AP reports: “A truce that ended nearly a decade of war in Yemen has mostly held since 2022. It is being severely tested four years later, as tensions tied to the war in Iran risk spilling over.”
AISHA JUMAAN, MD, [email protected], @AishaJumaan
Dr. Jumaan is president of the Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation. She said today: “A four-year period of relative calm between Yemen’s Houthi movement, officially known as Ansar Allah, and the Saudi-led coalition has effectively ended following a strike on Sanaa International Airport on Monday, July 13.
“The strike targeted the airport’s runway as an Iranian aircraft carrying Ansar-Allah delegation — returning from the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, attempted to land. Yemen’s internationally recognized government, based in Saudi Arabia, claimed responsibility for the strike, saying it was intended to prevent the Iranian plane from landing, though the government has no air force of its own, suggesting the strikes were carried out by Saudi warplanes. The Iranian aircraft was diverted and landed safely in Hodeidah instead.” See prior IPA news releases with Dr. Jumaan.
NICK MOTTERN, [email protected]
Mottern, a U.S. Navy veteran, is now with Ban Killer Drones. He said today: “U.S. drone operators are being placed intellectually and emotionally at the cutting edge of the Trump Administration’s illegal, immoral attacks against Iranian and Latin American people. Today, we urge U.S. drone operators to stand up for life and for U.S. and international law and to step back from their drone control consoles and refuse to attack or to enable attacks by manned aircraft and other traditional weapons.” See “U.S. Peace Groups Call On Drone Operators To Refuse To Fly” which notes surveillance/attack drones being flown remotely over Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Ban Killer Drones has worked over the last decade with other organizations to mount protests at bases within the United States that house control centers for MQ-9 Reaper surveillance/attack drones. The group notes that there are 19 such centers within the U.S., notably at Creech AFB in Nevada, Holloman AFB in New Mexico and Hancock Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, NY. There are at least 16 overseas drone bases, including at Sigonella, Italy, Incirlik, Türkiye and Baledogle, Somalia.