Source: Fars News
The United States army supported a Saudi airstrike that hit a bus carrying schoolchildren in Sa’ada, Northern Yemen On August 9.

The students were on a recreational trip. According to the Sa’ada health department, the heartbreaking attack killed at least 51 people. Also according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, at least 40 of those killed were school children, and tens of others were wounded, again mostly children.

If this kind of behavior in the conduct of armed conflict is not the very concept of war crime we don’t know what is. As per The Hague Conventions adopted in 1907, warring parties cannot use certain means and methods of warfare. Notably the four 1949 Geneva Conventions and the two 1977 Additional Protocols also focus on the protection of persons not taking part in hostilities. Both Hague Law and Geneva Law identify several of the violations of its norms in the ongoing US-backed, Saudi-led war on Yemen as war crimes. These war crimes can be found in both international humanitarian law and international criminal law treaties, as well as in international customary law as well.

Moreover, the 1949 Geneva Conventions have been ratified by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Many of the rules contained in these treaties have been considered as part of customary law and, as such, are binding on all those countries that have waged an illegal war on the poorest country in the Arab world.

Given what happened on August 9 in Sa’ada, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction in respect of US-backed, Saudi war crimes in particular when committed as part of a plan or policy or as part of a large-scale commission of such crimes that are specifically, deliberately and willfully designed to target school children and populated areas in Yemen.

Other breaches include destruction of property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention, torture and inhuman treatment of Yemenis in UAE-run prisons, an illegal blockade that is willfully causing great suffering for millions of civilians in besieged cities and communities, extensive destruction and wanton appropriation of schools, hospitals and installations, and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population.

The important part here is that the United States army has had a heavy hand in all this. The US is supporting the Saudis to commit these grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in the knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which are clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated.

Since the illegal invasion in August of 2015, the US has further sold the Saudis precision-guided munitions; funneled tanks, planes, bombs, and targeting intelligence to Saudi defense officials; and provided material support during bombing runs. Despite increasing reports documenting repeated targeting of Yemeni civilians by Saudi warplanes, with new UN estimates that over 17,000 people have been killed, the Trump administration still intends to resupply Riyadh’s arsenal.

These actions are as reprehensible as they are illegal. Weaponizing the Saudis and the multiple, repeated airstrikes on civilians supported by the US are war crimes. Hospitals, schools, markets and wedding parties are not legitimate military targets. The Americans are either intentionally helping the Saudis target civilians or are deliberately indifferent to the execution of such military operations – either case flies in the face of long-standing international standards of conduct.

Tragic as the August 9’s immoral and unlawful airstrike was, there will be no victory for Saudi Arabia and the United States in Yemen. The Americans have no justification to be there and certainly no reason to help Saudis murder innocent school kids in broad daylight either. As per the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the United States is complicit in this callous campaign of murder and destruction and the only clear outcome for the US government has to be further international condemnation, humiliation and shame.

There are international law obligations to accountability and transparency and the world community is expected to push the Saudis and their American partners to stop this madness, to end their wanton disregard for civilian lives, and to be accountable on their crimes against humanity in Yemen.

Source: Press TV
The Saudi-led assault on the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah has led to mass displacement of people from the strategic area.

“Such an offensive against a city with over 600,000 inhabitants is a gross violation of international law. Yemeni officials say unless a lasting and peaceful settlement is reached, people here will fight until they die honorably,” Hudaydah’s Deputy Governor Abdul-Rahman al-Jomai told Press TV’s correspondent.

Ahmad al-Wisabi, whose family has been forced to leave, said, “The Saudi offensive against our city and possible street battles have forced me to leave my home, and move my family to [the capital] Sana’a. I do not know how I can manage there as I have already lost my source of income here. But I do not have any other choice.”

On Friday, Yemenis took to the streets in Hudaydah to vent their anger against the Saudi aggression and condemn Riyadh and its allies for bombing residential areas and killing civilians.

The protesters voiced their support to the Yemeni army and popular committees in their battle against the Saudi invaders and their mercenaries. The Saudi-led alliance has been waging a battle since June 13 to occupy the port city of al-Hudaydah, which is a key entry point for the country’s humanitarian aid.

Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement which has been defending the country against the invaders together with its allies has, however, refused to give up the port.

In a statement, the protesters also condemned the stance of the UN on the humanitarian crisis in Hudaydah, considering the world body’s silence as evidence of its complicity in the aggression and its support for the occupier.

During the protest, the deputy governor of Hudaydah, Sheikh Ali Qeshr, stressed that the province will be turned into “a graveyard for any aggressor” by Yemeni forces.

Saudi Arabia launched the war on its southern impoverished neighbor to restore its Saudi-allied former officials. Yemen’s Health Ministry says more than 600,000 people have either been killed or injured during the three-year-old invasion.

The combination of the war and blockade has sparked a humanitarian crisis and brought Yemen to the edge of famine.

Source: Fars News
Political analyst Mark Taliano says that there is no evidence of a chemical attack in Douma and the alleged gas attack was only a false flag operation by the White Helmets.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with FNA, Taliano said that there was no justification for the US and its allies to bomb Syria after the theatrical incident in Syria’s Douma.

Commenting on the so-called White Helmets and their operations in Syria, the analyst told FNA that the members of the group are “al Qaeda auxiliaries” who support the terrorist groups and carry out false flag operations in Syria.

Mark Taliano is an author and political analyst who has recently visited Syria. In his new book titled “Voices from Syria”, he combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes mainstream media narratives about the war on Syria.

FNA has conducted an interview with Mark Taliano about the war on Syria and the most recent developments surrounding the issue.

Below you will find the full text of the interview.

Q: Multiple places in Syria came under attack by the United States and its allies, namely Britain and France, several months ago based on a video footage of an alleged gas attack in Syria’s Douma released by the White Helmets. Who are the White Helmets? How can their unverified video be presented as justification for a large scale attack on Syria?

A: The White Helmets are a Western propaganda construct. They are not the legitimate Syrian Civil Defence, nor are they affiliated with the International Civil Defence Organization.

They are essentially al Qaeda auxiliaries. They support the terrorists in Syria, and their membership is largely comprised of terrorists.

One of their important roles is to set up and conduct false flag terrorism operations in which crimes are falsely attributed to the legitimate Syrian government with a view to engineering consent for the West to commit Supreme International Crimes against Syria, an independent, sovereign state, and a founding member of the United Nations.

The so-called chemical weapons attack at Douma was one such false flag operation. No chemical weapon attack occurred, and yet the Syrian government was blamed for the theatrical incident, yet again, with no evidence.

Even if there was such an incident (and neither the Syrian government nor the Syrian army would in any way benefit from such an attack), it would not justify the commission of the Supreme International Crimes which France, the UK and the US committed in response to the (theatrical) event, by bombing Syria.

Unfortunately, the West has been committing war crimes against Syria for seven years now, all beneath an umbrella of false pretexts and big lies.

Q: We have seen the Israeli regime and the so-called US-led coalition targeting the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allied forces many times. What do you think is the reason for such moves?

A: Apartheid Israel and its allies, including NATO, Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, commit war crimes as policy against Syria. US-led NATO seeks to destroy non-compliant nations, including Syria, with a view to expanding its control, and its operations of looting and plundering prey nations. Apartheid Israel’s goals fit nicely into the West’s neo-con, criminal megalomania. Israel seeks to expand its territories and to demolish any opposition to its Oded Yinon-inspired plans. Needless to say, the sectarian, misogynist, anti-Christian, anti-democratic terrorists, including al Qaeda and ISIS, serve as excellent proxies for both Israel and the US Empire.

Q: Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, Saudi Arabia has been actively supporting terrorists in the country. These terrorists are now losing ground every day. What do you think would be the implications of such failure for the Saudi foreign policy?

A: Terrorists are proxies for all of the countries invading Syria, including Saudi Arabia. Fortunately, Syria and it allies are defeating these terrorists. Remaining terrorists are being relocated and/or rebranded. It is the same game that has been repeated throughout the war. Moderate rebels never existed. Saudi Arabia and its allies will redirect funds towards alternate terrorist mercenaries with a view to supporting the illegal US occupation of Syria’s rich oil fields. The failure will be disguised as a victory.

Q: The so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have received tremendous amount of arms and support from the United States, initially with the stated aim to fight Daesh (ISIL or ISIS). But apparently, the US is now preparing the ground to establish an independent Kurdish state in Syria. What do you think the US is seeking to achieve by disintegrating Syria?

A: The anti-democratic, ethnic-cleansing SDF are simply more of the same – rebranded mercenary terrorists. The establishment of a so-called “Kurdish state” will serve Empire’s goal of partitioning and destroying Syria, but it will not serve Kurdish interests at all. Empire’s proxies, including ISIS, are expendable. As I explain in “Voices from Syria”, Empire uses its proxies as “place-setters” to hold territory, to conquer territory, and to create false perceptions that conquerors are “liberators”. The whole process serves Empire’s goals of destroying and looting Syria, but the proxies are expendable.

Q: The US announcement of its plans to recognize a Kurdish state in Syria has seemingly provoked Turkish invasion on the Kurdish areas. What are Turkey’s objectives in its military intervention and how do you think this recent development would affect the process of reaching peace in Syria?

A: I believe the US gave NATO member Turkey the green light to invade. Turkey seeks to expand and to eradicate terrorist threats at its borders, while at the same time, all of the fighting creates chaos and destabilization, which is what the US seeks. The US and its allies do not want peace. The only solution to the externally orchestrated and perpetrated disaster in Syria is for Syria to regain its sovereignty and territorial integrity as per international law. The terrorist threat, which is an imperial threat, will only be eradicated when the imperialists are gone.

By Ben Norton
Source: The Real 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 U.S.-backed Saudi coalition has repeatedly bombed medical facilities in Yemen, including several operated by MSF.

The humanitarian organization tweeted photos showing the aftermath of the air attack.

João Martins, who directs MSF’s work in Yemen, said the airstrike “shows complete disrespect for medical facilities and patients.”

“Whether intentional or a result of negligence, it is totally unacceptable,” he said. “The compound was clearly marked as a health facility and its coordinates were shared with the SELC (Saudi and Emirati-led coalition).”

“With only half of health facilities in Yemen fully functional, nearly 10 million people in acute need, and an anticipated outbreak of cholera, the CTC (cholera treatment center) had been built to save lives,” Martins added.

No civilians were killed in this attack.

Saudi Arabia has in the past bombed numerous hospitals and other medical facilities in Yemen run by MSF, killing dozens of civilians. Some of these attacks have involved “double-tap strikes,” in which the coalition has returned minutes later to bomb first responders.

The military coalition has bombed Yemen since March 2015 in an attempt to push the rebel Houthi movement, which is formally known as Ansar Allah, out of power.

Although the coalition is formally led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, it enjoys significant assistance from the U.S. and U.K. Both countries have done hundreds of billions of dollars in arms deals with the Gulf regimes. Moreover, U.S. planes refuel Saudi jets, and American and British military officials have even physically been in the operation room for Saudi bombing.

Thousands of civilians have been killed by Saudi air strikes, which have devastated Yemen’s civilian infrastructure.

Due to the war, the medical system has effectively collapsed. Fewer than half the health facilitates in the majority of Yemen’s governorates are operational, and thousands of medical workers have gone more than a year without payment.

The United Nations World Health Organization reported in December that the number of suspected cholera cases in Yemen had reached a staggering 1 million, and this staggering figure has increased since then.

Despite this unparalleled humanitarian crisis, the UAE is pushing to accelerate the war in Yemen’s southwest. The U.S.-backed coalition is moving to attack the port city of Hodeida, which the U.N. has warned could lead to a massive catastrophe, in which millions of civilians starve.

Source: RT
A Saudi-led coalition airstrike killed at least 12 civilians, including seven children, in the coastal city of Hodeidah on Monday, media reports citing medics and witnesses. The 12 victims were all reported to be from the same family.

People on the ground said the blast destroyed a house in the al-Hali district of the city. Hodeidah is home to the largest port in war-torn Yemen. It’s the main distribution point for aid for the millions of civilians on the brink of famine following the three-year conflict.

Saudi Arabia and its allies intervened in Yemen’s civil war in 2015. The kingdom has imposed a naval and air blockade on Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula.

The conflict has so far killed an estimated 10,000 people and displaced more than 2 million, leaving many in the country on the verge of starvation.

Further to the blockade the coalition has conducted over 16,600 air raids, with roughly a third of them targeting non-military sites. Amnesty International says at least 36 of them violated international laws and may have constituted war crimes. With 130 children dying in Yemen every day, the conflict has been described as the “world’s worst humanitarian disaster.”

Muhammad bin Salman is using his purges to change the medium and possibly long-term priorities of the Saudi regime.
By Adam Garrie
Source: The Duran
As part of the wide-scale political purges conducted by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, Riyadh has ordered the arrest of Ahmed al-Jarba and Riad Hijab, two formerly Saudi backed proxies, vying to take control of Syria and establish a Takfiri state.

While Ahmed al-Jarba and Riad Hijab never had meaningful support in Syria, Saudi had consistently backed them and their colleagues in an effort to destabilise the secular Ba’athist Arab Republic.

Now though, both men are wanted in Saudi for “money laundering and smuggling”.

This is a further sign that the purges of Muhammad bin Salman are aimed at radically re-orientating the priorities of the Saudi regime. Additionally, Saudi has now all but admitted that its attempts to meddle in Syria’s sovereign political affairs have failed.

As I wrote yesterday,
“If viewed in isolation, the Hariri resignation appears like a clear Saudi organised attempt to foment discord in Lebanon by provoking Hezbollah, with the aim of weakening the resistance in Syria and opening up Lebanon to the kind of civil crisis which in the past has led to aggressive Israeli invasions and general strife.

However, when the events of yesterday are taken in totality, a different theory springs to mind, one which ought to be taken seriously, even if counter-intuitive at first glance.

After MBS’s ‘great purge’ of highly important figures in the Saudi ‘deep state’, including the billionaire and darling of western mainstream media, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, it is fair to say that Muhammad Bin Salman has taken the first strike against any would-be challengers or political opponents as he continues to consolidate his power, even before formally taking the throne from the elderly King Salman.

This ‘great purge’ which comes after the house arrest of former Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, is a clear indication that MBS looks to turn Saudi into ‘his’ country just as Stalin turned the USSR into ‘his’ when he purged virtually all the remaining elements of the original Bolshevik leadership during the 1930s.

It is this parallel that is also important in another way. Many commentators, including contemporary Russian opposition leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky has remarked that Stalin’s purges, including of the army, left the Soviet Union less than adequately prepared to stop the fascist invasion on 22 June 1941. It should be noted at this point, that MBS’ purge includes many security officials.

MBS’ purges were clearly planned a long time in advance, even though the creation of an anti-corruption committee technically took place only hours before it issued the first degrees placing powerful Saudis under arrest. The fact that MBS sought to conduct many major purges at the same time, is indicative of a man who does not intend to give his opponents any time to regroup against him. Again, this is somewhat reminiscent of Stalin who held large scale trials which prosecuted many opponents (for Stalin, traitors) at one time.

This is significant because it is generally unwise to meddle in the affairs of countries abroad, when conducting such a deep and wide purge at home. This very phenomenon has been often used to explain why Donald Trump’s foreign policy is so chaotic. Trump’s domestic distractions have disallowed the formation of a coherent foreign policy.

Of course, if MBS’ opponents had differing views on how to handle Hariri, the purge may have been an insurance policy. The more likely scenario though is that many of the men purged would not have been able to impact the Hariri decision, not least because it would mean publicly going against the narrative that Hariri resigned because he feared an assassination attempt from Iran and Hezbollah rather than because the Saudi regime told him to go. Few in the wider Arab world believe this narrative, but in Saudi, one ‘has to’ acknowledge it as true for obvious reasons.

This therefore, forces one to consider why the Saudi regime would involve itself in the Hariri affair on the same day as the ‘great purge’?

The answer lies in exploring whether the Hariri ‘purge’ was more for domestic consumption than for international consumption. As a powerful Saudi citizen, one could think of Hariri’s apparently forced resignation as the first Saudi purge of the day, on a day that saw many powerful Saudi citizens dethroned from powerful places in society.

The message to all powerful Saudis, including to Hariri, is that no one is too big to fall at the hands of MBS, even a Saudi citizen who is the Prime Minister in a foreign democracy. The fact that both Hariri and MBS are young men in a leadership role, would indicate that for the famously politically trigger happy MBS, it was also an ego boost.

What about the geo-political repercussions?

On the surface, the move will clearly enrage Iran, Hezbollah and to a degree anger Syria while emboldening Israel and extremist Sunni movements in the Arab world including al-Qaeda.

Practically though, Israel is all too aware that Hezbollah is far more powerful today than when it expelled Israel from southern Lebanon in 2006 and al-Qaeda, although making a final push in the Golan Heights with Israeli assistance, is nevertheless a terrorist group on its last legs in the Levant and Iraq.

As for Iran, while Saudi continues to spew predictably anti-Iranian rhetoric, Saudi’s pivot towards Russia and China necessarily prohibits further Saudi aggression against Iran, except for that which is limited to rhetorical statements that will irk Iran and give Russia a headache, but do little more.

MBS sees China and Russia as crucial partners that will help realise his Vision 2030 project to diversify the Saudi economy. This means that Saudi will have to increasingly play by both Russia and China’s rules, which mean abandoning proxy imperial ambitions, abandoning military threats against nearby states and possibly move towards selling energy in the Petroyuan.

Therefore, a radically different explanation for yesterday’s events in Saudi begin to emerge. Perhaps the Hariri ‘resignation’ and the great purge are meant less to encourage Israel and provoke Iran, Syria and Hezbollah than they are events used to send subtle messages to Russia and China, possibly with communiques made behind the scenes to clarify the meaning.

Such a message is summarised as follows: Saudi has surrendered in its attempts to politically influence the Levant and will allow the chips to fall where they may. The Saudi puppet is out of Lebanon and Saudi won’t do anything meaningful to oppose Hezbollah in the post-Hariri era in Lebanon. Instead, Saudi will focus on domestic political changes to pave the way for a more ‘eastern friendly’ MBS regime in Riyadh.

Here, the implied advantage to Russia is that President Michel Aoun will be allowed to form a new government in Beirut that will be more amenable to Russian and consequently Chinese interests in the region, thus giving the eastern superpowers an unbroken chain of partners in the region stretching from Pakistan to Iran, into Iraq and Syria and finishing on the Mediterranean with Lebanon.

In return, it is implied that Russia will continue to resist any US attempts to slow down MBS’ ascent to power.

To be absolutely clear, I do not believe for a moment that this is a ‘Russian plan’. Instead, Saudi is doing something whose long term outcome is naturally in Russia’s interest and Russia, a country which does not even intervene in the affairs of its enemies, will surely not intervene in the affairs of a Saudi state which is pivoting (however awkwardly) towards Russia and her partners”.

While the MBS purges are self-serving first and foremost, they are also part of his desired pivot away from over-dependency on the US. By publicly attacking its former political proxies for Syria, Riyadh is clearly showing that its internal matters now take precedent over directly meddling in the wider Arab world.