Category Archives: Yemen

Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Will Ramadan Save Embarrassment and Life in Southern Arabia?………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Will the holy month of Ramadan save the Saudi cojones from the fire they started three months ago?

There is a consensus, even within the Arab world, that the intensive Saudi air war against Yemen has failed. Call it what you will: Decisive Storm, Renewed Hope, Faltering Storm (one of my own favorites) or Failed Storm (my most favoritest name for it) or Genocidal Storm. The Saudis and their African Mercenaries (Sudanese, Senegalese, Moroccans, possibly also Jordanians) have run out of real targets. They are now in the process of bombing old targets, and bombing historic buildings, shrines, and residential buildings. They are doing almost WWII-style bombing of cities, hoping to catch some Houthis or Yemeni Army fighters napping. Out of useful targets.
Out of targets but not out of bombs and missiles, courtesy of Western democracies (and petromoney). Yet they don’t want to send their land army into a losing battle. Nor can they get any regime, be it Arab or African or Asian, to send their armies into a ground war and a guerrilla quagmire.

But never fear. Ramadan is here, or at the gates. The advent of Ramadan has not stopped Muslims from waging war against each other in the past, but it might this year. This week, maybe the delegates meeting in Geneva will have the excuse of the holy month to call a long ceasefire. The Saudis should jump at the chance. If the runaway former president General Hadi Bin Zombie objects, they can disinvite him from his Riyadh Hotel. Let him stay in Geneva.

Ramadan Kareem
(I knew someone named Mohammed Kareem, but no relation of Ramadan).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Yemeni Revenge? Israeli Source Claims Houthi Scud Killed Saudi Air Force Chief……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“The Saudi Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Shaalan was killed in a Scud missile cross-border attack by Yemeni Houthi rebels on the big King Khalid Air Base at Khamis Mushayt in the southwestern Asir region of Saudi Arabia, DEBKAfile reports. The attack took place on June 6, but his death was concealed under a blanket of secrecy until Wednesday, June 10. The largest Saudi air base, it is from there that the kingdom has for last two and a half months waged its air campaign to end the Yemeni insurgency. Saudi and coalition air strikes, directed against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, their allies from the Yemeni army and from local tribes, have killed an estimated 2,000 people, some of them civilians, including women and children. DEBKAfile’s military sources in the Gulf remarked that even the tardy official disclosure……………..”

It seems plausible: circumstantial evidence but it needs better corroboration. But why would the chief of Saudi Air Force travel during wartime? And why would Lt. Gen. Muhammad bin Ahmed Al-Shaalan die during the same week when Yemenis hit the major Saudi air base at Khamis Mushayt. This Israeli site, which once (probably tongue in cheek) claimed to be run by a bunch of Israeli journalists, is certainly connected to the Mossad and other officials. Perhaps it hopes to help derail the nuclear negotiations with Iran before the end of June, although it is hard to see how.

If this turns out to be true, then it would be another Yemeni revenge against the chief of the Saudi Air Force that has been bombing their cities and infrastructure for three months.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Dodo Bird of Yemen: Houthis and the Riyadh Hotel Managers………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“After 11 weeks of air strikes that have failed to change the balance of power in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is running out of options to restore President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s exiled government to Sanaa. Despite the destruction of much of their heavy weaponry, the Houthi militia and army forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh control most of the country’s populated west and still daily attack Saudi territory with mortar fire or missiles. The possibility of a ground operation in support of the ragtag local groups still fighting the Houthis in Aden, Taiz, Marib and al-Dhala appears to have been discounted by the Saudis and their allies in an Arab coalition from early on. Riyadh may soon have to face an unpalatable choice: accept the de facto control of its foes over Sanaa and cut a deal, or keep fighting with the risk of Yemen sinking into total chaos, becoming a permanent threat to Saudi security…………”

General Hadi is ensconced with his ghost cabinet in a 5 or 6-star hotel in Riyadh. Issuing new appointments, promotions, and demotions via social media. As if anyone inside or outside Yemen takes him seriously. As if there actually are those “Hadi-supporters” that Western media keep mentioning anywhere in Yemen.  These claimed “Hadi-supporters” are in the same category as the Dodo bird (Raphus Cucullatus). I can imagine the Saudis cracking jokes in Riyadh about his government in exile.

I’ve got a suggestion for the Saudi hosts. Take former President General Hadi Bin Zombie (some Yemenis call him the runaway ex-president الرئيس السابق الهارب) and his ministers and drop them over Sanaa. By parachute of course. Let the bombed people of the capital decide their fate.
Or, more telling, drop them over Aden, the city from which they escaped again and left its people to their grim fate. Let us see how Aden would respond to these Riyadh hotel managers landing among them.
Or even better yet: just let them live unharmed in Sanaa or Aden (how about Saada?) and suffer the Saudi bombs and cluster bombs these miserable men had urged and invited on the people of Yemen. Should be enlightening.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Saudis and Yemenis Exchange Visits: Good and Bad News on the Ground War…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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One strain of the Saudi opposition, including the anonymous Mujtahidd, has been complaining about the path of the war on Yemen. The Wahhabi opposition support the Yemeni war in general: like almost all Arab Salafis they see it as a sectarian struggle. But they acknowledge that the bombing campaign against Yemen is not going well, no surprise there. They put the blame, rightly, on the princes leading it.


Last week they were complaining about the new young defense minister and crown prince to the crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS). They were critical of his taking a second princess wife and heading for a honeymoon in Paris while the country is at war.

This week they are complaining that the same prince MBS has left for a reported good time in the Maldives (islands in the Indian Ocean) while the war is not going well.

There is, however, some good news for those who want a more decisive war. For months some of the Saudi opposition and former president General Hadi Bin Zombie and his Riyadh hotel roommates have been urging a ground invasion of Yemen. Of course Hadi and his roommates had the chance to fight a ground war when they were in Aden, but they chose to escape to the safety and comfort of Riyadh. They left the war and the suffering to the Yemeni people. The good news is that during the second and third  honeymoons of Crown Crown Prince Mohammed the ground war has finally started.

Except the wrong side is waging the ground war, and it is going in the wrong direction for the Saudis. The Houthis and their Yemeni army allies have made bold incursions into Saudi territory and held military posts. Casualties were inflicted and weapons captured. Life in some southern towns and villages has been disrupted, some areas were forced to evacuate. 
Still, the Saudis don’t seem to know how to quit while they’re not ahead. Not yet…………


Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Foreign Policy, Yemen

Camelot in Riyadh: Best and Brightest of JFK or Dumb and Dumber of MBS?……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Now Prince Mohammed has swiftly accumulated more power than any prince has ever held, upending a longstanding system of distributing positions around the royal family to help preserve its unity, and he has used his growing influence to take a leading role in Saudi Arabia’s newly assertive stance in the region, including its military intervention in Yemen. In the four months since his coronation, King Salman has put Prince Mohammed in charge of the state oil monopoly, the public investment company, economic policy and the Defense Ministry…………. But some Western diplomats, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of alienating the prince and the king, say they are worried about the growing influence of the prince, with one even calling him “rash” and “impulsive.”…… After meeting with both princes at a summit meeting of Gulf nations at Camp David last month, President Obama said the younger Prince Mohammed “struck us as extremely knowledgeable, very smart.” “I think wise beyond his years,” Obama added in an interview with the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya network……………. “Being with Prince Salman every minute — can you imagine what you would have learned?”………………”

A heart-warming analysis by David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times. You’d think a new Saudi age of Camelot is about to burst upon us. With an Arabian JFK and his two wives (so far), two Jackies for one Guinevere, ready to start an era of the Best and Brightest, instead of the Dumb and Dumber. But what about Lancelot, and would the Mufti be his Merlin?
Kirkpatrick, rather reluctantly and almost shyly, notes that some other Saudi princes have “reservations” about their new robber baron. But he salvages it all with the uber-diplomatic comment of Barack Obama to the Saudi semi-official Al Arabiya network. 
He said ““struck us as extremely knowledgeable, very smart.” No kidding Barack, no doubt you’ve been reading the groveling Saudi media. No doubt Prince Mohammed is smart enough to inherit the country from his father, but I’m not sure about ‘knowledgeable’. For one, MBS is waiting for his own PT 109 opportunity in the wrong place, in Yemen. Alas, it doesn’t look like the Yemenis are willing to accommodate him: he can’t have it long distance from Riyadh. He needs to get on some new boots (instead of the beautiful Najdi sandals that I really like: نعال نيدي) and dash across the lethal border if he wants to create his own PT 109 moment.

I doubt that Kirkpatrick or other N Y Times pundits waxed as poetic about another dynastic appointed dictator named Kim Jong Un. But then he had access to much less money than MBS. The pudgy Korean has not caused as much damage to his neighborhood (with bombs and cluster bombs) so early in his career. Not yet.

Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Caliphate, Syria, Wahhabi, Yemen

New Wahhabi International: Al Qaeda as the New Great Hope of Jihadis in Syria……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Al-Qaeda affiliates are significantly expanding their footholds in Syria and Yemen, using the chaos of civil wars to acquire territory and increase their influence, according to analysts, residents and intelligence officials. The gains have helped the terror group’s affiliates become major players in the countries and have complicated efforts to resolve the conflicts. Al-Qaeda offshoots could also be gaining sanctuaries to eventually plan attacks against the United States and Europe, analysts say. In Syria, al-Qaeda’s wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, plays a leading role in a new rebel coalition that has captured key areas in the northwestern part of the country. In Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has seized parts of the country’s largest province, territory that includes military bases, an airfield and ports. “Al-Qaeda is becoming more deeply entrenched in Syria, and it is gaining significant momentum in Yemen…………..”

A known Salafi activist on the Persian Gulf tweeted the other day, wishing, urging Al Nusra Front to break its allegiance to Al Qaeda. For years that same Salafi activist was urging Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to make their peace with his Saudi masters, the princes and their Muftis. Other Gulf Salafis who openly supported Al Qaeda and its affiliates, especially AQI and ISIS among other terrorist groups, have shifted away from the latter. At least in the open, but it could be just the usual Salafi taqiyya, feigning and faking.

Al Nusra is not as successful as the Caliphate of ISIS, but Al Nusra has one important advantage for the opportunistic Salafis. It is now being supported by their patrons, the Wahhabi princes and potentates of Saudi Arabia and Qatar (and non-Arab Turkey). It is being armed and financed by all of them. The Salafis, especially in the Persian Gulf countries listen to the dictates of these neighboring potentates, their patrons. Besides, it is the American support and weapons that they covet, which explains the phony claim of leader of Jaish Al-Islam (Army of Islam) a couple of weeks ago that he is now almost a Jeffersonian democrat.

It is as if a new global International, a Wahhabi International emerging, taking its signals and orders from the clerics and moneybags of Riyadh and Doha. Just like the Communist International of yesteryear (Comintern), the Wahhabi one is now divided. At least two major rival branches, possibly more if Al Nusra can be bribed to split from Al Qaeda. Not to mention other affiliated groups of Salafi cutthroats: AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), the Shabab, Boko Haram, the Bel-Mukhtar Group of Northwest Africa, etc, etc.

There have been reports in recent months that the Saudis are trying to affect a shift in loyalties. Saudi warplanes raining cluster bombs on Yemen tend to attack Houthi and Yemeni army forces in areas where they fight AQAP. That they do not attack gatherings of AQAP terrorists. American drones are still allegedly attacking AQAP. As usual, the Saudis believe they can in the end buy and regain the loyalty of AQAP and possibly the Southern Independence movement around Aden.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arabian Peninsula, Economics, Petroleum, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

All the New King’s Men: Betting the Farm on Military and Economic Adventures……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“But Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab states should not be so singularly obsessed with the danger posed by Shi’ite-led Iran. These states have other internal problems and economic worries to deal with, especially bulging youth populations and the lack of avenues for political expression. The House of Saud is facing a challenge from the militant group Islamic State, which carried out a suicide bombing last week that killed at least 21 worshippers at a Shi’ite mosque in the kingdom’s Eastern Province. The Saudi regime must also cope with the long-term consequences of declining revenue due to lower oil prices………….”

Saudi Arabia has taken a couple of big gambles in recent months. The ruling family has taken some questionable advice on how to slam its regional opponents and rivals, mainly Iran and Iraq, and tighten its alliance on the Arab side of the Persian Gulf. Both are extremely risky:

  • The Saudis have uncharacteristically allowed oil prices to plunge, thus aiming new economic blows at an Iranian regime that is already enduring a tough Western economic blockade. Along the way they also aimed a few left hooks to Mr. Putin’s Russia, a major supporter of Syria and Iran. (Unlike the Western powers, Mr. Putin has not yet threatened to put ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria or to keep a military option on the legendary table).
    The Saudis also struck at the very-cost-sensitive American and Canadian shale oil industry, now a major rival in the market.
  • In addition to “lowering” oil revenues, the kingdom has also started to bet high in a regional poker game. It started an expensive bombing war against the poorest Arab country, Yemen (now mostly controlled by Houthis and the Army). A costly and intensive bombing war that has shown no results in more than two months except destruction of Yemen’s fragile infrastructure. And plant cluster bombs across that country.
  • In addition to the high cost of bribing the rulers of Sudan and Jordan and Morocco and Senegal to join their Yemen military adventure.
  • The new King also immediately raised salaries of all military and security employees and granted every public servant (most working Saudis) and student a two-month extra salary bonus.
  • The total cost of all that is almost certain to exceed one hundred billion dollars: by how much depends on the duration and intensity of their new war. And how much the newly promoted princes (MBN, MBS, XYZ…..) skim off the military expenditures and other major contracts. Meanwhile oil revenues are down, creating a risky imbalance and a drainage on foreign reserves.
  • Contrary to what the Saudis expected, the Houthis and their army allies have expanded their territory since the air campaign in Yemen started. They have now started to attack inside the Saudi home territory, with a surprising degree of ease and impunity. Which is leading to more Saudi casualties, probably an unexpected consequence.

What makes all this riskier is that the new King Salman, in an un-Solomonic move, has started immediately to turn his country’s budget, which is essentially the ruling family budget, into a large deficit. In the process he is depleting his country’s foreign reserves.

The cash bonuses paid out are already eaten up by the inevitable higher prices. So far the war on Yemen looks set to drag on unsuccessfully, all the munitions and cluster bombs need to be replaced. The newly-promoted young princes try to get even richer while they can. Then they will all be back to the starting point……….

Their foreign reserves are still high. Maybe they can withstand it for a sustained period, maybe, but for how long and at what rate of depletion……..


Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Media, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Media Wars: Can Saudis and Qataris Buy the Hearts and Minds of the Arab World?……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“As with its military operation in Yemen, Saudi Arabia is throwing a great deal of money and resources into media backing for the government of President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. In short order, it has helped equip and launch two satellite TV channels supporting the exiled president, as well as an alternative version of Yemen’s official news agency. Meanwhile, TV channels sympathetic to the Huthi movement are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain their broadcasts via satellite as the main regional operators suspend their transmissions…………… At the regional level, the two leading pan-Arab TV news channels – the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and Qatar’s Al-Jazeera – have put aside their differences over Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood and are both running a similar anti-Huthi, and sometimes anti-Iranian, line on Yemen, as is the Abu-Dhabi-based Sky News Arabia…………..”

The Yemenis can defeat, truly trounce, the Saudi forces and their hired allies in any battle. But they don’t have a chance in the media war, almost nobody in the region does. The potentates certainly have not held back on spending money on acquiring old Arab media and establishing new ones. Nobody in the Middle East has such unrestricted access to financial resources, and they have been buying.

Two undemocratic anti-democratic absolute tribal dynasties now dominate the Arab media, both old media and new media. The two Wahhabi regimes, the little one in Qatar and the bigger one in Riyadh are almost in control of much Arab media narrative. Their message is heavily sectarian, not always subtle, the best way to divert attention away from royal corruption and the natural human demands for freedom and self determination. The two Wahhabi financial powers seek to dominate the majority non-Wahhabi Sunni Arab minds while marginalizing and often demonizing Shi’a Arabs (and non-Arabs).

Can they win, nay buy, the hearts and minds in the vast Arab region that extends from Baghdad to Morocco? They can only influence some minds, but they can’t win,  nor buy, any hearts. Hearts cannot be bought. The princes and potentates can’t win any outside their own domain.
    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Plan B for Failed Storm: From Bay of Pigs to Bay of Goats……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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In 1961 the CIA financed, trained, and armed a bunch of Cuban exiles and launched them into Cuba. The goal was to overthrow the revolutionary socialist regime of Fidel Castro. Needless to say, the invasion of Bay of Pigs was a total failure and its failure also deterred other such future attempts. It was a Hail Mary try that apparently did not have the backing of Mary nor of Jesus, not on that day. It did not work.


Now Yemen in the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula is not in the same situation as Cuba in 1961. The Saudis and their rented Sudanese-Moroccan-Senegalese forces are directly bombing and shelling the cities and towns of Yemen. The country itself is fighting several civil wars among its various factions. The Houthis and army units are fighting the Southern Independence Movement as well as Al Qaeda- AQAP- and some tribal elements. The Houthis and the army are also trying to repel the Saudi air and artillery assault (which is supported by Western planning and logistical and intelligence support). Whoever wins, if anyone, will have to fight again against secession in South Yemen.

The air war, mainly one-sided and which has resulted in thousands of casualties, has failed during its first two months. The richest and best equipped force in the Arab world, supported by foreign mercenaries and the strongest world powers, has failed to defeat the poorest and weakest-armed Arab country. Now they are trying to insert the escaped former president Hadi (Bin Zombie) into their new strategy.

They are reported by Arab media as trying to form a Yemeni military force to the east near the Saudi border with Hadramout Province. This force is allegedly Yemeni but commanded by Saudis from across the border. They will try to pass it off as a force loyal to Hadi. That comes after an apparent earlier attempt to land Arab and Yemeni agents into Aden failed.
It is hard to imagine anyone in Yemen being loyal to Hadi, other than maybe his family, not without a price to be paid by the Saudis. Just try landing him down into Sanaa or Aden and the degree of loyalty to him becomes clear. A la Gaddafi in 2011.

Anyway this new Hadramout invasion has signs of desperation all over it, but it is a logical Plan B. It could be inspired by the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. Saudis don’t cotton up to pigs, so we can’t call this attempt Bay of Pigs II. It is more appropriate to call it Bay of Goats.
Given that the consensus opinion is that pigs are somewhat smarter than goats, we probably know how this plan will fare.

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Genocide, Locust, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Locust Phenomenon Strikes Yemen: Kosher and Halal Desert Delicacy………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

“As a result of the fuel shortage, women experiencing complications in childbirth had been turned away, she said, and incubators in the hospital had been turned off. In another case, staff tried to resuscitate a patient experiencing cardiac arrest but could not place him on a ventilator. The patient died. The hospital, like so many others, was also suffering from a lack of vital medical supplies including antibiotics, painkillers, bandages, and blood. The harsh and arbitrary restrictions imposed by the Saudi-led coalition on importing vital supplies, including fuel, have slowed to a trickle the flow of life-saving assistance and basic goods needed for survival. The World Food Programme (WFP) says it has managed to ship some 300,000 liters of fuel and other supplies into the country during the humanitarian ceasefire. But this shipment is only a fraction of the amount needed……………..”

Wahhabism is an unforgiving sect and culture: unforgiving of those who openly criticize its values and palace clerics and those who oppose its princes. It has been this way since its beginning in some remote desert hellhole of Najd in Central Arabia. There are a few new places where the application of this hard Wahhabi tradition comes up again and again:
In Syria and Iraq the uber-Wahhabis of ISIS or DAESH and Nusra chop heads, massacre “others” and enslave women. That is regressive Wahhabi tradition taken to its doctrinal and practical extremes.
In Yemen, the ‘moderate’ Wahhabis and their paid and hired mercenaries from Jordan to Sudan to Morocco are bombing cities and infrastructure (as well as military targets). As if that is not enough: they are also denying the civilian people of Yemen food and medicine and energy. Almost total destruction, literally scorched earth. Sort of like their cousins of ISIS and DAESH are doing in Iraq and Syria.
This is what some people in my hometown on the Gulf (Persian Gulf, not Gulf of Mexico) once called the Locust Phenomenon. The locust (Jarad= جراد) is a voracious greedy critter, something that also used to be a seasonal delicacy food in the old days in the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf. I believe it is also mentioned in the Old Testament as food, so it is as kosher as it is halal. It is known to be a destructive extremist: it destroys all crops in its way. That is precisely what they are doing to Yemen with their expensive Western killing toys and with help from Western intelligence and logistics.

    

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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