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A Saudi-led coalition will end "Operation Decisive Storm" -- its nearly monthlong airstrike campaign in Yemen -- by the end of Tuesday, and a new undertaking called "Operation Restoring Hope" will begin, Saudi state-run TV reported without immediately elaborating. The aim is to bring back Yemen's "security and stability through establishing a political process," said a statement from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.

The Obama administration, while showing willingness to cave in to just about every Iranian demand in the ongoing nuclear negotiations, appears to be flexing its muscles in the Yemen proxy fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Washington - Top Obama administration officials have failed for several days to persuade Saudi Arabia’s government to limit the scope of its airstrikes on cities and towns in Yemen, a campaign that authorities said killed nearly 50 people Monday in Sana, the capital. The U.S. effort to restrain the Saudi attacks came as the Pentagon moved the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and a guided-missile destroyer into waters off Yemen. In all, nine U.S. warships are patrolling near strategic shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and the southern Arabian Sea. Officials said the growing armada is meant, in part, to...

Navy officials: US warship heads to Yemeni waters to intercept Iranian weapons shipments.

Since the American embassy in Yemen had been shut down, Mansour wound up calling the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia. “I told them there were about 75 families here waiting at the port,” she recalled. “My family has been waiting there for two weeks. We ran out of money, we ran out of food.” It was not the U.S. government that finally put Mansour and a handful of other refugees on that slow boat to Dijibouti – it was CNN. The news network chartered a ship and rescued 15 Americans, who counted themselves very lucky to make it on board....

A Saudi-led air strike in Yemen destroyed a weapons cache outside the capital of Sana’a hours ago, causing a massive explosion with shockwaves blowing out windows throughout the city.According to Al-Jazeera, “at least 46 people” were killed when Saudi forces dropped a bomb on a scud missile facility inside the city of Sana’a, the latest attack agains the new Houthi government. The Saudis accuse the Houthi, a Shiite minority, of receiving materiel support from Iran, accusations that they both deny.

The collapse of Yemen into a failed state has trapped between 3,000 and 4,000 American citizens in the country, caught between al-Qaeda and Houthi Islamists and the military action against both from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Almost until the moment that the Hadi government was put to flight, the White House has insisted that its counterterrorism efforts in Yemen had been a model of success. The final collapse appears to have caught the Obama administration so off-guard that it didn’t have time to organize an evacuation for Americans still left, and McClatchy’s John Zarocostas reports that no rescue plans...

Pentagon officials, who pride themselves on the care they take to avoid civilian casualties, have watched with growing alarm as Saudi airstrikes have hit what the U.N. this week called "dozens of public buildings," including hospitals, schools, residential areas and mosques. The U.N. said at least 364 civilians have been killed in the campaign. Although U.S. personnel don't pick the bombing targets, Americans are working beside Saudi military officials to check the accuracy of target lists in a joint operations center in Riyadh, defense officials said. The Pentagon has expedited delivery of GPS-guided "smart" bomb kits to the Saudi air...

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Military officials and residents say al-Qaida has taken control of a major airport, a sea port and an oil terminal in southern Yemen after brief clashes with troops. The officials said al-Qaida fighters clashed Thursday with members of one of Yemen’s largest infantry brigades outside Mukalla, a city the militants overran earlier this month. The officials, speaking from Sanaa on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press, said the leaders of the brigade fled.

Some 140 Americans fleeing unrest in Yemen have arrived in Djibouti, officials said, but hundreds of others are believed to still remain behind in Yemen. The families in Djibouti are exhausted, getting food and water and will receive "full consular services," authorities said. Americans could be seen smiling, grasping hands with U.S. Embassy staff members in Djibouti after fleeing from Yemen. Last week, more than 50 U.S. citizens filed lawsuits last week against the State Department and Department of Defense for failing to evacuate them.

Moscow, April 12 (QNA) – A ship of Russia’s naval forces has evacuated some 308 nationals, including 45 Russians, from Yemen, a defence ministry spokesman said on Sunday. The ministry official, General-Major Igor Konashenkov, told Russia’s (TASS) News Agency that “The Russian navy ship Priazovye has evacuated some 308 people from Yemen’s coast.” “Among those evacuated from the zone of military operations near the southern port of Aden are nationals of 19 countries,” Konashenkov said, noting some 45 citizens of the Russian Federation, 18 citizens of the United States, five citizens of Great Britain, one citizen of Bulgaria, six citizens...

WASHINGTON — A Michigan family with two toddlers and an infant was stranded in Yemen after being forced from its home by rebel gunmen. A California woman tried to flee through an arrangement with the embassy of Djibouti, but failed. A mother of four from New York also tried that route, at the State Department’s suggestion, only to hear the same reply: There would be no help. These accounts are among dozens presented in a lawsuit filed Thursday by Arab and Muslim civil rights groups seeking to force the Obama administration into taking action to bring home U.S. citizens who...

The State Department is telling U.S. citizens fleeing the fighting in Yemen to contact the government of India or an international NGO dedicated to migrant rights for help, according to the website for the abandoned U.S. embassy in Sanaa and statements by Indian government officials.

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Iran dispatched a destroyer and another naval ship to waters off Yemen on Wednesday, raising the stakes amid a Saudi-led air campaign targeting Iranian-backed Shiite rebels fighting forces loyal to the country's embattled president. The Iranian maneuver came as the U.S. deepened its support for the Saudi-led coalition, boosting weapons supplies and intelligence-sharing and carrying out the first U.S. aerial refueling mission of coalition fighter jets. The Iranian warships were sent to the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait as part of an anti-piracy campaign to "safeguard naval routes for vessels in the region," Iranian Rear Adm. Habibollah...

TOKYO — U.S. Defence Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday that an Al-Qaida branch is making “great gains” on the ground amid the chaos in Yemen, and that the U.S. will have to rethink how it prevents the group from launching attacks in the West. Defence Secretary Ash Carter, in Tokyo to work on deepening the U.S.-Japan alliance, said the collapse of the central government in Yemen makes it harder to conduct counterterrorism operations against the group called Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. “That doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to take steps to protect ourselves. We have to do it...

DUBAI — Iran sent two warships to the Gulf of Aden on Wednesday, state media reported, establishing a military presence off the coast of Yemen where Saudi Arabia is leading a bombing campaign to oust the Tehran-allied Houthi movement. The Alborz destroyer and Bushehr support vessel sailed from Bandar Abbas on a mission to protect Iranian shipping from piracy, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said in comments cited by Press TV. Saudi Arabia and several Arab allies have imposed an air and naval blockade on Yemen as part of a two-week campaign to oust the Houthis, who have taken most of...

The State Department is telling U.S. citizens fleeing the fighting in Yemen to contact the government of India or an international NGO dedicated to migrant rights for help, according to the website for the abandoned U.S. embassy in Sanaa and statements by Indian government officials. The Chinese Navy last week evacuated hundreds of people from the war-torn country. Russia, Canada, and France are also reported to have recently conducted evacuations of their own. The website of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Yemen posted two messages on Monday laying out options for American citizens looking to flee the country. The first...

Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S., a key ally of oil-rich Saudi Arabia, had also set up a coordination center in the Sunni Muslim kingdom, whose forces have led an air campaign against the Shi'ite Houthi group which rules most of Yemen. "Saudi Arabia is sending a strong message to the Houthis and their allies that they cannot overrun Yemen by force," he told reporters in the Saudi capital Riyadh. "As part of that effort, we have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing, and we have established a joint coordination planning cell in the...

Saudi-led air strikes have failed to reverse the rebels' momentum Houthi militia inched closer Sunday to capturing the port city of Aden, where Saudi-backed forces loyal to Yemeni President Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi continue to hold out. The Shi‘ite rebels unleashed artillery barrages on residential areas in the city and targeted a pro-Hadi television station with mortar rounds, forcing it off the air, reports AFP. “There are bodies in the streets, and we can’t get close because there are Houthi snipers on the rooftops. Anything that gets near, they shoot at,” an unidentified medic told Reuters. Houthi militants continue to...

April 2, 2015: In late March Saudi Arabia destroyed the Yemeni Air Force. How that came to be is a strange tale indeed. Saudi Arabia began airstrikes against Yemen on 25 March 2015 in response to requests for assistance from the internationally recognized Yemeni government. The call for help was triggered by a rebellion by northern Shia tribes, seeking more power for themselves and less corruption overall. Over the last year the Shia rebels have gradually taken control of over a third of the country. The elected government was preoccupied fighting Islamic terrorists and separatist Sunni tribes in the south...