Yemen

The UN’s top official in Yemen has warned of a “dramatic” deterioration in the country’s ongoing conflict, telling the Security Council on Tuesday that fighting has expanded on several fronts amid the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. 

Demonstrators disperse shortly after breaking into Maashiq Presidential Palace amid public anger over the dire economic situation.

The U.S. State Department said on Thursday that “some hopeful progress” has been made toward a ceasefire in Yemen, but more commitment was needed from the parties to the civil war. The comments were in a statement on a just-concluded visit to the region by Timothy Lenderking, the U.S. special envoy for Yemen, aimed at bolstering U.N.-led efforts to end the conflict and stem a growing humanitarian disaster.

[…] The Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous areas and have been battling the coalition since it intervened in Yemen's civil war in March 2015, have recently pushed towards the gas-rich region of Marib, aiming to take the government’s last stronghold in the north of Yemen.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Sunday claimed missile and drone strikes that targeted neighboring Saudi Arabia overnight and threatened more attacks, as fighting in the grinding civil war escalates.

An enormous famine could wipe out a new opportunity created by renewed US engagement to end the war in Yemen, top United Nations officials have told the Security Council. UN Yemen mediator Martin Griffiths also called for a stop to an offensive by the Houthi movement on the government-held city of Marib, warning on Thursday that “the quest for territorial gain by force threatens all of the prospects of the peace process”.

The United Arab Emirates is dismantling parts of a military base it runs in the East African nation of Eritrea after it pulled back from the grinding war in nearby Yemen, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.  

The administration of President Joe Biden has formally delisted Yemen’s Houthi movement as a “foreign terrorist organization” and “Specially Designated Global Terrorists”, undoing the last-minute move under former President Donald Trump that the United Nations and aid groups said threatened to further devastate the war-torn country.

Martin Griffiths’s trip is part of efforts to bring together more diplomatic, regional and international support for a negotiated political solution to Yemen’s war.

The United States said Friday it intends to revoke the terrorist designation for Yemen's Houthi movement in response to the country's humanitarian crisis, reversing one of the most criticized last-minute decisions of the Trump administration.