https://southfront.org/yemeni-war-report-june-14-2018-battle-for-hudaydah/
On January 13, the Saudi-led coalition launched a new operation to capture the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah from the Houthis.
“Liberation of the port is the beginning of the fall of the Houthi militias. It will secure navigation in the Bab al-Mandab Strait and cut off the hands of Iran,” the Saudi-backed government of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi said in a statement.
The ground operation is reportedly supported by the air and naval forces of the Saudi-led coalition. Pro-Saudi and pro-UAE sources claim that the attack is ongoing from multiple directions. However, according to local sources, the advance is mainly taking place south of Hudaydah, near the airport.
On the same day, the Yemeni Navy [loyal to the Houthis] announced that it had targeted a vessel of the Saudi-led coalition off the coast of Hudaydah with two anti-ship missiles. According to the Navy, the vessel was one of the many participating in the attack on the city. The vessels attempted to carry out a landing operation in the framework of the advance on Hudayadh, but were forced to retreat after the strike.
Over the past months, the coalition’s forces have made multiple attempts to reach and capture Hudaydah. However, they have not been able to achieve this goal.
Pro-coalition sources also claim that the Houthis use the port to smuggle weapons from Iran. The city also hosts at least one of the facilities used by the Houthis to make water-born improvised explosive devices to attack the coalition’s vessels.
At the same time, Hudaydah is the last remaining humanitarian lifeline in the Houthis-controlled part of the war-torn country.
They Want to Cut the Main Vein of Yemen
https://www.yemenpress.org/yemen/they-want-to-cut-the-main-vein-of-yemen/
“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.
According to the UN aid agencies, 60 percent of the Yemen’s population, i.e. 17 million people, are food insecure, with 7 million of them being in critical conditions. If this predicament does not ease, this number will touch 17 million Yemeni by end of the year, the UN adds. In general, over 22 million of the country’s 27-million population needs humanitarian aids.
Hodiedah is a central aid intake point. So, if the port fall or its encirclement is completed, Sana’a and other Ansarullah-held cities will slump in dire straits economically and nutritionally. Saudi Arabia struggles to control Hodiedah to tighten the noose on the Yemenis.
The Saudi leaders hope that a blend of war, military blockade, and famine will press Yemen into acceding to the Arab coalition’s demands. The plan alerted the UN, which on June 16, 2017, in a warning statement ask the Saudi-led forces to avoid staging an assault on the port city on the Red Sea coasts.
Yemen is already reeling from the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis where 22 million people need vital assistance. Attacking the port would still manage to make it even worse. The US-Saudi assault would lead to mass starvation, and the loss of life would be measured in the hundreds of thousands or possibly millions.
As a respod Sayyed Abdulmalik al-Houthi, n one of his speeches, warned the US-Saudi coalition from their continued closure of Yemeni ports, including the port of Hodiedah, stressing the right of Yemen to take any sensitive steps in response, “we know the sensitive areas that we could target if the ports kept closed.” Sayyed Abdulmalik explains that “today the port of Hodiedah is being threatened and we cannot turn a blind eye to that.”
Hodiedah is Yemen’s fourth largest city and is densely populated. Its port is a key lifeline, handling nearly 80 percent of the country’s food imports.”
UAE Naval Vessel on Fire in Red Sea Following Houthi Attack – Report
https://sputniknews.com/news/201806141065386344-UAE-Naval-vessel-fire-red-sea/
“A naval vessel belonging to the United Arab Emirates was ablaze in the Red Sea and has suffered major damage as a result of a Houthi attack, according to multiple sources. The ship eventually sunk, a major dent in the Saudi- and UAE-planned invasion of al-Hudaydah.
The ship was off the coast of al-Hudaydah, a key port that the Saudi-led coalition has been eyeing as a key target, Sputnik News reported Tuesday.
“The Saudi coalition has not advanced at all in al-Hudaydah,” Dayfallah al-Shami, a member of the Houthi political bureau, told a Lebanese TV broadcaster.
Humanitarian aid workers were forced to evacuate al-Hudaydah earlier this week due to the imminent Saudi and UAE-led amphibious assault operation against the key naval port. “People are already literally dying of starvation. The port is the lifeline to much-needed supplies of food and other life-saving resources and any attack would jeopardize the ability of this country to feed itself. We should make no mistake, if the port is out of action, Yemeni citizens will die,” according to a statement released this week from the Islamic Relief’s deputy country manager based in the port city.
While the armed conflict in Yemen is frequently portrayed as being a proxy war for Saudi Arabia and allied Gulf nations against Iran, in May US media reported that a team of about a dozen US Army Green Berets had arrived along the Saudi-Yemen border to support Saudi efforts to destroy missile caches.
“US support of the Saudi and UAE coalition in Yemen has resulted in a massive catastrophe and what look like war crimes,” US Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said in a tweet Wednesday. “The new brazen attack on the port city of al-Hudaydah will kill even more civilians,” he said, adding “the US must stop its support now.”
“On January 13”
I’m guessing that’s supposed to be ‘June 13’?Small mistake.