With Saudi Arabia forever escalating their war in Yemen, the growing calls by human rights groups to stop selling them arms with which to commit war crimes are struggling to compete with the vast sums of money the Saudis are offering for those arms.

Germany is the latest to renege on promises to ban weapons sales for use in the Yemen War, announcing Wednesday that the Economy Minister has greenlit a new round of artillery systems for sale to the Saudis.

The systems are designed for precise counterattack, and are clearly being bought explicitly to use in Yemen. Yet the Merkel government, as part of its coalition deal, announced a full export ban to “any sides fighting in Yemen,” including the Saudis.

The Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism began as a result of Western countries asking Riyadh to help counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told the Washington Post.

Speaking to the paper, bin Salman said that Saudi Arabia's Western allies urged the country to invest in mosques and madrassas overseas during the Cold War, in an effort to prevent encroachment in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.

Last month, a CNN investigation found remnants of a US-made bomb at the scene of an airstrike that left dozens of schoolboys dead. Now, an independent Yemen-based human rights group called Mwatana has given CNN exclusive access to a trove of documents that show fragments of US-manufactured bombs at the scene of a string of other incidents since 2015, when the civil war began. In each of those cases, civilians were either killed or put at risk.

Mwatana, which documents violations by all parties in Yemen’s conflict, used its network of trained field researchers to photograph evidence at the scene of strikes. The group consulted weapons experts to identify the weapons used from serial numbers found on the fragments. Mwatana was recognized last month with an award by US body Human Rights First.

Saudi Arabia has intensified its invasion of Yemen as the United Nations special envoy for the violence-scarred country visits the capital Sana’a in an attempt to cobble together a conflict resolution mechanism.

On Sunday, Saudi warplanes killed seven civilians, including women and children, in Bayda, attacking the central Yemeni province’s town of Radman. Eight others were also wounded in the attack.

Earlier in the day, two people lost their lives in a missile attack on the northern province of Sa’ada, and four more died in airstrikes on the southwestern province of al-Hudaydah.

In the months leading up to the 25th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, the U.S. has colluded with Israel in a string of policies and decisions that completely undermine the legitimacy of the agreement, not to mention Palestinian claims to justice, freedom and ultimately peace. As these policies unfold, one cannot help recalling the words of the great Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, who said that talking with the Israelis is “a conversation between the sword and the neck.”

In a remote pocket of northern Yemen, many families with starving children have nothing to eat but the leaves of a local vine, boiled into a sour, acidic green paste. International aid agencies have been caught off guard by the extent of the suffering there as parents and children waste away.

The main health center in Aslam district was flooded with dozens of emaciated children during a recent visit by the Associated Press.

Excruciatingly thin toddlers, eyes bulging, sat in a plastic washtub used in a make-shift scale as nurses weighed them one by one. Their papery skin was stretched tight over pencil-like limbs and knobby knees. Nurses measured their forearms, just a few centimeters in diameter, marking the worst stages of malnutrition.

At least 20 children are known to have died of starvation already this year, more than three years into the country’s ruinous civil war, in the province that includes the district.

Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians, one of them an 11-year-old boy, and wounded at least 248 others taking part on Friday in weekly protests at the fortified Gaza Strip border, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military said it used force necessary to repel 13,000 Palestinians who massed at several points at the fence.

Some hurled rocks, fire-bombs and grenades at troops under cover of smoke from burning tyres, injuring a soldier, and nine Palestinians briefly crossed into Israel, the military said.

Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinians, one of them an 11-year-old boy, and wounded at least 248 others taking part on Friday in weekly protests at the fortified Gaza Strip border, Palestinian medical officials said.

The Israeli military said it used force necessary to repel 13,000 Palestinians who massed at several points at the fence.

Some hurled rocks, fire-bombs and grenades at troops under cover of smoke from burning tyres, injuring a soldier, and nine Palestinians briefly crossed into Israel, the military said.

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have fired a domestically-designed and -developed ballistic missile at a strategic economic target in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Jizan in retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s devastating military aggression against their impoverished country.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the short-range Badr-1 missile struck an oil refinery of the Saudi Arabian national petroleum and natural gas company, Aramco, in the region, located 967 kilometers southwest of the capital Riyadh, with great precision, on Friday evening.

The Saudi-led coalition has promised to compensate the victims of strikes in Yemen that left dozens of civilians dead, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said during a press briefing on Thursday.

"They have also pledged to compensate the victims of those strikes that tragically did kill civilians," Nauert told reporters.

The Saudi attack on Yemen has forced thousands of people to flee their homes in the strategic port city of Hudaydah amid an acute lack of basic needs, including food, clothing and water.

Now there are rumors circulating that Mattis will step down in the months ahead. If this happens, who will replace him?

Arkansas senator Cotton (or Graham), Bolton, and Sec. State Pompeo would be an almost ideal triad for Israel and the neocons who faithfully do the apartheid state’s bidding in Congress.

For Cotton, it’s all about Israel and the Likudniks. He received $700,000 for his Senate campaign from the Emergency Committee for Israel.

“During the 2014 Israeli invasion of Gaza, when over 500 Palestinian were killed, Cotton called the Israeli defense force ‘the most moral, humanitarian fighting force in the world.’ In December he said Congress should consider supplying Israel with B-52s and so-called ‘bunker-buster’ bombs for a possible strike against Iran,” Medea Benjamin and Nalini Ramachandran wrote back in March, 2015.

Saudi-backed Yemeni forces have advanced closer to the northern port city of Hodeidah, the main aid port for the northern half of the country. The port is controlled by the Shi’ite Houthi movement, and the Saudi-led forces intend to seize it.

For now, the advancing forces have seized a pair of main roads leading into the city, effectively cutting off the Houthis’ supply line into the city. This also limits the ability of transporting humanitarian aid out of the city.

As the fight over the city drags on, this is increasingly concerning. Hodeidah is the sole source of food for millions in northern Yemen, and the offensive means very little aid is getting out. If the city falls entirely, the aid is likely to stop.

This is why the UN has been pushing for a deal to stop the fighting over Hodeidah. The UN offered to take control of the city just to keep aid flowing, though the pro-Saudi side has rejected the proposal, saying they want the Houthis to unconditionally surrender.

The advisory also warns military activities linked to the bloody conflict in Syria have been ramped across Iran's airspace.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington are running high following Donald Trump’s controversial decision to pull out of the landmark Iran nuclear deal re-introduce economic sanctions last month.

Flight Service Bureau, which provides safety information on airspace to airlines, said "without seeming alarmist", the deteriorating relationship between the US and Iran must be taken into account when planning flights in Iran's airspace.

Just as the U.S. in typical fashion continues lecturing countries like Syria, Russia, and Iran over severe human rights violations, including allegations of everything from launching barrel bomb strikes on civilian areas in Idlib to chemical weapons attacks to sensational spy poisoning ops in the U.K., the Saudi-US coalition in Yemen has attacked another bus full of children and civilians in Yemen.

On Wednesday multiple Yemeni journalists reporting from on the ground confirmed a new airstrike resulting in mass civilian casualties, this time a Saudi-US coalition strike scored a direct hit on a bus station in besieged Hodeidah City.

The strike occurred the same day Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced they've certified the legality of US assistance to the coalition in Yemen before Congress.

Is Trump ready to order U.S. action against Russian and Syrian forces if Assad gives his army the green light to take Idlib? For the bombing of Idlib has already begun.

What makes this more than an academic exercise is that Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at a meeting in Tehran last Friday, told President Erdogan of Turkey that the reconquest of Idlib is going forward.

Erdogan fears that the Syrian army’s recapture of Idlib would send hundreds of thousands more refugees streaming to his border.

Turkey already hosts millions of refugees from Syria’s civil war.

Yet the massing of the Syrian army near Idlib and the Russian and Syrian bombing now begun suggest that the Assad-Putin-Rouhani coalition has decided to accept the risk of a clash with the Americans in order to bring an end to the rebellion. If so, this puts the ball in America’s court.

Update: Trump's national security advisor John Bolton indicated during a speech on Monday that the United States, Britain, and France have agreed that another use of chemical weapons by Syria would be taken "very seriously" and will require a much "stronger" and harsher response.

Dion Nissenbaum
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@DionNissenbaum

Trump’s NSC head John Bolton warns Syria that US, France and Britain will hit Assad harder than last two times if he uses chemical weapons in looming battle for last major rebel stronghold in Idlib.

His remarks came during what's being described as his first major speech since joining the Trump administration at an event hosted by the conservative Federalist Society at a Washington, D.C., hotel.

Meanwhile Turkey has also weighed in regarding the ongoing Russian and Syrian allied assault on Al Qaeda-held Idlib, which began days ago when Russia initiated a bombing campaign ahead of an imminent and massive Syrian Army ground offensive.

This month, the US Navy is conducting exercises it claims will guarantee freedom of movement through Persian Gulf and Red Sea waterways, as Iran threatens to obstruct shopping through key maritime positions.

US 5th Fleet Theater Counter Mine and Maritime Security Exercise Commander Scott A. Stearney recently told reporters in Manama that the exercises, which involve both regional and global allies, "illustrate that the US and our partners stand ready to ensure the freedom of navigation and free flow of commerce wherever international law allows," Bloomberg reported Sunday.

According to Stearney, US allies need to be ready to "address anything that threatens our interest or our [US] ships," adding that Iran's activities in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea areas are "promoting instability."

Spain’s defense ministry has canceled the delivery of laser-guided bombs to the Saudi-Arabian government, noting that Riyadh’s war in Yemen has seen some 10,000 killed and an estimated 5 million uprooted.

Yemen is engulfed in a war between the government headed by exiled President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi political opposition movement.

Clashes and air strikes have left 84 people dead around Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah since the collapse of United Nations-brokered peace talks, hospital sources have said.

The sources in Hodeidah province, which is controlled by Houthi rebels, said on Sunday that 11 soldiers and 73 rebels had been killed since the talks were abandoned on Saturday.

Dozens of rebels and at least 17 soldiers had also been wounded.

Attempted peace talks between Yemen's Saudi-backed government and the Houthis, who are linked to Iran, collapsed on Sunday, sparking fears of an escalation in the country's conflict.

The rebels refused to leave Yemen for the talks in Geneva, saying the UN had not met their demands - including a plane to transport their wounded to nearby Oman and a guarantee their delegation would be allowed to return to the capital Sanaa.

A delegation from Yemen’s former government has left UN-brokered talks in Geneva after representatives of the Houthi movement were prevented by Saudi Arabia from attending the negotiations.

"The government delegation is leaving today," said an official from the Saudi-backed team on Saturday, referring to the former Yemeni administration. "There are no expectations the Houthis are coming," he added.

UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths told a news conference that the Houthis were “keen” to get to Geneva.

"They would have liked to get here. We didn't make conditions sufficiently correct to get them here," he said.

Ansarullah accused the Saudis of planning to strand the delegation in Djibouti, where their plane was to make a stop en route to Geneva.

Signs of a potential rift within the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia were apparent this week following comments by a Saudi prince that the horrific violence wrought on the people of Yemen should be blamed on the “king and his heir apparent,” a reference to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, often referred to by the initials MBS.

In videotaped footage posted online, the high-ranking Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz al-Saud – one of the last of the sons of founding monarch, Ibn Saud – can be heard responding to protesters in London with rare critical comments that hint at a broader disunity in the ranks of Saudi royals.

In his comments, which were transcribed by Qatari-owned, U.K.-based news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, the 73-year-old prince said:

Washington and its allies pursue their geopolitical interests under the guise of humanitarian concerns as they apparently try to prevent the destruction of the last terrorist enclave in Syria, the Russian envoy to the UN said.
The US and its allies have done virtually nothing to contribute to the real peace process in Idlib, the Russian ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia said, adding that the US particularly did not deliver on its promise to separate the “moderate opposition” groups from the terrorist organizations.

“Instead, [they] are hatching yet another aggressive plan, which includes false flag attacks involving the use of chemical weapons,” the envoy said.

The Western states apparently “go out of their way to prevent the fall of the last major terrorist stronghold in Syria,” Nebenzia said, adding that such actions serve some narrow geopolitical interests rather than the declared need to protect civilians.

An alleged Islamic State commander who is accused of planning to blow up a plane last year is being held by American forces at a secret military base in Iraq.

As the alleged ringleader of the plot, Tarek Khayat, is accused of conspiring with his three Lebanese-Australian brothers to blow up an Etihad Airways flight as it left Sydney on July 15 last year.

News Corp has investigated into the whereabouts of Khayat, whose family gave him up following their arrests in Australia.

The investigation found that the alleged ringleader has been secretly held in isolation by American military forces at an unnamed base.

Since being there, they have interrogated him in regards to his role as a commander of an Islamic State unit that plotted attacks in the west.

News Corp claim that Khayat has been intensely interrogated by the soldiers, and has since lost a leg, is suffering from lung cancer, and has given up names of foreign fighters and Islamic State members.

For the first time ever, U.S. Marine Corps F-35Bs Joint Strike Fighters are on an operational deployment in the Gulf of Aden, bringing them the closest they've ever been to conflict zones in Iraq and Syria, Yemen, and Somalia. The stealthy jets and their pilots set to join thousands of other U.S. Navy sailors and Marines for a two-week training exercise while they're in the region, but there's still no indication they are headed for actual combat, at least not yet.

The U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday it was imposing sanctions on four people and five entities it said facilitated petroleum shipments and financing to the Syrian government.

It said in a statement the sanctions targeted Muhammad al-Qatirji and his trucking company, which it said facilitated fuel trade between the Syrian government and Islamic State militants.

Qatirji has close relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and has worked directly with Islamic State, which has been driven out of much of the Syrian territory it once controlled, to provide it oil products, the statement said.

Also targeted by sanctions was a fuel-procurement network that operates in Syria, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates to secure deliveries to Syria, the statement said.

While most of the Syrian War is centered at this point around the Idlib Province, the last major rebel bastion, there is also interest in mopping up some of the smaller rebel positions along the Jordan border, especially where ISIS and al-Qaeda are concerned.

This is a raising a dangerous risk of a confrontation between the US and Russia, because Russia and Syria are very keen to chase some of the Islamists off the border in the near future, and Russia has informed them some of these Islamists are relatively close to US military positions in the area.

The US has long been fine with Islamists on the Jordan border, and is warning Russia against taking any action against them, saying the US would view it as a “challenge” and that they would not hesitate to respond militarily if there is any move into the area.

Driving the extremists out of Syria’s Idlib province should be the primary goal at this stage of the Syrian peace process, Russian President Vladimir Putin said following a meeting with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts.
The Russian leader once again said that Moscow has “irrefutable” evidence that terrorist groups entrenched in the militant-controlled province are seeking to stage false flag attacks using chemical weapons.

“Our common absolute priority lies in the total elimination of terrorists in Syria,” Putin said, adding that Russian forces had recently helped to liberate the southwestern part of the war-torn country and confirming that Idlib province has become the primary target now. “The presence [of militants] poses a direct threat to the … civilians in the whole region,” the president warned.

Yemen’s Houthi movement said on Wednesday that its delegation was prevented from flying to Geneva to attend United Nations-sponsored peace talks, according to a report by the group’s al-Masirah TV. It said the UN could not secure required authorizations from the Saudi-led coalition which controls Yemen’s airspace, Reuters said.

Jordan yesterday rejected and condemned the alleged US plan for a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, saying it was not a matter up for discussion.

Spokeswoman for the Jordanian government, Jumana Ghneimat, said: “A confederation between Jordan and Palestine is not open for discussion. Jordan’s position is firm and clear regarding the Palestinian issue—a two-state solution and the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders,” Ynet reported.

New federal procurement documents unearthed and reported by TYT show that the US Air Force is planning to train Saudi pilots on US soil, which would mark the first time since the US-Saudi coalition's bombing campaign began three years ago.

The government documents show the Air Force is seeking private contractors to train Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF) personnel to be “conducted in the U.S. at contractor’s facility.” The solicitation deadline is listed for Sept. 24, which suggests the program will move forward at rapid pace, but doesn't indicate when the training will begin.

According to TYT Investigates, it appears the Pentagon is trying to belatedly show it's "taking action" in response to increased international publicity and humanitarian outcry in response to recent atrocities of its Saudi partners:

Here are before-and-after pictures

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has threatened to target women and children in Yemen irrespective of international criticism that the Saudi-led alliance attacking Yemen is targeting civilian facilities and critical infrastructure in the conflict-plagued Arab country.

Yemeni forces, backed by allied fighters from Popular Committees, have reportedly launched an airstrike against a strategic economic target in the United Arab Emirates in retaliation for the Riyadh regime’s devastating military aggression against their impoverished homeland.

A Yemeni military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Yemeni soldiers and their allies attacked Dubai International Airport using a domestically-built long-endurance Sammad-3 (Invincible-3) unmanned aerial vehicle on Monday evening.

On July 26, Yemeni army forces and Popular Committees fighters targeted Abu Dhabi International Airport in the UAE, using the same type of combat drone.

Heavy airstrikes struck Houthi targets near the Sanaa International Airport and an airbase near Yemen's capital, the Yemeni national military website reported on Monday evening.

According to social media reports, more than 10 strikes were conducted against the al-Dailami air base in Sanaa. Houthi sources have indicated that the attack is in response to their drone attack on the Dubai airport, an incident which the United Arab Emirates denied on Monday ever happened.

Per Reuters, al-Masirah TV reported that the Saudi-led coalition had struck the Yemeni airport and air base multiple times.

FRN has been made aware that Iranian Revolutionary Guards Chief, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, just hours ago declared that Iran has fully liberated the Gulf and Strait of Hormuz from foreign and hostile subjugation. Iran had been conducting ‘drills’ in the area, beginning in mid-June, and supported by the Chinese Navy, when the drill went ‘live’.

This was a confirmation of the statement by Alireza Tangsiri, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s navy chief, saying the same. Iran has confirmed that any number of friendly and neutral states will continue to have full commercial access to the strategic water-way. China has confirmed its support for today’s major move on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Jordanian lawmakers say they are fiercely opposed to the appointment of a new ambassador to Israel, demanding that the peace treaty with Tel Aviv should be scrapped.

Ghassan Majali is expected to replace the incumbent Ambassador to Israel Walid Obeidat, who is set to conclude his tenure after more than five years.

Lawmakers say if Jordan decides to appoint an ambassador to Israel, it should change the nature of its position.

Saudi warplanes carried out an airstrike against the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah on Thursday, hitting a camp for internally displaced people, and killed at least 31 civilians. The slain included 22 children. 79 civilians were wounded, again overwhelmingly children.

According to reporters, multiple attacks took place against the camp. The initial strike sent children scrambling for an evacuation bus, then a subsequent strike hit the bus itself.

Saudi coalition officials claimed the Houthis, who are in control of the city, attacked the camp themselves. This is not possible, of course, because the Houthis don’t have any warplanes in the first place.

This marks the second major incident of the Saudi-led coalition killing large numbers of children in Yemen in recent weeks, both of the attacks involving attacking a bus. The previous attack, in Saada, killed 51 civilians, 42 of them children.

Dozens of members of the same extended family trying to flee air strikes in Hodeidah were killed on Thursday when their vehicle was targeted by a purported Saudi strike, according to a health official.

The deaths of 27 civilians, mostly children, followed an earlier strike on Wednesday night targeting a residential neighbourhood in al-Duraihimi district in the coastal city, killing four people and wounding others.

The district has been under siege from Saudi- and UAE-backed forces loyal to President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi. Battles have raged in and around Hodeidah for weeks as pro-government fighters try to recapture the strategic port city from Houthi rebels. Civilians have been trapped in the city by the fighting.

On Thursday morning, relatives of the victims of Wednesday’s air strike decided to flee the area, which has seen intense fighting.

Fast forward to the present when tragedy struck. That’s the middle photo. On August 9th, the monstrous, blood-drenched House of Saud bombed a school bus full of children in Dahyan as it passed through a market back to summer camp where Yemeni youths were learning and memorizing the Holy Qur’an. At least 51 children–most of them under 10–were slaughtered and more than 79 others were wounded in the massacre carried out by the Saudi “royals” with US-ZOG-provided armaments.

Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-CT) amendment to withdraw all funding for the US involvement in the war in Yemen was blocked by Senate leadership on Wednesday, preventing it from getting a vote for inclusion in the 2019 Defense Appropriations Act.

There was language aiming to limit US involvement in Yemen in the 2019 NDAA, but President Trump’s signing statement indicated that he doesn’t intend to comply with that. This meant using control over the funding, through the appropriations act, was the next real chance to require compliance.

Senate leaders complaining they felt that the appropriations act was too important to pass to allow it to be cluttered by amendments that limit where the war funding included in it goes. This means, barring another bid for a War Powers Act challenge, the unauthorized US involvement in the war will continue.

Capital Group, the company that employs Theresa May’s husband, owns a large number of shares in the company that produced a bomb which killed 40 Yemeni children in a Saudi Arabian attack on a school bus.

A Saudi military jet fired a laser-guided missile at a stationary school bus on August 9. A total of 51 people were killed, including 40 children aged between six and 11. Some 79 others were injured, including 56 children.

With the death toll in the tens of thousands, millions displaced and on the brink of famine, one would think the war in Yemen should be on every front page. It’s not, and here are just some of the reasons why that’s wrong.
The ongoing conflict, nominally a civil war started by Houthi rebels who ousted the government, saw the Saudi-led, Western-backed coalition of Arab nations intervene in the very first days. With massive civilian casualties and a humanitarian blockade, the war has now become a catastrophe with millions of victims.

Recently signed by President Trump, the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) sought to place limits on US involvement in the Yemen War, and mandated new reports to Congress regarding involvement. President Trump said in his signing statement he won’t honor those limits, arguing that the war limits violate his role as commander in chief, and the reports put an undue burden on the Pentagon.

This week, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is taking another crack at defunding the war, with an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act of 2019, which is coming up for debate in the Senate. This amendment withdraws all funding, prohibiting the Pentagon from spending any money on the Yemen War.

This is the only realistic recourse Congress has to President Trump’s refusal to abide by NDAA limitations, The power of the purse allows Congress to defund conflicts, and Sen. Murphy says it is particularly vital in this case, because the war is unconstitutional and never authorized by Congress.

Moments later every single one of these kids were killed, vaporized by a Saudi fired missile.

This atrocity took place on 9 August, leaving 51 dead, 40 of whom were children, with most victims under the age of 10, while another 77 were seriously injured, according to the International Red Cross.

The US Department of Defense has tried to downplay the United States role in what must surely constitute a war crime and/or a crime against humanity by either arguing it’s still investigating the matter or by disingenuously minimizing its involvement.

“We may never know if the munition [used] was one that the US sold to them,” Army Maj. Josh Jacques, a spokesperson for US Central Command, told Vox. “We don’t have a lot of people on the ground.”

Well, we do know who sold Saudi Arabia the missile, and there are plenty of Yemeni journalists and international aid agencies in Yemen “on the ground.”

Tel Aviv is apparently seeking to team up with the Sunni Arab countries in the Middle East to crackdown on Iran. Speaking to Sputnik, Russian and Israeli analysts have shared their views on the possibility of Israel's admission to an "Arab NATO."

On August 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dropped a hint that Israel may join an anti-Iranian Arab coalition in the event Tehran blocks the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

"If Iran tries to block the Bab al-Mandab, I am convinced that it will find itself facing a determined international coalition to prevent this. This coalition would also include the state of Israel and all its arms," the Israeli prime minister stated.

Soon after a Saudi-led coalition strike on a bus killed 40 children on August 9, a CENTCOM spokesperson stated to Vox, “We may never know if the munition [used] was one that the U.S. sold to them.” This feigned ignorance is particularly fatiguing. CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel professed the same know-nothingness in March when he told Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that CENTCOM cannot track whether coalition missions burning US fuel and firing US munitions are responsible for strikes against civilians.

Made in USA...that?s the bomb a saudi warplane recently dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing dozens of children.Many in and outside Yemen describe the air strike as proof of US hypocrisy when it comes to the issue of human rights.The proof against the US is damning. Washington says its bombs are smart and precession guided. It has also acknowledged it?s giving the Saudis targeting assistance in Yemen.

Qatar and Turkey's central banks have signed a currency swap agreement to provide liquidity and support for financial stability, Reuters reported on Sunday.

According to Reuters, the agreement signed by the heads of the two central banks, will establish a two-way currency exchange line and support the financial stability. Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said at a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this week that his country would invest $15 billion in Turkey's economy.

The news comes after US President Donald Trump authorized the doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey, up to 50 and 20 percent respectively. The Turkish lira briefly fell 20 percent against the US dollar reaching a record low amid the news.

A shocking picture of a malnourished child has shown the brutal effects of Yemen's 'forgotten' civil war which has left 17 million people starving to death.

The terrifyingly thin child can be seen lying on a bed in a hospital in the town of Abs yesterday as he was treated by doctors.

Heartbreaking photos show him being weighed by medical staff with his bone structure fully visible beneath his skin as he undergoes treatment.

The child is one of millions suffering from the famine, which is killing around 130 people per day, as a result of the civil war in Yemen.

Responding to the now confirmed fact that it was a laser-guided MK 82 bomb made by Lockheed Martin that killed 40 children while they were riding inside a school bus in northern Yemen over a week ago, actor Jim Carrey has highlighted the crime in his latest art.

In a now viral tweet posted to his official account Friday afternoon, Carrey wrote, "40 innocent children killed on a bus in Yemen." And added, "Our ally. Our missile. Our crime."

Carrey referenced the US-Saudi coalition in Yemen responsible for dropping the 500-pound bomb on the bus as it made its way through a crowded market in Dahyan in Saada province on August 9th, which both the US State Department and the Saudis had defended as a "legitimate military operation".

Islamic State managed to regain access to Syrian oil fields and make profits from selling oil, a new UN report reveals. While the UN did not point fingers, the IS reemergence seems to occur in areas held by the US-backed forces.
“Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant [IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS], having been defeated militarily in Iraq and most of the Syrian Arab Republic during 2017, rallied in early 2018. This was the result of a loss of momentum by forces fighting it in the east of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the recent report from the UN Security Council’s Sanctions Monitoring Team reads. The document is dated July 27, but was only released to the public this week.

The slow-down gave IS “breathing space to prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network.” As of June 2018, the terrorist group has been controlling “small pockets of territory in the Syrian Arab Republic on the Iraqi border,” effectively carrying on with its quasi-state ways.

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement says a recent deadly strike by the Saudi-led coalition on the northwestern Sa’ada Province, which massacred dozens of children, is a disgrace to the Riyadh regime and the US, the main arms supplier to the kingdom.

In an interview on Wednesday with Yemen’s al-Masirah, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam criticized the United Nations for its inaction on the Saudi regime’s new instance of child killing.

Yemen, he said, does not pin its hopes on the world body for any effort towards ending the Saudi-led war, but rather relies on its own nation and other freedom-seeking people to that end.

The August 9 Saudi air raid on Sa’ada hit a school bus as it drove through a market in the town of Dhahyan, sparking outrage from international human rights groups and UN officials.

Foreign-owned media outlets that don’t always tow the line in the US could find themselves under dramatically increased scrutiny under the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with analysts predicting that al-Jazeera will be the first news media outlet to fall victim.

The NDAA provisions were designed by groups openly hostile to al-Jazeera, and are aimed at forcing the news outlet, and others, to register as “foreign agents” because of their ties to overseas governments, and especially because of their content.

Al-Jazeera is already facing hostility across the Middle East, because they’re based in Qatar, and Saudi Arabia really doesn’t like Qatar. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and others called on the Justice Department to investigate al-Jazeera in particular for being “anti-semitic and anti-Israel,” saying they believe that makes it a ‘state-controlled propaganda arm.”

Why do Americans help manage their PR? This week in particular, our role has been shameful.

It has been a trying couple of weeks for Saudi Arabia. First, a tweet from an account associated with the Saudi government appeared to threaten Canada with a 9/11-style attack if they continued to “stick their nose where it doesn’t belong.” The infographic within the tweet featured an Air Canada jet flying towards the Toronto skyline.

Qatar pledges to make direct investment in Turkey, currently hit by currency crisis amid a diplomatic standoff with US.

Trust Turkey’s Recep Erdogan to have had a game plan when he challenged the Trump administration and promised that the latter will regret its “unilateralist” policies.

Some pundits thought Russia and China have been inciting him and are lurking in the shadows to escort Erdogan to a brave new world.

Others fancied that the Eurasian integration processes would now take a great leap forward as Turkey embraced Russia, while a few forecast that Turkey would now sell itself cheap for Chinese money.

And then, there is the ubiquitous prediction in such situations that whoever defied the lone super power would come a cropper and Turkey’s fate is going to be miserable.

All these apocalyptic predictions overlooked the fact that Turkey may have a ‘third way’ forward – by strengthening even further its strategic autonomy and optimally exploiting its foreign policy options.

Thousands of people have gathered in Yemen for the funerals of dozens of children killed in a Saudi-led coalition attack on a bus last week.

The mass burial took place in Saada, a northern stronghold of Houthi rebels.

Crowds chanted in protest at Saudi Arabia, which backs the Yemeni government's fight against the group.

The coalition initially said its actions were "legitimate", but later said it would probe "collateral damage".

On August 9, a U.S.-supported Saudi airstrike bombed a bus carrying schoolchildren in Sa'ada, a city in northern Yemen. The New York Times reported that the students were on a recreational trip. According to the Sa'ada health department, the attack killed at least forty-three people.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, at least twenty-nine of those killed were children under the age of fifteen, and forty-eight people were wounded, including thirty children.

CNN aired horrifying, heartbreaking footage of children who survived the attack being treated in an emergency room. One of the children, carrying his UNICEF issued blue backpack, is covered with blood and badly burned.

A Raytheon Mark 82 general-purpose free-fall bomb was likely used by the Saudi-led coalition to strike a bus full of children in Yemen on Thursday, a local journalist claims, after bomb fragments from the scene were recovered.

The Saudi-led coalition struck a school bus in the Dahyan area of the Houthi-controlled Saada province last Thursday, leaving 51 dead, most of them children, and injuring at least 79 others. Just as the dust was settling at the scene of the strike with charred bodies being recovered, locals found fragments of the bomb used.

Harrowing images from the site, shared by journalist Nasser Arrabyee, show fragments that appear to be from the 500-pound MK-82 bomb, which the US continues to sell to Saudi Arabia.

A prominent Yemeni journalist who throughout the war has been instrumental in getting images and information out of the country ahead of Western journalists has photographed and examined fragments from one of the exploded missiles found at the site of the US-Saudi coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which left as many as 50 people dead and 63 injured — the vast majority of which were children.

The image of the missile fragment, believed to be among those that scored a direct hit on the bus full of children traveling through Dahyan market in Saada province last Thursday, was uploaded by Sanaa-based Hussain Albukhaiti and quickly spread online over the weekend. It appears to be a US-made MK-82 guided bomb produced by Lockheed Martin.

In what will register as one of the sickest, most twisted and most gruesome atrocities in the 3.5 years of its genocidal aggression against Yemen — which is saying quite a bit because there have been SO many ungodly massacres — the Wahhabi tyrants occupying the Hijaz bombed a school bus full of children in Saada’s Dahyan as it made its way through a market towards summer camp. Saudi Arabia murdered at least 51 kids in the air raid — the vast majority of them under 10 years old — and badly wounded over 79 other civilians — the vast majority of them kids under 10 years old too.

The UAE has made an amendment to a 2012 Cyber Crime law, increasing financial penalties and extending jail terms to up to 25 years for terrorism related activity, WAM Agency reported today.

Those engaging in cybercrimes in the UAE can be sent to jail for a period not exceeding 25 years in addition to a fine up to some $1 million.

The terrorism related activity includes: “whoever establishes, manages or runs a website or publishes information on the computer network or information technology means for the interest of a terrorist group or any unauthorised group, association, organisation”, the WAM Agency statement read.

‘HATE CRIMES’