The Syrian Army troops continued cleansing operations in the newly-freed regions in Eastern Dara'a and found a field hospital and a large arms depot with equipment supplied by Israel, Saudi Arabia and certain western countries.
The army men carried out mop-up operations in newly-freed Maliha al-Atash region and along a road to Busra al-Harir, discovering a large field hospital that used to be run by the terrorists.

The army soldiers found a large volume of Israeli and Saudi medicines in the field hospital.

In the meantime, the army's engineering units discovered a large volume of western-made ammunition and arms in a depot of terrorists in the town of Maliha al-Atash.

A field source, meanwhile, pointed to the large volume of arms and ammunitions in the depot, and said it was the terrorists' main warehouse for storing military equipment in the towns of Busra al-Harir, al-Harak, Naheta and other regions in Eastern Dara'a.

During President Trump’s now infamous visit to Saudi Arabia, Washington and Riyadh signed arms deals amounting to almost $110 billion, a move viewed by some as fueling an arms race in an already dangerous Middle East.

In the past decade, it has become clear that there is a Saudi quest to move from a country engaged in proxy wars to one able to achieve its objectives by engaging directly with its own military. Now, after over three years of a failed Saudi-led assault on Yemen, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has threatened to “bring the battle to the heart of Iran.” Having been supervised and trained by the U.S Department of Defense since 1953, is the Saudi Arabian military capable of achieving this goal, and what exactly comprises Saudi Arabia’s military doctrine?

After meeting with officials of US President Donald Trump's administration, Israel's energy minister expressed confidence on Tuesday that the United States will not relax non-proliferation standards in any nuclear power deal it agrees with Saudi Arabia.

Israel vehemently opposes any effort by Saudi Arabia to relax "gold standard" non-proliferation limits on enriching uranium or reprocessing nuclear fuel in any deal between the two countries, Yuval Steinitz, Israel's energy minister, told Reuters in an interview.

"Once you allow one country to enrich uranium or reprocess fuel, it will be extremely difficult to tell other countries in this vicinity or elsewhere in the world not to do so," he said.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has threatened to pursue nuclear weapons if Iran acquires them.

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement says Saudi Arabia, which has been leading a deadly war on the impoverished country for the past three years, is giving huge bribes to foreign firms in an attempt to shut down anti-Saudi Yemeni media.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, the movement’s spokesman, made the remarks in a statement carried by Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah satellite television network on Sunday, saying in only one instance Riyadh had given as much as “$30 million to a foreign satellite company to block a Yemeni news channel for just 30 days.”

He added that the so-called military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, was “sparing no effort” to muffle the true voice of Yemeni people calling out through the country’s satellite television channels and radio stations.

Quote from NRC’s Hodeidah Office Coordinator, Saleem Al-Shamiri, in Sana’a:

“Many people fled their homes in Hodeidah already. Sana’a and other cities are receiving many displaced. Water supplies have been cut off in some areas. Even families who refused to leave their house behind, have now been forced to flee because the fighting is closing in. Some of my friends arrived yesterday and today early morning. They are concerned for their future and worried they have lost their homes and income. How will they manage to rebuild their lives again?”

“I have friends who can’t leave their homes because they don’t have the means to travel. They are scared for their safety. They might be left in the crossfire without any water, food or way to escape. I am hoping the warring parties will allow safe routes out of the city as the fighting gets closer. People must be given a chance to save their own lives.”

Quote from NRC’s Hodeidah Office Coordinator, Saleem Al-Shamiri, in Sana’a:

“Many people fled their homes in Hodeidah already. Sana’a and other cities are receiving many displaced. Water supplies have been cut off in some areas. Even families who refused to leave their house behind, have now been forced to flee because the fighting is closing in. Some of my friends arrived yesterday and today early morning. They are concerned for their future and worried they have lost their homes and income. How will they manage to rebuild their lives again?”

“I have friends who can’t leave their homes because they don’t have the means to travel. They are scared for their safety. They might be left in the crossfire without any water, food or way to escape. I am hoping the warring parties will allow safe routes out of the city as the fighting gets closer. People must be given a chance to save their own lives.”

On June 21, the Iranian Navy dispatched two warships to the Gulf of Aden, where a fierce battle is ongoing between the Ansar Allah movement (also known as the Houthis) and the Saudi-led coalition for the port city of al-Hudaydah.

According to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, Iran sent a helicopter-carrier and a naval destroyer. The deployment of Iranian warships in the area will likely further complicate relations between Riyadh and Teheran. However, two warships will not be enough to lift a naval blockade from al-Hudaydah.

Meanwhile, the Houthis repelled another attempt by the Saudi-led coalition and its proxies to capture the al-Hudaydah airport in western Yemen recapturing most of the positions, which they had lost previously.

The so-called “liberators” in Yemen are sexually and physically torturing detainees at secret prisons. Survivors recall disturbing stories laden with gruesome interrogation tactics for extracting false confessions. Meanwhile, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen attempts to portray themselves as the bearers of freedom and reason.

As an ally of the United States’ “counter-terrorism” operation in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates established 18 prisons throughout territory under their control. An ongoing investigation from the Associated Press has so far identified instances of deranged sexual torture at five of these facilities. The Emirati headquarters in Yemen houses one of such facilities where witnesses have seen American soldiers.

Yemeni army soldiers, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have launched a major operation against Saudi troops and pro-Saudi militiamen loyal to resigned Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the country’s western coastal province of Hudaydah, killing and injuring tens of them in the process.

An unnamed Yemeni military source told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni troopers and allied fighters launched separate attacks against Saudi soldiers and their mercenaries north of al-Majlis and al-Durayhimi districts on Friday, dealing stinging blows to them.

The source added that at least 11 armored vehicles were destroyed during the offensives as well.

He further stated that the operations were carried out following a series of surveillance and monitoring the movements of Saudi invaders and their agents.

Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have captured the airport at Hodeidah and have started preparations for the more complex task of capturing the city and its port nine miles (15km) to the north. The port is critical to the supply of aid to the rest of the famine-struck country.

Confirmation that the airport on the southern outskirts of the city had been seized after three days of fighting came from both TV pictures and eyewitness accounts. At least 40 Houthi fighters who had held the airport were killed, but most retreated into the city, preparing to fight a potentially intense street-by-street campaign that could endanger tens of thousands of civilians.

Saudi-led coalition forces stormed the airport after fierce battles broke out between coalition forces and Houthi militants who hold the main port city of Hodeidah, a local resident said.

"They have stormed the airport," said one Yemeni military source.

The Saudi-led coalition's aircraft carried out airstrikes, targeting Houthi fighters at the airport in Yemen's main port city of Hodeidah on June 18 in response to a missile targeting the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan.

The Saudi-led coalition and its proxies are developing their military operation to capture the western Yemeni port city of al-Hudaydah from the Houthis.

This very advance started on June 13 after a series of failed attempts of the coalition-led forces to reach the city along the western Yemeni coast. Over 25,000 of coalition-backed fighters and at least 1,500 UAE troops, backed by a large number of military equipment, including battle tanks, and the Saudi Air Force and Special Operations Forces are involved in the operation.

According to French daily Le Figaro, troops of the French Special Operations Forces are operating alongside UAE troops.

The goal of the first stage of the operation is to isolate the city from the rest of the Houthi-held area. The coalition has also established a naval blockade of the city. However, it failed to carry out a landing operation in the area on June 13 because the Houthis responded with anti-ship missile strikes.

While Saudi and Emirati-led forces managed to take the entrance to the Hodeidah airport in northern Yemen, they’ve so far made little progress in taking heavily fortified buildings inside. This has seen Saudi forces resorting to heavy airstrikes on the area, with locals reporting as many as 20 missile strikes in the area.

Hodeidah is the main port for humanitarian aid entering war-torn Yemen, responsible for feeding 8.4 million people. Saudi-led forces began the invasion of the city last week, but have so far only taken over the outskirts, pounding the city itself with jets and battleships.

As a Saudi and Emirati-led coalition continues launching air raids in the Yemeni port city of Hudaida, nearly 4,500 families have fled their homes in the front line districts amid rising fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Five days into the offensive, residents inside Houthi-held Hudaida pondered an uncertain future as thousands of other civilians were forced to abandon their towns and villages on the city's southern outskirts due to the escalating bombardment.

The complicity of Western governments in the ocean of suffering being wrought in Yemen exposes them as agents of Saudi brutality.

After three years of relentless conflict, it has been estimated that out of a population of 27.4 million, 22.2 million people in Yemen are in need of humanitarian assistance, 17 million are food insecure, 14.8 million lack basic healthcare, 4.5 million children are suffering malnourishment, while 2.9 million people are internally displaced. As for dead and injured, the toll stands at almost 10,000 and 50,000 respectively.

As a result of the conflict, the country is also facing the "largest documented cholera epidemic of modern times." And this epidemic can only have been intensified by the Saudi bombing of a cholera treatment center in the west of the country, causing the French NGO Médecins Sans Frontières to halt their work at the facility.

Alongside their throttlehold over which reporters can visit what parts of Yemen, and thus what story they can tell, Saudi and Emirati investments in public relations, lobbying, think-tanks, and political consultants are shaping the narrative about their war there. Headline writers, pundits, Wikipedia, news correspondents, and even some so-called experts frame the asymmetric conflict as a “proxy war.” Sunnis nations led by Saudi Arabia are battling Shi`a Iran and its regional proxies, the story goes; the world’s worst man-made humanitarian disaster thus appears as un-named collateral damage.

French special forces are present on the ground in Yemen with forces from the United Arab Emirates, French newspaper Le Figaro reported on Saturday, citing two military sources.

The newspaper gave no further information about their activities. The Defence Ministry was not immediately available for comment, but its usual policy is not to comment on special forces’ operations.

A French parliamentary source recently told Reuters French special forces were in Yemen.

Forces from an Arab alliance entered the airport in Yemen’s main port city on Saturday, in the biggest battle of the coalition’s war against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement.

The French Defence Ministry said on Friday that France was studying the possibility of carrying out a mine-sweeping operation to provide access to the port of Hodeidah once the coalition had wrapped up its military operations.

Three US senators have called on the Pentagon to immediately reveal the extent of US military support to the Saudi-led Arab coalition that launched an attack on Hodeidah, a key port city and last humanitarian lifeline in Yemen.
“We call on you to immediately disclose the full extent of the US military role in the Saudi-led war against Yemen’s Houthis, including the use of special operations forces; disclose any role that the Pentagon is currently performing, has been asked to perform, or is considering performing regarding an attack on the port of Hodeida,” says the letter sent to Defense Secretary James Mattis on Friday, and signed by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut)

The United States’ demands regarding reforming the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have failed to be met, and as such Washington is reportedly ready to pull out over what it calls anti-Israel bias and the inclusion of alleged rights abusers.

Diplomats told Reuters that it's merely a matter of time before the US exits the council, which will convene Monday for a three week convention that will last until July 6. One US source who spoke anonymously said that an announcement looks "imminent."

Another US official in Geneva, where the UNHRC will meet June 18, said, "we are still moving ahead with our engagement for the coming session."

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations NIkki Haley speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference in Washington, U.S., March 27, 2017
© REUTERS / JOSHUA ROBERTS
"Blood Is on Your Hands": Nikki Haley Heckled During University Speech (VIDEOS)

A Swedish call at the UN Security Council for an immediate ceasefire in the Yemen port of Hodeidah was derailed during a closed session Friday. The US and Britain both expressed opposition to the measure, designed to prevent Saudi-led forces attacking a port responsible for feeding 8.4 million civilians.

Britain insisted on the meeting being a closed session, meaning specific comments during the hearing, and the reiteration from UN officials of the humanitarian crisis threatening to kill millions, would not be done for the public to see.

US officials did not publicly comment on why they’re opposed to the ceasefire, but likely is a reflection of the Saudis really wanting to attack the city. British Ambassador Karen Pierce said their opposition was made purely based on “the British national interest.”

It’s not clear exactly how preventing food being delivered to Yemeni civilians is in the British national interest.

Early on June 13, the embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Washington, DC tweeted a photo of a fax from MSF’s administrator of communication and liaison in Djibouti. This document is dated June 11, and the Saudi embassy claimed it showed MSF “clearly admit that the unfortunate facility incident was due to their failure to update their coordinates per standard procedures.”

MSF told me this claim is false. The organization clarified that it gave the Saudi coalition the GPS coordinates for its cholera treatment center at least 12 times in writing, and the coalition “acknowledged receipt of these coordinates in writing at least nine times.”

The Saudi-led coalition launched a major assault on Yemen's port city of Hodeidah on Wednesday, killing 250 Iranian-backed Houthi fighters, according to UPI.

The coalition's initial assault on Hodeidah, which the UN has warned could end up killing 250,000 civilians and exacerbate the already terrible humanitarian condition, included several airstrikes and also led to the capture of 140 Houthi fighters, UPI reported.

The Houthis at the same time claimed to have hit and sunk a coalition warship with two missiles, according to Jane's 360. The Saudis and the United Arab Emirates — the two major actors in the coalition — have not commented on the claim.

Almasirah Live, a Houthi media outlet, has broadcasted purported footage of the coalition ship on fire:

A military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched an offensive Wednesday on a key port in Yemen held by rebels, despite international warnings such an assault could be catastrophic.

In the United States, which has supported the coalition, lawmakers in both parties issued stern warnings ahead of the offensive on Hodeida.

A bipartisan quartet of senators, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn) and ranking member Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), sent a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on the eve of the offensive expressing "grave alarm."

Some 300,000 children risk death, injury and starvation as they are trapped in Yemen's main port city which is under assault from Saudi-led Arab states, aid groups said on Wednesday.

The biggest battle in a three-year war, which has already created the world's biggest humanitarian crisis, centers on Hodeidah, the main route for food and aid to reach most Yemenis, 8.4 million of whom are on the verge of famine.

After a handful of statements last week suggesting the US was opposing the planned attack on the vital Yemeni aid port of Hodeidah, officials are now indicating that the US has reversed again, and will actually be participating in the attack.

Pentagon officials say they intend to provide growing amounts of military intelligence, including target lists, for the Saudi-led invasion force in Yemen. They argue that this is going to ultimately reduce the civilian death toll of the attack on the port.

Yet US targeting aid in the past has done little to keep the Saudi strikes on Yemen from regularly killing large numbers of civilians. Even beyond this, the fall of Hodeidah threatens to spark a famine that would kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of others.

The Arab coalition battling Houthi rebels in Yemen has begun an anticipated assault on the port city of Hodeidah, an offensive which diplomatic and humanitarian sources warn could put millions of people in danger.

Residents in the city of 600,000 people said that shelling of Iran-backed Houthi positions in the southern suburbs of Seham and Qazabah began around dawn on Wednesday, and Saudi and UAE ships are now positioned just south of the city. Around 2,000 Emirati and Yemeni government-allied troops are also approaching from the west, in what appears to be a pincer movement attack.

Saudi-owned news channels and later state media citing military sources announced the battle had begun shortly after daybreak, a development later acknowledged by Houthi-run Al Masirah news.

A military coalition formally led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and supported by the United States and Britain, bombed a newly constructed cholera treatment in Yemen on Monday, June 11.

This attack comes after Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, suffered through the worst cholera outbreak in recorded history, with more than 1 million cases reported in 2017 alone.

The cholera treatment center was operated by the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders (known in French as Médecins Sans Frontières, or MSF). It was located in Yemen’s northwestern Hajjah Governorate, an area that has been heavily bombarded by Saudi Arabia for more than 3 years.

MSF said in a statement that the cholera treatment center had markings on the roof that clearly identified it as a healthcare facility. It added that the center has been destroyed and is now completely non-functional.

The Saudi-led coalition is desperate to be able to occupy Hodiedah province, where the main port of Yemen is located, from which all the essentials of life enter Yemen. The blockade has been in force for more than three years, for weakening the Yemeni front.

Presently, 90 percent of food and medicines come to Yemen via Hodiedah, making the port vital lifeline to Sana’a with some other ports under control of occupying forces. Since Saudi Arabia waged a war against Yemen on 27 March 2017, Saudis have take actions to wrest the major port from Ansar Allah forces. Air raids on the area’s infrastructure and Ansarullah positions is common during the three years of war.

The New York Times reports that the United Nations is pulling its staff from the besieged Yemeni port city of Al Hudaydah as a massive assault on the country's only major humanitarian lifeline appears imminent.

UN staff have played a key role in delivering foreign aid through what is now one of the besieged country's only humanitarian access points to the outside world, through which 80% of all humanitarian aid flows.

The NYT details that the UN evacuation comes after "member countries were told that an attack by forces led by the United Arab Emirates was imminent, according to two diplomats briefed on the matter."

The United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Yemen has warned that a military assault on the vital Yemeni port city of Hudaydah by the Saudi regime and its coalition partners may kill 250,000 people.

“A military attack or siege on Hudaydah will impact hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians,” said Lise Grande in a statement released on Friday, pointing to Saudi Arabia’s long-standing threat to launch an attack on Yemen’s only entry gate for much needed basic supplies and humanitarian aid.

“In a prolonged worst case, we fear that as many as 250,000 people may lose everything, even their lives,” added the UN official.

The director of a national security program at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs has registered with the U.S. Department of Justice as an agent of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 28Pages.org is first to report.

In his registration statement, retired U.S. Army Colonel Bill Smullen, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, indicated he has agreed to provide “public relations support” to the Saudi embassy for compensation initially projected at $8,000.

Smullen’s National Security Studies program at Syracuse is billed as “a premier professional development program that offers executive education courses for senior civilian and military leaders who are responsible for the national security interests of their respective organizations.”

The CEO of Russian Railways, the state-backed leader in this industry, announced his company’s intent in participating in the Trans-Arabian Railway during last week’s Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), thus drawing attention to a project that’s been on the drawing board for a few years already but has failed to get off the ground.

Israel has been a nuclear power for decades, though its nuclear arsenal is undeclared and the country has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Estimates of its arsenal vary, with most suggesting that Israel possesses from 100 to 200 nuclear weapons. Israel was aided in the development of its nuclear program by Western powers, particularly France. Much of the Western “help” Israel received, however, was the result of covert thefts of nuclear material from countries such as the United States and Belgium.

While Dor-On, speaking to news outlet Arabi21, did not elaborate on the details of the information being exchanged, he stated that the sharing of this information was likely to be just the beginning of Israeli involvement in a future Saudi nuclear weapons program, which would likely see Israel “take the initiative to develop Saudi Arabia’s effort to acquire nuclear weapons” as a result of “the growing Saudi-Israeli relations.”

As Saudi-backed Yemeni forces continue to approach the key port city of Hodeidah, the lone source of food for millions of people in the rebel-held north, there are reportedly talks ongoing at the UN about avoiding the attack.

Martin Griffiths, the UN mediator for Yemen, says that there are talks ongoing with the rebel Houthis to place the port city directly under UN supervision. This would take the city off the battlefield, but leave it available to be used to import food and medical aid.

Since the Houthis are losing ground around the city, this may be their best bet for avoiding the mass starvation that would result from Hodeidah falling outright to the pro-Saudi forces. Other ports are only used to bring in supplies to the government-held south.

Saudi King Salman has threatened to take military action against neighboring Qatar if the nation follows through with a plan to install an anti-aircraft defense system.

Salman said he would take military action to “eliminate this defense system.”

Saudi Arabia and many of its allies severed ties with Qatar last year, based around a false media report claiming the Qatari Emir wasn’t sufficiently hostile toward Iran. The Saudis have since suggested they’d channel out the entire Qatari border, turning it into an island, and dumping nuclear waste in the area.

Around this ever growing Saudi hostility toward Qatar, the nation made a deal to buy S-400 air defense systems from Russia. Russia says that plans to deliver the missiles have not changed, despite the Saudi threats.

Saudi Arabia gave White House aides jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in large suitcases, according to Ben Rhodes, former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration.

In his memoir The World As It Is, published on Tuesday, Rhodes recounts a trip to Saudi Arabia in June 2009 soon after Barack Obama became president.

He says on arrival he and other US officials were taken to housing units in a compound owned by the monarchy in the desert.

“When I opened the door to my unit, I found a large suitcase,” Rhodes recounts. “Inside were jewels.”

The Israeli government has begun selling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia information on how to develop nuclear weapons, according to a senior official at the Israeli military organization iHLS (Israel’s Homeland Security). Ami Dor-on, a senior nuclear commentator at the organization — which is partially funded by U.S. weapons-giant Raytheon – came forward because of his concern over the emerging nuclear arms race in the region. The cooperation between the two countries in helping the Saudis to develop a nuclear weapons program is just the latest sign of their warming relationship, with Israel recently calling the Saudi crown prince “a partner of Israel.”

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud issued a slew of royal orders on Saturday appointing ministers of culture, Islamic affairs and labor.

In the decrees, carried by the SPA state news agency, the king announced the establishment of a Culture Ministry and named Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saud as its chief.

Russia and the Saudis are now in a position to decide whether oil price comes down or continues its rise, meanwhile Iran if attacked by the US-Saudi-Israeli axis can plunge the world's oil supply into chaos and its financial markets with it

Two assailants have stabbed a Saudi traffic policeman to death in the western city of Ta’if and then moved on to launch an attack on a nearby National Guard facility, media reports say.

Saudi online newspaper Sabq reported on Thursday that the assailants had stolen the policeman’s vehicle and service weapon before entering the military facility and exchanging gunfire with security forces.

One of the attackers fled the scene and the other sustained injuries, the report said.

Saudi Ambassador to Russia Rayed Krimly, in an interview with Sputnik journalist Anastasia Dmitrieva, commented on the Russian Direct Investment Fund, foreign troops in Syria and the upcoming FIFA World Cup.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia arrived in Russia on Wednesday on a first visit by a reigning Saudi monarch in the history of bilateral relations, a Sputnik correspondent reports from Moscow's Vnukovo airport.

King Salman will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on October 5 to discuss a number of issues, including the stabilization of the situation in the Middle East. A Russian-Saudi investment forum will be held before the meeting of the two states' leaders, with more than 200 Russian and Saudi companies expected to attend the event.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will also meet with King Salman on October 6 to discuss joint investment projects.

Well this is going to hurt: Der Spiegel reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has ordered that all government contracts cease being awarded to German companies in what's being interpreted as an aggressive punitive measure after a year of already deteriorating Saudi-German relations and as Germany has expressed its plan to stick by the Iran nuclear deal.

A videotaped interview of an exiled Saudi prince living in Europe who is calling for regime change in his home country went viral this week. Prince Khaled bin Farhan was exiled from Saudi Arabia and given given political asylum in Germany in 2013, where he's not infrequently given interviews exposing the inner workings of the royal family, though he himself is distant in the line of succession.

While we don't expect the West to ever give close US-ally Saudi Arabia the Syria treatment of setting up a government in exile or establishing a "Free Saudi Army" to topple Riyadh, the fascinating interview given this week by the dissident prince included a brazen call for his uncles to take action to depose King Salman and the crown prince and take over the country.

In his first statement since Pompeo's Wednesday speech, Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei set 7 conditions for the European nations if they want Tehran to remain in the agreement.

Khamenei laid out the full list on Twitter on Trump's favorite social media network, remainder of continued on twitter where in a brief tweetstorm, he unveiled the following demands of Europe:

Over the course of 2 years, US violated #JCPOA, several times, while the Europeans remained silent. These 3 European countries should prove that they won’t be as dishonest & untrustworthy as they were during nuclear talks in 2004-2005. Europe needs to compensate for it:
The US has violated Resolution 2231. Europe must issue a resolution against US’s violation [of it].
Europe must guarantee it will not raise the issue of the Islamic Republic's missiles and regional affairs.

One year ago Trump pledged allegiance to the Wahhabi Orb. The one Orb that rules them all:

This swearing of an oath to the Wahhabi death star was part of the opening of the potemkinesque "Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology" in Riyadh.
...
The Saudis arranged the whole theater to flatter Trump into fighting Iran for them. They hope to have bought Washington's obedience.

Bin Salman has not been seen in the public since April 21 attack on his palace in Riyadh which has raised speculations about his injury and death.

Yousef al-Hazeri, an Arab social media activist, wrote in his twitter account that "if bin Salman's death is true, it means that Trump has this time used up the milking cow just like a traveling shampoo and threw it into the sinkhole".

A dissident Saudi prince has called on his uncles to depose King Salman and take over the country.

Prince Khaled bin Farhan made the appeal to Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz and Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, saying that the damage being done to the Saudi royal family and the kingdom by Salman’s “irrational, erratic and stupid” rule had gone beyond the point of no-return.

In an interview with Middle East Eye, Prince Khaled, who was given political asylum in Germany in 2013, said that if Ahmed and Muqrin were to unite ranks then “99 percent of the members of the royal family, the security services and the army would stand behind them”.

The US has cleared the sale of 3,200 bombs valued at about $45 million, including powerful bunker busters, to Bahrain. The Persian Gulf monarchy is hosting the US 5th Fleet and has been involved in the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen.
The order would consist of 1,500 Mark-82 general purpose bombs; 600 Mark-83 bombs; 600 Mark-84 bombs; and 500 BLU-109 “bunker busters,” bombs armed with special warheads designed to penetrate hardened targets, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced on Friday.

The ordnance is intended for Bahrain’s US-made F-16 combat jets, and would come directly from US government stocks. Bahrain “will use these munitions as a deterrent to regional threats, strengthen its homeland defense, and execute counter-terrorism operations,” the agency said, as well as “operate with US-led and US-supported coalition operations.”

Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced from Yemen’s coastal province of Hodeidah, as pro-Saudi forces invaded the area with an eye toward eventually seizing the last port held by Shi’ite Houthi forces.

The civilians say they were facing terrifying mortar attacks, with rockets flying overhead and landmines ripping people to shreds. Amnesty International is reporting that the worst is yet to come, however, for the entire nation, as this offensive worsens.

That’s because as the last Houthi port, Hodeidah is the lone source of humanitarian aid for roughly half of the country. That makes it a “strategic target,” but the fall of the port also means that half of the country, the half already on the brink of starvation and recovering from a record large cholera epidemic, will be under even tighter siege.

The apparent disappearance of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from the public eye has led several Iranian media outlets to wonder if one of the most powerful men in the kingdom might’ve been killed during an attempted coup last month.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was allegedly hit by two bullets during the April 21 attack on the royal palace in Riyadh and may actually be dead as he has not appeared in public since the incident, Kayhan newspaper reports citing "a secret service report sent to the senior officials of an unnamed Arab state."

As Press TV points out, no new photo or video of bin Salman has been released by Saudi authorities since that day, and the prince "was not even seen on camera when new US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made his maiden visit to Riyadh in late April."

Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih on Thursday called peers from Russia, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, India and South Korea to discuss volatility in the oil market.

"To coordinate global action to ease oil market anxiety, I telephoned a number of my Ministerial counterparts today. Energy Ministers contacted recently include those from UAE, USA, Russia, India and Korea," he tweeted.

SAUDI ARABIA has called a meeting of the Arab League to discuss Donald Trump’s “illegal decision” to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Arab League have called the embassy move 'illegal'
Saudi Arabia has requested the meeting of foreign ministers to discuss the Israel Palestine crisis, according to Egypt’s state news agency.

An inside source said that the meeting will “confront the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people” following the opening of the new U.S embassy in Jerusalem.

More than 60 people were killed in protests near the Gaza-Israel border when the embassy opened on Monday.

Pro-Saudi forces have announced Monday that the “large-scale military operations” against the northern port city of Hodeidah have begun, and that forces intend to continue advancing north until “victory” is achieved.

Hodeidah is the lone seaport under the control of the Shi’ite Houthi movement, and by extension is the only port through which humanitarian aid can flow for the entire northern half of the country. A vital humanitarian location, which to pro-Saudi forces is a vital military target.

Successfully conquering Hodeidah would, after all, mean the Houthi territory, including the capital city and many millions of people, would have no access to food or medical aid. This would be an opportunity for the Saudi invading force to really crack down on them.

In reaching this decision, Trump ignored the advice – make that, pleas – of traditional U.S. allies such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Instead, the president chose to heed the counsel of his new friends Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Viewed from this perspective, May 8, 2018 marks the inauguration of a Saudi-American-Israeli axis and a major realignment of U.S. strategic relationships.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni army took control of the town of al-Bareh, west of Taiz, earlier this week. The fall of this town is less important than what comes next, as the army draws ever closer to the key port city of Hodeidah.

Hodeidah is the lone seaport under the control of the Shi’ite Houthi movement, and by extension is the only port through which humanitarian aid can flow for the entire northern half of the country. A vital humanitarian location, which to pro-Saudi forces is a vital military target.

Successfully conquering Hodeidah would, after all, mean the Houthi territory, including the capital city and many millions of people, would have no access to food or medical aid. This would be an opportunity for the Saudi invading force to really crack down on them.

They envision it forcing a surrender, but it may also could bring millions of malnourished people into outright starvation.

Last month, warplanes belonging to the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen repeatedly bombed a wedding party in the northern part of the country, killing more than 20 people, including the bride, and injuring dozens of others. In the days that followed, local media published a photograph of a bomb fragment with a serial number tying it to the U.S.-based weapons manufacturer Raytheon.
Now the State Department is taking preliminary steps toward a massive, multibillion-dollar sale of similar weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, three congressional aides, a State Department official, and two other people familiar with the sales told The Intercept.

The State Department has yet to announce the exact details and dollar value of the package, but it is said to include tens of thousands of precision-guided munitions from Raytheon, the same company that was involved in producing the weapons used in last month’s strike.

Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi movement said it fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at the Saudi capital Wednesday - an attack Saudi authorities said they intercepted in the skies over the city.

The assault comes a day after Saudi Arabia's top ally the United States pulled out of an international deal with Iran over its disputed nuclear program and could signal an uptick in tensions between regional rivals Riyadh and Tehran.

The Houthis said the missiles were launched at economic targets in Riyadh, the group's al-Masirah TV reported. At least four blasts were heard in the city center, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

SAUDI Arabia's air defence forces have intercepted two missiles flying above the country's capital Riyadh on Wednesday just weeks after the last attack launched against the Saudis by Yemenite rebels, state media reported.

The death toll following Saudi coalition airstrikes targeting the presidential in the densely populated neighborhood of Al-Tahrir in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, has risen to more than 90 people, including schoolchildren, according to a statement to MintPress by an official from Yemen’s Ministry of Health. Local hospitals received 86 injuries, but rescuers are still struggling to retrieve bodies from the rubble, so the number of victims could rise.
The destruction in Tahrir, the second largest residential and commercial area in Sana`a, was extensive. Two airstrikes hit the building, located near a hotel, a bank and several shops, and not far from the central bank, which was bustling with employees at that time.

The principal of the Gamal Abdel Nasser School, close to the presidential compound, told MintPress that a number of students sustained injuries, adding that the huge blasts threw students into a sudden panic, prompting school authorities to suspend ongoing exams.

While top American officials and media outlets praise Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a “revolutionary,” 12 people are beheaded per month. Professor Asad AbuKhalil says the Saudi monarchy “has become far more repressive than it has ever been.”

Air raids have targeted the presidential office in Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa, killing at least six people and wounding 30 others, according to medical sources.

Witnesses said fighter jets bombed Sanaa several times at midday on Monday, with rebel-controlled Al-Masirah television blaming the Saudi-led coalition for the raid.

While Israel has been the barking dog pushing hostilities against Iran, it is the Saudis that are truly most threatened by Iran’s return to the global economy. They are as much, if not a bigger, agitator for tearing up the Iran Nuclear Deal as Israel has been.

A report earlier this week from the International Monetary Fund argued that Saudi Arabia still needs oil trading at $88 per barrel to balance its budget and pull off the structural reforms the country needs.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 plan, which has the usual suspects in Washington salivating at the prospect of leaching off of, will require a complete make-over of Saudi society. It will likely cost trillions. And the Saudis still have a big budget deficit.

It is set to shrink to a more manageable 7% of GDP this year while expanding government spending by more than 5%.

Over 2,000 people have been held for more than six months without trial, one person for over a decade

The Houthi rebels in Yemen, officially known as Ansurallah, have vowed to intensify rocket attacks on Saudi Arabia’s critical oil infrastructure, warning that they are now manufacturing their own ballistic missiles to achieve those aims, the Financial Times reports.

The threat comes at a time when Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia have begun to increase. Just this Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s air defense system intercepted four ballistic missiles over the southwestern region of Jizan. The debris of those missiles reportedly killed one person. Just a week prior, two other missiles were launched at the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Aramco) facilities on the Red Sea.

A batch of US special elite forces is militarily supporting the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, according to the Independent newspaper. The new finding contradicts the Pentagon’s previously clarified role in Yemen limited to “refuelling and logistics” against the Iranian-aligned Houthi group.

Twelve Green Beret soldiers were deployed in December last year, the paper reported, following Houthi rocket fire towards Riyadh. Mohammad Bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and principle architect of the Yemen war, called on the US to support the fight.

According to the New York Times, US forces are helping to destroy Houthi training camps and missiles to avert the risk of attack within Saudi Arabia. The Berets are also training Saudi forces to defend the Kingdom’s southern border with Yemen more effectively.

U.S. military involvement in Yemen's civil war appears to be larger than originally thought.

A team of about a dozen Army Green Berets was sent to the country's border with Saudi Arabia in December, to aid the Saudi-led forces in their fight against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, according to the New York Times.

Yemen has been in political disarray since 2015, when the Iranian-backed Houthis overthrew the president and took control of most of the western part of the country, including the capital, Sana'a.

Since then, a Saudi-led coalition has been locked in conflict with the rebels, as they work to reinstate President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

According to U.S. officials and European diplomats interviewed by the Times, Army Green Berets have been aiding the Saudis in locating and destroying caches of ballistic missiles and launch sites that the Houthis have been using to attack Riyadh and other Saudi cities.

After the US-backed Saudi coalition massacred dozens of civilians at a wedding party, journalist Ahmad Algohbary says he and other Yemenis cannot live a normal life without fear

At least eight civilians, including women and children, have been killed in Saudi Arabia’s multiple airstrikes across war-torn Yemen during the past 24 hours.

Yemen's official Saba news agency, citing a military source, reported on Sunday that seven of the victims were women and children. The airstrikes targeted various areas across Sana’a, Hajjah and Sa’ada provinces. The report added that at least 10 other civilians sustained injuries.

In one of the deadliest air raids against Yemeni people, Saudi warplanes last Sunday hit a wedding ceremony in Hajjah several times, killing almost 50 people and wounding 55 more. Saudi jets also carried out raids on ambulances transporting the casualties to local hospitals.

The Arabic-language al-Akhbar newspaper released the text of a letter wrote by Kawar to the UAE diplomats on November 22, 2017, in which she elaborated on her meeting with Mike Bell, a retired US Army colonel who served in the Iraq war and is now Trump's top Middle East adviser on the National Security Council.

Quoting Bell, Kawar wrote, "Abdolrahman al-Sadhan, a senior advisor to Mohammed bin Salman (the Saudi crown prince), has said that it is better to spread the proxy wars against Iran in Yemen to Lebanon."

The Lebanese newspaper had also earlier this week disclosed a new document showing that the UAE foreign ministry had rendered all-out financial support for Hezbollah's adversaries in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Lebanon.

The Saudi authorities said they had arrested 994,000 people between 18 April to 22 April, Saudi Okaz newspaper reported.

According to the paper, 14,467 people were stopped by the security agencies and border security forces regarding issues related violations of residency and labour regulations and attempted infiltration across the border into the kingdom.

The paper said 58 percent of those arrested were Yemenis, 39 percents were Ethiopians and 3 percent from other nationalities.

Despite apparent wide-ranging reforms in Saudi Arabia, the kingdom is certainly sticking to its death-penalty tradition, decapitating 48 criminals this year alone.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman has been lauded by Western media as the ‘great reformer,’ he’s even been given the catchy, friendly acronym –- MbS. Bin Salman has been praised for finally allowing women to drive, enter sports stadia and opening the country’s first cinemas in a generation.

Bin Salman has been busy too, he has recently been on a worldwide charm offensive, with millions of dollars being spent on an army of PR firms, selling the image of Saudi Arabia as a modern country looking to reform, and diversify the country's oil-dependent economy.

The Qatari foreign minister dismissed a Saudi ultimatum that Qatar must send troops to Syria or face the loss of US support and have its government fall, stating that it “was not worthy of a response.”
The official commented on the remarks of Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir in an interview with France 24 TV on Thursday.

“This statement [by the Saudi Foreign Ministry] is not worthy of an answer. Qatar refutes the brainwashing of the public opinion in the Arab world in such a way,” Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Al-Thani said. Riyadh would not be able to manipulate public opinion with such statements since “Arab consciousness is much greater than what they imagine,” he added.