.

Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has warned Bahraini rulers that their tyrannical regime is not going to last much longer, after the ruling Al Khalifah regime tortured and executed two young protesters.

"Cruelty and tyranny won't last and the determination and the willpower of justice-seeking nations will eventually prevail," the Leader's official Arabic-language Twitter account quoted him as saying on Wednesday.

The simple fact is that no matter who rules in Washington, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are loyal servants of US imperialism and serve as its surrogates in the Persian Gulf region, according to Dennis Etler, an American political analyst who has a decades-long interest in international affairs.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

If anyone knows where the skeletons are buried contradicting the official 9/11 narrative then it's none other than alleged terror mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The Wall Street Journal and others report that he's ready to spill the beans on Saudi Arabia's involvement in the worst terror attack to ever take place on American soil as part of a victims' lawsuit seeking damages from the kingdom as a state sponsor.

A letter filed in the US District Court in Manhattan disclosed an offer to spare Mohammed the death penalty in exchange for his willingness to be deposed by the victims, who are seeking billions of dollars in damage from the kingdom, making it extremely politically sensitive regarding both embarrassing secrets of Riyadh's role in 9/11 and the potential to severely damage US-Saudi economic ties.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR
A UAE-backed commander was amongst those killed when an explosion struck a military parade in Yemen’s southern city of Aden today.

Scores were injured and killed in the blast which rocked the seat of Yemen’s Saudi-backed internationally recognised government.

The Houthi movement said it was behind the attack. Their official channel Al Masirah TV said it had launched a medium-range ballistic missile and an armed drone at the military parade.

“The blast occurred behind the stand where the ceremony was taking place at Al Jalaa military camp in Buraiqa district in Aden,” Reuters reported a witness saying.

Given the rising tension in the Strait of Hormuz, and the mysterious spate of seemingly random attacks on tankers that some have blamed on Iran, it's no surprise that more captains transporting shipments of crude and LNG through one of the busiest corridors for the global energy trade feel the need to keep a low profile, according to Bloomberg.

Which is apparently why more ships are turning off their transponders - "going dark", in industry jargon - a technique that is typically used by smugglers and those hoping to avoid American sanctions.

Egypt, the United States and the United Arab Emirates forces continued their joint military drill Eagle Salute – Eagle Response 2019 on Monday in the territorial waters of the Red Sea, according the Egyptian Armed Forces.

Saudi Arabia is participating in the exercises as an observer. Various naval units from the Egyptian, US, and UAE naval forces are taking part in the exercise that is set to last for several days.

The forces are using frigates, missile-launching boats, and mine hunters in the exercises. Special naval units, the coast guard, and F16 jet fighters are taking part in the drills.

The Yemeni army says it has launched several drones against an airbase in southwestern Saudi Arabia after the kingdom and its allies slew more than a dozen people in northern Yemen.

On Monday, army spokesman Yahya Sare'e was quoted by the al-Masirah television network as saying that the aircraft had stricken the King Khalid Airbase in the kingdom’s Asir region. The counter-raid used unmanned aerial vehicles of the Qasef 2K make, he added.

“The attack targeted warplane hangers and important military sites accurately,” Sare’e was cited by the network as saying.

Using ample Western support, the kingdom and its most important regional allies have been hitting Yemen in an indiscriminate invasion since March 2015. The military aggression has been seeking to restore the impoverished country’s former Saudi-allied government, whose officials have fled the country and refused to negotiate power.

Former US diplomat Michael Springmann says the United States continues to support Saudi Arabia in its war on Yemen despite the humanitarian catastrophe there.

Japan says it is not weighing sending military forces for a US-proposed maritime coalition in a purported mission of protecting maritime shipping lanes in the Middle East.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday that there was no change in the country’s stance previously stated by Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya.

It was “as Minister Iwaya said,” noted the Japanese top government spokesman.

Nobody’s won the War on Yemen (except for maybe the Southern Transitional Council), but that doesn’t mean that they lost, either, except for Saudi Arabia. The Ansar Allah (“Houthis”) administer the most demographically and economically important part of the country even though they failed to take control of the state’s entire territory, while the UAE obtained invaluable experience managing mercenary groups and also acquired several regional bases throughout the course of its campaign, to say nothing of the rising South Yemeni proxy state that they’re largely responsible for creating. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is less secure than it was at the onset of the conflict now that the Ansar Allah’s military capabilities have evolved to the point of enabling them to regularly bomb the Kingdom’s territory, and it’s dangerously falling into the trap of “mission creep” by seeking to replace some of the withdrawn Emirati units with its own.

Britain has been keeping track of US actions with respect to Iran, so when a British oil tanker was seized by Iran last week, one of the first moves Britain made was to ask the US to avoid saber rattling or making inflammatory public statements.

That’s such a default response for the Trump Administration that it’s not clear they’d even recognize the difference. US officials are now pushing for everyone to rush warships to the Strait of Hormuz to protect tankers going forward.

While US officials are presenting this as a new program called Sentinel, the reality is that this is the exact same idea the US has been pushing for weeks, where the US gets other countries to commit warships, but the US gets to command them entirely.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA.COM

Aspen, Colorado - The United States is concerned that a "miscalculation" by Iran could cause an "unintended conflict" in the Gulf, as it prepares to launch a new surveillance and intelligence initiative with its allies to ensure "free and open passage" for ships.

"We are starting a concept called Sentinel in which we will have a series of countries engaged to preserve the free and open passage of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and in the Persian Gulf," US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood said at the Aspen Security Forum on Saturday.

The US has had discussions with NATO allies, some "partners in the Gulf" and others to join the effort to keep the "vital waterway" open, said Rood, adding that the new operation would "come into being over the coming days and weeks".

The World Food Program has reached an agreement in principle with Yemen's Huthi rebels to resume food aid to areas they control, the agency's chief said on Thursday.

Malnutrition is widespread in Yemen after four years of civil war, but the UN suspended deliveries of food aid to rebel-held areas of the country last month following accusations of "diversion of food."

The new agreement with the Huthis will allow food to be quickly delivered to the rebel-held capital Sanaa, though the two sides haven't formally inked the deal yet, WFP chief David Beasley told the UN Security Council.

"I can say that we have made substantial progress," he said during a meeting to discuss Yemen, in which he joined UN humanitarian officials in underlining the dire situation in the country.

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces says army troopers and allied fighters from Popular Committees have used a squadron of domestically-manufactured Qasef-2K (Striker-2K) combat drones to strike hangars in Saudi Arabia's Jizan airport.

Brigadier General Yahya Saree said on Tuesday evening that the drones struck the designated targets with precision, noting that the structures were used to house unmanned aerial vehicles operated by the Saudi-led military coalition against Yemen.

The special meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called by the hypocritical United States due to Iran’s announcement that it had ‘breached’ part of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has come and gone. The U.S. hoped, naively, to gain widespread support for additional sanctions against Iran, but found itself the target of criticism for creating the entire issue by abrogating the agreement in May of 2018.

But hypocrisy isn’t limited to the United States, although that is one of the hallmarks of that violent, racist nation. On July 9, France, Germany, the UK and the High Representative issued a most astonishing statement. This writer was astounded by its blatant hypocrisy, which certainly rivals that of the U.S. That statement follows, in its entirety, with this writer’s comments after each sentence.

The move is but the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to mobilize Arab allies into a more aggressive military stance towards Iran. It follows recent visits to the region by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, both of whom have been urging a more organized military front led by the US to confront Iran.

The latest naval coalition proposed by General Dunford will be charged with escorting oil tankers as they pass through the Strait of Hormuz exiting the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, and also through the Bab al Mandab entrance to the Red Sea on the Western side of the Arabian Peninsula. The former conduit serves oil supply to Asia, while the latter position between Yemen and Eritrea leads shipping to the Suez Canal on the way to the Mediterranean and Europe.

Both narrow sea passages are strategic chokepoints in global oil trade, with some 20-30 per cent of all daily shipped crude passing through them.

Kuwait’s navy and ports authority will prepare security plans to protect the key OPEC exporter’s ports, state news agency KUNA said on Saturday, amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West.

Reuters reports that a joint cooperation protocol was signed “at an important period which the region is passing through security-wise,” Kuwait Port Authority manager Sheikh Yousef Abdullah al-Nasser al-Sabah was quoted as saying.

Sheikh Yousef said concerted efforts were needed to maintain the security of the small Gulf state’s ports and “ensure full readiness for any potential emergency,” including training and exchange of experiences, according to the KUNA report.

The war in Yemen could end, if U.S. and United Arab Emirates' support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen is truly over. However, the House NDAA bill still faces a major hurdle in the Senate. If those who want US military involvement to end pressure Congress, it can be done, says CodePink's Medea Benjamin

It was truly baffling to hear a grilled US official claim during a Senate hearing that the sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia are a ‘manifestation’ of exporting human rights and open society, an anti-war activist told RT.
R. Clarke Cooper, the US State Department’s assistant secretary for political-military affairs, was grilled during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Defending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, he said that the deal itself means more than just selling weapons.

“Our policy is not just limited to arms transfers. It is a manifestation of what else we export: open society, human rights. That is a part of our policy,” he said. The official added that Washington does not cut security ties with partners like Riyadh that carry “so much weight for our interests.”

As the UAE announced this week it would withdraw its forces from Yemen as a longtime lead country in the Saudi coalition which has fought Houthi rebels since 2015, the United Nations issued a damning report on what it previously dubbed the "world's worst humanitarian crisis" and what many analysts have described as the "forgotten war," due to the little coverage it receives in the mainstream media.

War-ravaged Yemen has seen more than than 460,000 suspected cholera cases so far this year, which is significantly higher that the total number for all of 2018, at 380,000 — the UN stated early this week.

This as the over four-year long war is has reached casualty numbers on par with the opening half of the Syrian war, expected to reach an estimated 233,000 deaths by the end of 2019, according to a previous UN report issued in May.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE

The gradual liberalization of Saudi Arabia's repressive laws and social mores continued on Thursday with WSJ reporting that Crown Prince MBS plans to drop restrictions barring women from traveling out of the country without a male guardian's permission. Though we suspect that this time, there will be no glowing NYT op-ed praising the young crown prince - the kingdom's de facto ruler - for his reformist tendencies and his respect for human rights.

It won't happen right away: WSJ says the kingdom plans to end the ban some time this year. The plan would end guardianship laws relating to travel for men and women over 18 years old. As it stands, women of any age, and men under 21, must have a guardian's permission to travel internationally. Soon, that won't be the case.

Dozens of Saudi-sponsored militiamen loyal to Yemen's former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, have been killed and scores of others sustained injuries when Yemeni army forces and their allies fired a domestically-manufactured ballistic missile at their camp in Saudi Arabia’s southern province of Najran.

The spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said on Wednesday afternoon that Yemeni missile defense units launched a Badr-F missile at a position of Saudi mercenaries near al-Khazra border crossing.

He added that the missile hit the designated target with great precision, leaving 45 Saudi-paid militiamen killed and tens of others injured. The death toll is expected to further rise as some of the injured are in critical condition.

Authored by James M. Dorsey via Lobe Log

A United Arab Emirates decision to withdraw the bulk of its forces from Yemen shines a spotlight on hard realities underlying Middle Eastern geopolitics.

The pullback suggests that the UAE is preparing for the possibility of a US military confrontation with Iran in which the UAE and Saudi Arabia could emerge as prime battlegrounds.

It also reflects long-standing subtle differences in the approaches of Saudi Arabia and the UAE towards Yemen. It further highlights the UAE’s long-standing concern for its international standing amid mounting criticism of the civilian toll of the war as well as a recognition that the Trump administration’s unquestioning support may not be enough to shield its allies from significant reputational damage.

The House Rules Committee is planning a Tuesday afternoon session to consider Amendment 339. The amendment is intended to be part of the annual military spending bill, the NDAA, and would forbid all funding for US involvement in the Saudi War in Yemen.

The House already voted to end US involvement in the Yemen War under the War Powers Act, but this was vetoed by President Trump. The Senate has a similar version of the defunding amendment in their version, and the military spending bill would be hard for Trump to veto.

The Yemen War was never authorized by Congress, and Congress’ order to stop the war was vetoed, so this amendment is the next logical step, using the power of the purse to curb the war.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
Libya was once a key embarkation point for jihadists headed to foreign battlefields - first in the 1980s Afghan-Soviet War where they supported the CIA-backed mujahideen, and more recently in Syria, where both massive jihadist manpower and heavy weaponry were transferred to the killing fields of Aleppo and Idlib (also, it should be noted, in support of CIA regime change efforts against Assad).

But as we described after a recent New York Times report unveiled that US anti-tank missiles have been found in "unknown" Libyan rebel hands fighting within warlord Khalifa Haftar's ranks, the once stable formerly Gadaffi-ruled Arab North African country which was in 2011 "liberated" at the hands of US-NATO forces has once again become ground zero in a grinding proxy war which has allowed jihadists to run rampant amid the chaos.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA.COM

A Saudi-led military coalition said it has intercepted and destroyed drones launched by Yemen's Houthi group at targets in the kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

"The drones were destroyed in air space," a coalition statement said on Saturday.

The Houthis' al-Masirah satellite news channel said the rebels targeted Saudi airports in Abha and Jizan with Qasef-2K drones.

Yahia Sarie, spokesperson for the Houthi forces, said the attacks resulted in the suspension of air traffic in both airports.

The Houthis have increasingly used drones to target southern Saudi Arabia, including two recent strikes on the Abha airport, which killed one person and wounded more than 30.

On the back of reports the UAE is dramatically scaling down its military presence in Yemen - where it has been embroiled in a bloody conflict against Houthi rebels for almost four years - sources claim that Abu Dhabi is now building up a huge militia force to sustain military efforts on the ground.

Another aim of the militia army will be to undermine the authority of the internationally-recognised government led by Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi, The New Arab's Arabic-language daily reported.

SOURCE: MIDDLE EAST MONITOR

Iran’s Foreign Ministry yesterday urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to form a fact-finding committee to probe the issue of four diplomats kidnapped in Lebanon in 1982, Iranian news agencies reported.

“As has been announced several times over the past years, evidence shows that the kidnapped diplomats in Lebanon were delivered to the Israeli Zionist forces and then they were transferred to the occupied lands and they are now held in prison by this illegitimate regime,” a statement said.

It added: “Given the fact that Lebanon was under the US-backed Israeli occupation at that time, the Islamic Republic of Iran holds the Zionist regime and its supporters legally and politically responsible for the abduction and the terrorist action.”

Friday marked the 37th anniversary of the disappearance of diplomats identified as Seyyed Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevasselian, Kazem Akhavan and Taqi Rastegar Moqaddam.

The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer has arrived in the US Fifth Fleet’s area of operations, the US Navy announced Monday. The ship and its battle group carry thousands of US Marines as well as strike aircraft and helicopters.

The Boxer leads the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which also includes the amphibious transport dock USS John P. Murtha and the amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry, US Central Command noted in a Monday statement. The ships are replacing like vessels led by the USS Kearsarge, which had been in the theater since April but has now rotated out.

The US Fifth Fleet’s area of responsibility includes sea lanes that could soon become a major war zone - namely, the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean.

Houthi rebels have attacked a civilian airport in Saudi Arabia for the second time in less than two weeks. The Houthis said the strike was in retaliation for Saudi airstrikes in Yemen.

Many Trump Administration officials have been, by way of reconciling President Trump’s insistence that he doesn’t want war with Iran and their desire for something very much resembling a war, been presenting US military action, and the US backing of such action, as necessarily stabilizing to the region.

So with Special Envoy Brian Hook on Friday. Hook, who made headlines Wednesday by claiming not to be a “scholar” when asked if Iran was behind 9/11, is now pushing for Iran to be “countered” in Yemen. He says the alternative risks regional conflict and destabilizing the area.

To be clear, Iran isn’t actually in Yemen in the first place. Rather, there is the Shi’ite Houthi movement, whom the Saudis have attempted to brand as Iranian proxies, as it facilitates an ongoing Saudi war in Yemen, which the US is supporting.