US on alert over suspected Iranian arms shipments
Two warships have joined US forces in the Arabian Sea, US officials said Monday, where they will monitor an Iranian convoy suspected of carrying weapons to Houthi rebels in violation of a UN arms embargo adopted last week.
"We believe these vessels may have arms and equipment on board,” a defence official said of the Iranian ships.
“If they are delivered to Yemen, it will further destabilise" the country, the official told AFP.
The US Navy said Monday that the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Normandy guided-missile cruiser would "ensure the vital shipping lanes in the region remain open and safe". The deployment brings to nine the number of US warships in the region.
Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said the US warships did not have orders to intercept the Iranian vessels, however. Officials said that if intercepting the ships proved necessary it would likely be carried out by the Saudi coalition.
The Iranian maritime presence in the region is comprised of nine ships including two patrol boats, a senior US defence official told AFP, adding that the exact destination of the convoy was unknown.
A Houthi official called the arrival of the US warships part of a “siege” against Yemen’s people.
"The goal of the movement of American ships is to strengthen the siege imposed on Yemen and put the Yemeni people under collective punishment," Houthi politburo member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Reuters.
Strategically located on key shipping routes and bordering oil-rich Saudi Arabia, Yemen was plunged into chaos last year when the Houthis seized much of the capital, Sanaa. The Shiite Houthis, who are widely believed to be backed by Tehran, seized the presidential palace and dissolved parliament earlier this year.
A coalition of Sunni Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia launched an air campaign against the rebels in March, vowing to restore the regime of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Riyadh as the rebels advanced on his refuge in the southern city of Aden.
The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar are taking part in the Saudi-led coalition along with Egypt, Jordan and Sudan. Morocco and Pakistan have declared support for the effort but have yet to contribute forces.
The coalition says it has carried out more than 2,000 strikes since the start of the campaign, seizing complete control of Yemeni airspace and knocking out the rebels’ infrastructure. Warplanes launched more air strikes against the Houthis and allied Shiite militias overnight.
The United States is not taking part in the strikes but is providing intelligence and logistical support to the coalition.
The conflict has raised the spectre of Yemen becoming the epicentre of a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran that could threaten to engulf the region.
More than 944 people have been killed and almost 3,500 wounded in Yemen's unrest, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, citing Yemeni health authorities.
The civilian death toll from a raid on a missile depotin the capital on Monday has risen to 38 with more than 500 others wounded. The twin air strikes sparked powerful explosions that flattened nearby houses, medics said.
Hopes for ceasefire
Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said he was optimistic that a ceasefire might be announced later on Tuesday, the Tasnim news agency reported.
"We are optimistic that in the coming hours, after many efforts, we will see a halt to military attacks in Yemen," Abdollahian was quoted as saying.
But Saudi Ambassador Abdallah al-Mouallimi told UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday that "certain conditions" must be met before the air campaign is suspended.
He said those conditions were clearly spelled out in a resolution adopted by the UN Security Council last week that imposed an arms embargo on the rebels. The resolution demands that the Houthis pull back from all the territory they have seized – including from the capital – and that they return to peace talks.
Ban called last week for an "immediate ceasefire" amid UN concerns that the conflict could erupt into a major humanitarian crisis.
Iran has offered to mediate and set out a four-point peace plan last week, but the proposal was roundly rejected by Hadi's government.
"Any mediation effort coming from Iran is unacceptable because Iran is involved in the Yemen issue," Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin said.
Yemen has long struggled with deep tribal divisions that have been complicated by an insurgency launched by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which Washington considers to be the branch of the jihadist network that poses the biggest threat to the West. A US drone strike on Monday killed five suspected al Qaeda militants in the province of Shabwa.
AQAP has taken advantage of the chaos in Yemen to seize vast swaths of territory in Hadramawt province in the southeast, including the regional capital Mukalla.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)
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