ALEXANDRIA: Fighting on major battlefields outside Yemen’s central city of Marib died down on Thursday as Iran-backed Houthis halted their assaults after suffering heavy casualties and losing military equipment, two local military officials told Arab News. 

It follows Yemen’s appeal to the US to increase military support and training for the country’s coast guard so it can rein in the smuggling of Iranian weapons to the Houthis.

Over the past five days, “unprecedented” fighting between the Yemeni government forces and the Houthis broke out in several contested areas outside Marib. The rebels renewed attacks on government forces in a bid to make gains on the ground that would put them closer to the strategic city. 

Yemeni army officials said dozens of rebel forces and government troops were killed in the fighting as the Houthis also suffered heavy casualties. The rebels were forced to retreat after facing stiff resistance and heavy aerial bombardment from Arab coalition warplanes. 

“There is a cautious calm on the battlefields (on Thursday) after the Houthi suffered heavy losses during their last attack,” an army military official said on the condition of anonymity. 

Thousands of combatants and civilians have been killed in fighting and missile strikes in the Marib province since February when the Houthis resumed a major offensive to seize control of the government’s last bastion in northern Yemen.

Another military official said the Yemeni army received information on Thursday that the Houthis were regrouping outside Marib and have called for military reinforcements from Sanaa and other areas in northern Yemen. 

“The national army is aware of regrouping of fighters and will defeat them,” the official said, preferring anonymity. 

Yemen has demanded the US increase its military support to the coast guard forces to help disrupt the flow of Iranian weapons and experts to the Houthis that fueled the latest conflict.

On Wednesday, Yemeni Vice President Ali Mohsen Al-Ahmar met with Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of US Naval Forces Central Command and the US 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces, to discuss the fighting. Al-Ahmar urged the US to train, arm, and share intelligence with the Yemeni Coast Guard, which is trying to thwart a smuggling surge of weapons from Iran to the Houthis through the country’s long coastline.

Al-Ahmar thanked the American and the Arab coalition navies for seizing several arms shipments from Iran to the Houthis, adding that his country’s coast guard would not be able to confront the smuggling of arms and drugs on their own, the official news agency SABA reported. 

“The vice president stresses the importance of the US and international support for efforts to combat terrorism and smuggling in our country and the region,” SABA said. 

“Yemen looks forward to more support and training for the coast guard forces so they can play a bigger role in combating Iranian arms smuggling and limiting activities threatening maritime security.”

The smuggling of weapons, drugs, and migrants has increased since early 2015 when the Yemeni maritime forces crumbled as the Houthis expanded rapidly across the country. 

Shortly after intervening militarily in Yemen, in support of the internationally recognized government in March 2015, the Arab coalition regrouped the forces at military bases inside and outside of Yemen. After the forces received military training, they were deployed across the country’s coastline on the Red Sea and Arab Sea.

JERUSALEM: Israel’s president warmly welcomed his German counterpart on Thursday, praising him as an ally in combatting antisemitism.
Reuven Rivlin said that Germany has been Israel’s “strong partner in the uncompromising fight against antisemitism” and has stood with Israel against “the forces of terror who seek to wipe us off the map.”
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also met with Israel’s new Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Jerusalem. The prime minister’s office said in a statement that the two discussed Iran’s nuclear program, and that Bennett restated Israel’s determination to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Steinmeier was expected to reiterate Germany’s strong support for Israel.
Nazi Germany and its collaborators murdered 6 million European Jews in the Holocaust. Germany’s postwar leaders have repeatedly apologized for the Nazi atrocities and it has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in reparations to Jewish victims. Israel and Germany have developed close ties in recent years.
During a solemn visit to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, Steinmeier said the “unspeakable suffering” caused in Germany’s name “fills us with pain and shame.”
“We will keep the memory of this alive for the sake of those who were murdered and for the sake of future generations,” he said.
Germany launched a new initiative with the United States last week to stem an alarming rise in antisemitism and Holocaust denial around the world.
The US-Germany Holocaust Dialogue seeks to reverse the trend, which gained traction during the coronavirus pandemic amid a surge in political populism across Europe and the US The dialogue creates a way to develop educational and messaging tools to teach youth and others about the crimes of the Nazis and their collaborators.

BEIRUT: The security and social situation deteriorated on Wednesday in Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, where more than half of the population lives in poverty and the city has been left without electricity.

To make things worse, a child on oxygen support died after his machine stopped working and generators were turned off due to the acute shortage of diesel.

“People are angry. They took to the streets, some carrying weapons, and started closing down the shops by force,” an eyewitness told Arab News.

Tripoli’s mayor Riyad Yamaq said on television that “the situation in the city is out of control.”

The Lebanese Army patrolled the streets but stones and chairs were thrown at the soldiers, leading them to respond by firing their weapons into the air.

After calm was partially returned, the protesters moved to the Kadisha Electricity Company located in Tripoli’s Al-Bahsas area.

They stormed the building and forced its employees to supply some regions with electricity.

Mustafa Alloush, vice-president of the Future Movement, who is from Tripoli and practices medicine there, said: “What was expected has started from Tripoli and the social explosion has begun from this city. More will come if nobody intervenes immediately to halt the collapse.”

As the army regained control in Tripoli, the Lebanese Parliament held a session at the UNESCO Palace in Beirut. The area was heavily guarded. This infuriated people who took to social media to insult the Lebanese lawmakers and authorities they blamed for causing the collapse.

The MPs, who were sweating because the air conditioners were not functioning due to the power cut, approved the controversial ration card in the absence of a government capable of making such decisions. In response, the MPs of the Lebanese Forces parliamentary bloc left the hall to express their objection.

The card targets the neediest individuals without determining their final number. However, the number could reach up to 700,000 people, keeping in mind that the World Bank had estimated that more than 50 percent of the Lebanese people are now living in poverty.

During the session, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) Gebran Bassil accused “security apparatus, MPs and politicians of being involved in the cross-border smuggling network and operations.”

MP Michel Moussa of the Development and Liberation bloc said the ration card “will be financed from some aid and existing loans that have not been used yet. We are keen not to finance it from the depositors’ funds that are frozen in the banks.”

The Syndicate of Hospitals in Lebanon said in a statement that “a number of hospitals have used the stock of diesel they had, while the rest have quantities that are not enough to cover the next 24 hours.”

In Beirut, a violent knife fight broke out in front of a gas station near Dar Al-Fatwa. The army intervened to stop it.

An explosion of a diesel tank in the town of Al-Khyara in West Bekaa killed a man in his thirties.

In other developments, the Federation of Syndicates of Banks Employees in Lebanon expressed its concern after people launched a call on social media to storm bank branches starting Thursday to protest their inability to access frozen deposits.

It consequently threatened to close the banks if any bank was attacked.

Taxi drivers refused to abide by the decisions of their syndicates as some raised the fare to LBP8,000 ($0.45) instead of LBP4,000 due to the increase in the fuel price that followed the partial lifting of subsidies.

Meanwhile, Bassil took to Twitter to relaunch the provocation campaign against the Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, calling on him to “decide whether he wants to form a government or step down.”

BAGHDAD: Iraqi security officials say an explosion struck a busy market in Baghdad on Wednesday, wounding at least nine people.
The Iraqi military confirmed the explosion without providing details.
The blast was heard in a market in Sadr City, a suburban district of the capital. The military did not elaborate on casualties or the extent of the damage.
Two security officials said at least nine people were wounded in the blast. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
It was the second time this year an explosion targeted a market in the densely populated neighborhood. In April, at least four people were killed in a car bomb attack in Sadr City. That explosion was caused by an explosive device attached to a parked car at the market.
It was not immediately clear what caused Wednesday’s explosion. Large bomb attacks, once an almost daily occurrence in Baghdad, have slowed in recent years since the Daesh group was defeated in 2017.

AMMAN: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas held talks on Wednesday with King Abdullah before the Jordanian monarch’s key visit to Washington.

The king will be the first Arab leader to meet at the White House with President Joe Biden and his team.

Two Jordanian army helicopters flew to Ramallah to transport Abbas and his team to the talks.

After a one-on-one meeting in the presence of Crown Prince Hussein, Jordanian and Palestinian teams joined their leaders.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Malki, senior Fatah official Hussein Sheikh, Palestinian intelligence service chief Majed Faraj, and senior diplomatic adviser Majdi Khalidi attended the meeting.

On the Jordanian side, Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, General Intelligence Director Ahmad Hosni and other officials were present, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Jordan’s Petra news agency said the king reiterated Jordan’s support for Palestinians “to obtain their just and legitimate rights in establishing their independent, sovereign and viable state, on the June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

King Abdullah stressed the need to translate the cease-fire agreement in Gaza into a permanent truce in order to pave the way for Palestinian rights, Petra said.

Abbas highlighted Jordan’s critical role in defending the rights of Palestinians in international circles.

Samir Habashneh, a former Jordanian interior minister, told Arab News that the Biden administration has yet to decide on its approach to the Palestinian conflict.

“For sure, it is different from the Trump administration’s direction and for sure it is in support of the two-state solution, but it hasn’t yet identified the alternative,” he said.

Habashneh, a leading member of a reform committee set up by King Abdullah, said that in a recent meeting the monarch stressed the importance of support for the two-state solution.

“The king’s strong opposition to the Trump plan played a major role in its defeat, but we need to work out the mechanism for how to move forward,” he said.

Habashneh said that he hopes Jordan can influence a Palestinian reconciliation.

“If I can whisper in the ears of our Palestinian brethren, it would be to move fast in the reconciliation process in order to block Israeli efforts to avoid dealing with the Palestinian leadership.”

Hazem Kawasmi, a Jerusalem-based political activist, told Arab News that the situation is quickly deteriorating and there is a need to “find ways to put out all these fires.”

He said: “Things in Jerusalem, and especially in Silwan, with tens of homes slated for destruction, are worrying as is the internal Palestinian protests in light of the death of Nizar Banat and the attacks on peaceful Palestinian protesters by the Palestinian security.”

The family of Banat, a prominent critic of the Palestinian Authority, who died in detention on June 24, said that security forces broke into his house in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron and hit him repeatedly with a metal rod before arresting him.

Oraib Rantawi, director of Al-Quds Center for Political Affairs, told Arab News that the Biden administration is stepping up its coordination with Jordan and Egypt, while “Trump and his people gave preference to the Gulf countries, and disregarded Jordan and Egypt.”

Rantawi said: “I expect that the internal situation is worrying Jordan, and Abbas will most certainly receive friendly advice from King Abdullah on the need to address internal issues that have weakened Abbas and his administration.”

Lamis Andoni, a longtime observer of Jordanian-Palestinian relations, told Arab News: “What is happening in Jerusalem, and its effects on the region and the future, will be an important topic discussed between them.”

Trump’s policies were a major problem for both Jordan and Palestine, she added.

“The policies of the previous US administration gave legitimacy to Israel to increase its expansion into Palestinian lands,” Andoni said.

She said that the Jordan visit is intended to strengthen Abbas’ standing amid growing protests and criticism directed at the Palestinian leader, she said.

“He needs to appear to be still representing the Palestinian Authority.”