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By Taing Rinith

Despite being one of the worst natural calamities to ever strike Southeast Asia, the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit Myanmar and Thailand on Friday last week could turn out to be a game-changing condition that weakens the military government and hopefully leads to the end of the civil war and political turmoil in the country, said a prominent Myanmar activist.

It is also the right time that Cambodia may take a leading role in coordinating the peaceful negotiation among conflicting parties in Myanmar, given the Kingdom’s experience of bringing the end of its own civil war in the past, he added.

The death toll from last week’s devastating earthquake in Myanmar has surpassed 2,000, state media reported Monday. Heart-wrenching accounts of victims’ final moments have begun to emerge: 200 Buddhist monks buried beneath the rubble of a collapsing monastery, 50 children killed as their preschool classroom crumbled, and 700 Muslims struck down while praying at mosques during Ramadan.

Aid groups and the United Nations have warned that the earthquake could worsen hunger and disease outbreaks in Myanmar, a country already among the most difficult for humanitarian efforts due to ongoing civil war.

Relief operations face additional challenges, including power outages, fuel shortages, and unreliable communications. The lack of heavy machinery has severely slowed search-and-rescue efforts, leaving many to dig through rubble by hand under scorching temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius.

Meanwhile, Maung Zarni, a renowned Myanmar activist and 2024 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, told Khmer Times in an exclusive interview that the recent disaster should have been a wake-up call for the military junta, an opportunity for them to halt the fighting and focus on humanitarian efforts.

“However, instead of prioritising the welfare of the people, the junta continues to wage war, refusing to mobilise military resources for rescue and relief operations,” he said. “Shockingly, rather than calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow rescue operations, the junta has restricted international access.”

“Foreign journalists are barred from entering, and the junta has not issued any meaningful emergency response. Their fear is not just of international scrutiny but of exposing their complete incompetence and failure as a governing body.”

Still, Zarni suggests that the military junta will soon force itself to enter a ceasefire and peace negotiations due to the declines in both economy and infrastructure on its side.

“The scale of destruction is immense,” he explained. “Cities such as Naypyidaw, Mandalay, and Sagaing have suffered catastrophic damage. Naypyidaw, the military-controlled capital, has seen government buildings, airports, and even military bunkers severely damaged. Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, is in ruins, with nearly half of it rendered uninhabitable—comparable to the devastation in Gaza.”

“Sagaing, the earthquake’s epicentre, is estimated to be 90% destroyed. Entire communities have been displaced, with millions now forced to live on the streets, too afraid to re-enter structurally compromised buildings.”

According to Zarni, a parallel can be drawn with Indonesia’s Aceh province, where a long-standing conflict between the Indonesian government and the Acehnese resistance was halted following the 2004 tsunami. The disaster created a humanitarian crisis so severe that both sides chose to come together and broker peace.

“Myanmar now faces a similar moment. But unlike in Aceh, where there were only two warring factions,” he added. “Myanmar’s conflict involves multiple ethnic resistance organisations, each holding different territories and agendas. The junta is steadily losing ground to these groups, yet it refuses to acknowledge the reality of its declining power.”

Myanmar is facing a crisis of survival, not just due to the earthquake but because of decades of war and misrule, the activist said.

“The country’s economy is in freefall, with infrastructure, businesses, and entire cities destroyed. Villages controlled by resistance groups continue to be bombed by the military, even as thousands remain trapped under rubble,” he said.

“The health system has collapsed, with hospitals lacking electricity, medicine, and staff—many doctors and nurses have joined the Civil Disobedience Movement, leaving urban hospitals understaffed and overwhelmed.”

This ongoing cycle of destruction must end, Zarni noted.

“The military junta, as the largest armed organisation in Myanmar, has the responsibility to make a peace overture,” he said. “Without an end to the civil war, there will be no meaningful reconstruction, no future for Myanmar’s people. The country has been in conflict for over 70 years.”

This earthquake should have been the turning point—a moment for all sides to come together, put aside their differences, and rebuild. Instead, the suffering continues, Zarni added. He also urged Cambodia to take a leading role as a mediator in ending the turmoil in Myanmar with an initiative known as the Phnom Penh Conference.

“Cambodia’s past offers a lesson for Myanmar. After years of war and genocide, Cambodia’s warring factions eventually came to an agreement under international pressure, leading to peace and reconstruction. A similar approach is needed in Myanmar,” Zarni explained.

“But for this to happen, ASEAN and the international community must recognise that the junta is no longer the sole or legitimate representative of Myanmar’s people. Peace must be pursued not just through the junta but with all actors involved in the conflict.”

On the other hand, Pou Sothirak, a retired academic and Distinguished Senior Advisor at the Cambodia Centre for Regional Studies (CCRS), said yesterday that political issues should be set aside at the moment, as Myanmar and its people are dealing with the worst natural calamity in history.

“This is still a staggering reminder to all the leaders of the country to focus attention on alleviating human suffering,” he said. “In Myanmar, people are dying. So, this is a time when political issues must step aside, and all efforts must be reshifted and refocussed on alleviating the suffering.”

Sothirak suggested that part of the action that needs to be carried on in Myanmar right now is unearthing the bodies of those who died in the earthquake and returning them to their families for funerals, providing proper healthcare to injured victims in the hospitals, and providing shelters to those who have lost their homes.

“That is the most important thing we need to deal with—emergency issues. This is a humanitarian crisis,” he said. “I’m calling for the government in Myanmar to focus on that.”

Sothirak added that what happens to the military junta depends on the next critical step that they take.

“How they respond to the crisis, how they bring about confidence and normalcy back to, uh, Myanmar – this is the long-term issue,” he said.

2 April 2025

Source: khmertimeskh.com

If Israel were a normal country, Netanyahu would be somewhere hiding on a flight to The Hague, perhaps, handcuffed. But normalcy is not the norm of even a single leader who has come into power in Israel. They call their victims animals, but it’s easy to see they are the beast. Netanyahu seems to be convinced that the more Palestinian she kills, the people of his country will count him as a hero he will emerge as a hero and, thus, save his skin. He has not even learned the lesson Hitler had to finally accept.  Hitler committed suicide via a gunshot to the head on 30April 1945 in the Führerbunker in Berlin after it became clear that Germany would lose the Battle of Berlin, which led to the end of World War II in Europe. Something identical will be the fate of Netanyahu. His luck will runout sooner than later because the level of his crimes has matched those of Hitler’s. Even worse, it would appear. He has yet to really win a war against the people of Gaza. He might have wrought destruction and death on its many thousands and made Gaza dilapidated. But even after 2023 October, the people have returned. By contrast, Israel has lost huge sections of their population fleeing out of fear. After all, attachment to the land is vague. There is no sort of affinity that those Israelis who fled feel any connection to the land whatsoever. They did not just leave, they took with them their belongings, investments, and they could.

The United States has been one of the biggest architects in the development of Israel as a nation-state in thepost-70s world. Billions of dollars of US funding are earmarked for building and strengthening Israel’s state capabilities. America’s unequivocal support for the occupying state’s right to self-defense at any cost is not shocking. But on the brink of a regional war with other state actors and militant proxy groups in the Middle East, and acceleration into a deeper and longer conflict, the US needs to ask if it has produced its version of Frankenstein, an aggressor state armed to the teeth, which will eventually put US interests at risk. What is farcical about the US’ humanitarian claims is that on the one hand, the administration is complicit in inflicting harm, and on the other, itis slapping a band-aid on the wound by sending humanitarian aid to Gaza, a drop in the ocean considering the massacre that has been perpetrated in the past few weeks. The US has supported colonization and dictatorial state actors in its diplomatic past, but what is novel about its position in this conflict is its unique relationship with Israel. There is a vocal, powerful, and corporate Zionist constituency that advocates for Israel.

Despite this, Israel is compelled to use back-hand methods to stave off defeat and intimidate Palestinians. Naturally, Palestinians are in despair. They have no clue when their cities and homes are next in line. But their courage is stunning. They are ‘here to stay’. Not live in foreign lands from the largesse that Trump offers them from further stolen land.

Israel and the US have chosen routes to war that can lead to the worst.  Albert Einstein predicted that a third world war was inevitable and would be huge with massive destruction albeit the tools of service were unclear. His idea makes us uncomfortable. Einstein further claims that after World War III, humanity will be left with nothing but the provision of nature to fight with, stones and twigs. How absurd, and how is that possible? If we have and continue to be progressive, why are our gains turning against us? These are the pertinent questions worthy of our attention. We shall all be dead or find ourselves in a killing spree that will kill most. We, after all humankind’s progress, will have gone backwards ages or into oblivion. Two of the world’s biggest political clowns – Trump and Netanyahu- joined by a minor cast of clowns such as Zelensky– will bring it on. That seems to have already begun. The murderous spree is on full blast. But what goes around always comes around.

In solidarity

4 April 2025

Ranjan Solomon
On behalf of MLN/Palestine Updates

By Dr. Ramzy Baroud

The phrase “civil war” is one of the most dominant terms used by Israeli politicians today. What began as a mere warning from Israeli President Isaac Herzog is now an accepted possibility for much of Israel’s mainstream political society.

“(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu is ready to sacrifice everything for his survival, and we are closer to a civil war than people realize,” former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stated in an interview with The New York Times on March 24.

The assumption is that the feared civil war reflects the political polarization in Israel: two groups divided by strong views on war, the role of government, the judiciary, budget allocations, and other issues.

However, this assumption is not entirely accurate. Nations can be divided along political lines, but mass protests and security crackdowns do not necessarily indicate that a civil war is imminent.

In Israel’s case, however, references to civil war stem from its historical context and social-ethnic makeup.

An important but largely concealed CIA report, titled “Israel: The Sephardi-Ashkenazi Confrontation and Its Implications,” is almost prophetic in its ability to detail future scenarios for a country with deep socio-economic and, therefore, political divisions.

The report was prepared in 1982, but was only released in 2007. It followed the 1981 elections, where the Likud Party, led by Menachem Begin, won 48 seats in the Knesset, and Labor’s Shimon Peres won 47 seats.

Ashkenazi (Western) Jews had for decades dominated all aspects of power in Israel. This dominance makes sense: Zionism was essentially a Western ideology, and all elements of the state—military (Haganah), parliamentary (Knesset), colonial (Jewish Agency), and economic (Histadrut)—were largely composed of Western European Jewish classes.

Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, descendants of Arab Middle Eastern backgrounds, arrived in Israel mostly after its establishment on the ruins of historic Palestine.By then, the Ashkenazis had already established dominance, controlling Israeli political and economic institutions, speaking the predominant languages, and making major decisions.

Begin’s election victory in 1977, and again in 1981, was a hard and arduous battle against Ashkenazi dominance. The Likud, a coalition of several right-wing factions, was established four years earlier. Through appealing to and manipulating the grievances of fringe ideological and ethnic groups, Likud managed to remove the Ashkenazi-dominated Labor Party from power.

The 1981 elections were Labor’s desperate attempt to regain power, thus class dominance. The almost perfect ideological split, however, only highlighted the new rule that would govern Israel for many elections—and decades to come—where Israeli politics became dominated by ethnic orders: East vs. West, religious fanaticism vs. nationalistic extremism, though often masked as ‘liberal,’ and the like.

Since then, Israel has either managed—or, more accurately, manufactured—external crises to cope with internal divisions. For example, the 1982 war on Lebanon helped, at least for a while, to distract from Israel’s shifting social dynamics.

Though Begin and his supporters reshaped Israeli politics, the deep-rooted dominance of Ashkenazi-led institutions allowed Western liberals to continue their control over the army, the police, the Shin Bet, and most other sectors. The Sephardic political resurgence mainly focused on populating Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied territories and increasing privileges and funding for religious institutions.

It took nearly two decades after Begin’s 1977 victory for the Sephardic constituency to expand its power and establish dominance over key military and political institutions.

Netanyahu’s 1996 coalition marked the beginning of his rise as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister and the start of coalition-building with Sephardic and Mizrahi alliances.

To maintain that newfound power, the political core of Likud had to change, as Sephardic and Mizrahi representation increased exponentially within Israel’s now dominant party.

Though it is accurate to argue that Netanyahu has managed Israeli politics ever since by manipulating the grievances of disadvantaged socio-economic, religious, and ethnic groups, the fundamental change in Israel, predicted correctly in the CIA document, was likely to happen based on the country’s own dynamics.

Netanyahu and his allies accelerated Israel’s transformation. To permanently marginalize the Ashkenazis, they needed to take control of all institutions that had largely been dominated by European Jews, starting with altering the system of checks and balances that had existed in Israel since its inception.

The battle in Israel has preceded the Israeli genocide in Gaza. It largely began when Netanyahu rebelled against the Supreme Court and attempted to fire former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant in March 2023. Mass protests in Israel that followed highlighted the growing chasm.

The war on Gaza further widened these divisions, with Netanyahu and his allies deflecting all blame and using the October 7 events and the subsequent failed war as an opportunity to eliminate their political rivals.

Once again, they turned their gaze toward the judiciary, reordering the system to ensure Israel, as envisioned by Western Zionists, is transformed into a completely different political order.

Though the Ashkenazis are losing most of their political power, they continue to hold most of their economic cards, which could lead to disruptive strikes and civil disobedience.

For Netanyahu and his supporters, a compromise is not possible because it would only signal the return of the balancing act that started in the early 1980s. For the Ashkenazi power base, submission would mean the end of Israel’s David Ben-Gurion, Chaim Weizmann, and others—essentially, the end of Zionism itself.

With no possible compromise in sight, civil war in Israel becomes a real possibility—and perhaps an imminent one.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

3 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – The Israeli military’s bombing of an UNRWA health centre in the northern Gaza Strip’s Jabalia refugee camp is a fully-fledged act of mass killing. The attack is one of many that constitute a deliberate pattern of massacres committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians as part of an ongoing genocide, lasting nearly 18 months now.

Israeli forces targeted the UNRWA-run health centre, which was sheltering hundreds of displaced civilians, at approximately 10:55 a.m. on Wednesday 2 April. The assault resulted in the deaths of 22 people, 16 of whom were women, children, or elderly, with dozens more individuals injured. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stresses that the strike reflects a deliberate Israeli policy of targeting civilian gatherings and causing mass fatalities, as part of an organised effort to erase the Palestinian presence in the Gaza Strip.

The attack was two-pronged, with Israeli forces striking both the northern and southern sides of the centre’s first floor. The bombardment also triggered fires that caused numerous civilian casualties.

The Euro-Med Monitor field team visited the scene immediately after the strike and conducted a preliminary on-site assessment. The team found no evidence of any Palestinian military presence or activity in or around the facility, a claim corroborated by multiple eyewitnesses who categorically denied the presence of any armed individuals or military equipment in the vicinity prior to the attack.

Israel’s use of highly destructive weaponry to attack a densely populated shelter—one that was primarily filled with children—demonstrates a clear and deliberate intent to carry out a massacre. Euro-Med Monitor condemns this blatant disregard for Palestinian life and the complete denial of any form of safety or protection, even within United Nations facilities that are supposed to be guaranteed special protection under international law.

Whenever international outrage is triggered by its attacks, Israel routinely repeats the same narrative, i.e. claims it was targeting “militants”, in an attempt to justify its actions. However, Israel has consistently failed to present any verifiable evidence of these claims or allow independent parties to investigate their legitimacy.

The attack on the Jabalia refugee camp’s UNRWA centre is yet another grave breach of international humanitarian law, and the international community must hold Israeli authorities accountable for Israel’s repeated and deliberate attacks on legally protected civilian infrastructure.

Making unsubstantiated claims without evidence and blocking investigations into these claims does not absolve Israel of its responsibilities under international humanitarian law, nor does it exempt other states from their legal obligation to investigate such violations and ensure accountability for those responsible.

The international community’s automatic acceptance of Israeli claims that lack credible substantiation is both legally and morally indefensible. Euro-Med Monitor warns that this type of passive complicity effectively grants Israel a blank cheque to continue targeting civilians under a false veneer of legality, thereby exposing the biased foundations of the international legal system.

In a testimony to the Euro-Med Monitor team, Souad Mohammed Zahir, a displaced Palestinian woman who sought refuge with her family at the Jabalia UNRWA clinic after their home was destroyed, said: “We were sheltering in the clinic after receiving renewed evacuation orders. It was overcrowded with hundreds of displaced people, mostly women and children. I was preparing food when I heard two massive explosions. The entire clinic shook—stones, shrapnel, and dust flew everywhere. I couldn’t see anything because of the smoke, but I could hear people screaming from every corner. Minutes later, people began pulling bodies from under the rubble—mostly children.”

Thirty-year-old Ghada Obeid, another displaced woman who was present at the clinic during the attack, described the horrific aftermath: “I saw the scattered remains of children, women with crushed skulls, and others who had lost their limbs. Members of the Falouja, Imad, Abo Sa’da, and Aliyan families were all killed in an instant. There were no fighters in the clinic—only families seeking safety from the death that stalks us everywhere.”

A third survivor, who requested anonymity due to safety concerns, stated: “The clinic was full of women and children. During my displacement, I had formed ties with several families staying there, including the Abo Sa’da and Aliyan families. After the strike, I recognised nine victims from the Abo Sa’da family and five from the Aliyan family—most of them children—as well as many others on the same floor who were killed in a simultaneous strike.” He emphasised: “There were no armed individuals, contrary to Israeli claims. Everyone there was a displaced civilian seeking refuge—and yet even UN-run shelters have not spared us from the bombing.”

Amid unacceptable international silence and inaction, and with blatant disregard for international law and humanitarian principles, Israel appears to be implementing a scorched-earth policy against the population of the Gaza Strip.

The international community must adopt immediate and concrete measures to halt the ongoing Israeli atrocities and ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians, as a further failure to act will only enable Israel to continue committing its crimes with impunity.

Even if one accepts the unproven claim that “armed individuals” were present in the area on 2 April, such a circumstance does not exempt Israel from its binding legal obligations under international law, including international humanitarian law. These obligations include adhering to the core principles of humanity, distinction, military necessity, proportionality, and precaution. To minimise civilian casualties and harm, these principles must be upheld and ensured by Israel during the planning and execution of all its military operations—without exception—including in the selection of methods and means of warfare.

Israel has a legal duty to refrain from launching any military operation in which the anticipated harm to civilians outweighs the expected military advantage. Failure to do so constitutes a grave breach of international law and is considered a complete war crime, as demonstrated by this particular case, which is clearly part of a broader systematic policy pursued by Israel in the Gaza Strip. This policy amounts to an element of Israel’s ongoing crime of genocide against the Palestinian population in the Strip.

The patterns of Israeli military conduct suggest a deliberate strategy aimed at eliminating Palestinian civilians across the Gaza Strip; spreading fear among them; depriving them of shelter or even momentary stability; and forcibly displacing them repeatedly while subjecting them to life-threatening living conditions. This is carried out through sustained bombardments, the targeting of designated “humanitarian zones”, and a focus on attacking shelter centres, including those located within UNRWA facilities.

All states, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their legal responsibilities by taking immediate action to halt the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip in all its forms; adopt all necessary measures to protect Palestinian civilians; ensure Israel’s compliance with international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice; and guarantee that Israeli officials are held accountable for their crimes. The arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court against the Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence must be implemented, and these individuals must be transferred to international justice.

Furthermore, the international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel for its systematic and egregious violations of international law. These measures should include a ban on the import and export of weapons to and from Israel; the cessation of all forms of political, financial, and military support; and the freezing of assets belonging to individuals responsible for crimes against Palestinians. It is also important to impose travel bans and suspend bilateral trade agreements and privileges that allow Israel to benefit economically while continuing to commit international crimes.

Finally, all relevant states and entities must hold accountable those states complicit in or facilitating Israel’s crimes, particularly the United States, as well as other governments providing any form of assistance or cooperation—military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, or media-related—that contributes to the continuation of such violations.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

3 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Sharon Zhang

More journalists have been killed in Israel’s genocide in Gaza than in the past seven major U.S.-involved wars combined, marking the “worst ever conflict” for reporters in history, a new report says.

As of late March, at least 232 journalists have been killed in the Gaza genocide, with the vast majority being Palestinians, according to a new paper by the Costs of War project in Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Nearly 380 journalists have been wounded in the violence as of January, per the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

This is the highest journalist death toll of any U.S. war since the Civil War, the group says — and, in fact, tops the combined toll of journalist casualties in the U.S. Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the U.S.’s assaults on Cambodia and Laos), the Yugoslav Wars, the War in Afghanistan, and the ongoing Ukraine War.

In the first month of Israel’s genocide alone, at least 37 journalists were killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists — marking the deadliest month on record for journalists worldwide, the group said.

The report, written by journalist Nick Turse, tallies the journalist death toll based on accounting by Al Jazeera and the Committee to Protect Journalists. The toll calculated by Turse is far higher than the oft-cited death toll tallied by the latter group.

As the report notes, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said that the death toll of journalists as of a year ago was about 10 percent of Gaza’s journalist community — equivalent to killing 8,500 journalists in the U.S. That number would be even higher if the journalism profession in the U.S. had not been gutted over the past decades.

It’s unclear how many of these killings were deliberate targeting of journalists, but it’s clear that Israel has “unleashed an unrelenting war on the press,” the analysis says. Reporters Sans Frontières has counted at least 35 cases where there is sufficient evidence of direct targeting — though press freedom groups and experts have repeatedly said that it is clear that Israel is undertaking a concerted effort to slaughter those documenting the genocide.

Those directly targeted by Israeli forces include 23-year-old journalist Hossam Shabat, who Israel killed in an airstrike last week. The young journalist had become well-known throughout the genocide for his unrelenting coverage of northern Gaza in the face of Israel’s intense assault and siege on the region. Israel has acknowledged his killing, claiming, without evidence, that Shabat was a terrorist.

On Tuesday, the same day that the report was released, the Palestinian Journalists Protection Committee announced that Israel had targeted and killed another journalist, Al-Aqsa Radio reporter Mohammed Saleh Al-Bardawil, also killing his wife and three children.

In addition to targeting and killing journalists, “Israel has employed a full spectrum effort to undermine the free flow of information,” the report says, through the Israeli military’s destruction of the communications system in Gaza and intimidation and widespread repression of the press.

Israel’s targeting of journalists is an escalation of the erosion of journalism across the world.

“Across the globe, the economics of the industry, the violence of war, and coordinated censorship campaigns threaten to turn an increasing number of conflict zones into news graveyards, with Gaza being the most extreme example,” the report says.

Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor.

3 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Nick Beams

The imposition of the new US tariff regime unveiled by President Trump yesterday is a declaration of economic war against the rest of the world.

It has been driven forward by two interconnected objectives. On the economic front, it seeks to extract hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff hikes, ultimately paid for by US companies and consumers, to shore up the ever-worsening trade and financial position of the US, while weakening its global economic rivals, particularly China, to improve its trade position.

It also aims to enhance US military capacity by using tariffs to force companies, foreign and domestic, to increase the level of their operations on American soil, much of which is needed to supply the military.

Under the new regime, the US will impose “reciprocal tariffs” on a range of countries. The tariff is not determined by the tariff actually charged on US exports.

Rather, a number has been assigned to each of the countries involved. This includes not only the tariff charged on US exports, but all measures such as subsidies, regulations, bio-security measures for agricultural products, and the value of the currency, which the US considers to have the same effect as a tariff in discriminating against the US.

The reciprocal tariff to be charged has been set at half that number. Thus, for China, a key target of the new regime, the number assigned to it by US economic officials is 67, and the reciprocal tariff will be 34 percent. This will be on top of the 20 percent tariff already imposed on Chinese goods, bringing the total tariff level to 54 percent.

One of the immediate effects of the tariff hike, set to come into effect on April 9, will be a major price increase for a vast range of goods made in China and purchased by American consumers.

The European Union, which Trump has denounced as an organisation set up to “screw” the US, has been assigned the number 39, and the tariff impost will be 20 percent.

Southeast Asian countries—a number of which have become a center of manufacturing operations for many companies seeking to escape the effect of trade bans on China—will be hit even harder. The tariff for Thailand will be 36 percent, Malaysia 24 percent and Vietnam 46 percent.

The tariff for South Korea, already hit by the 25 percent tariff on “foreign-made” cars, which came into effect at midnight, will be 25 percent. And the list goes on.

All countries not hit with a “reciprocal tariff” will have a 10 percent tariff imposed on their exports, in a measure aimed, in part, at preventing companies from transferring some of their operations to countries not specifically targeted by the US. Now there is nowhere in the world they can go.

Trump began his presentation of the new tariff regime in the White House Rose Garden with his now customary rant against the rest of the world.

“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” he said, remarking later that in some cases friends had been worse than foes.

“For years, hard-working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense, but now it’s our turn to prosper.”

However, the repeated claims by Trump that the tariff measures are going to produce a new golden age for the US are a fiction. They will not bring down inflation but raise prices on a vast range of goods. The auto tariffs are set to raise prices on cars from anywhere between $3,000 and $10,000.

Thousands of jobs will be lost, and any new plants set up in the US will be highly automated, with a small labour force to cut costs.

Furthermore, the so-called “American-made” is non-existent. Every car in the world, including in the US, is the product of a complex international division of labour. For example, the Ford F-150 pickup truck, one of the standard bearers for what is regarded as an “American” car, comprises thousands of parts imported from all over the world.

Trump claims the new tariff regime is a magic cure-all that is going to both pay down US government debt and reduce the trade deficit.

But estimates of the expected tariff revenue, according to Capital Economics, are that at most, it will bring in around $800 billion.

The interest bill alone on the US debt, now at around $36 trillion and rising, is $1 trillion every year as it fast becomes the biggest item in the budget.

The trade policies of the Trump administration are internally contradictory. On the one hand, it wants to expand US export markets by weakening the value of the US dollar, thereby making American goods cheaper in world markets. But maintenance of its reserve currency status, which Trump regards as an existential issue for the US—losing it, he has said, would be the equivalent of losing a war—depends on a strong dollar.

Moreover, however much Trump harks back to President William McKinley and his tariff regime at the turn of the 20th century, the US economy has long outgrown its national borders and is dependent on an expanding global economy.

But the global economy, already experiencing some of the lowest growth in decades, is now about to take another major blow. According to calculations published earlier this week in the Financial Times, the overall hit to the world economy could be in the order of $1.4 trillion if, as is virtually certain, there is retaliation.

On top of this, there is growing nervousness in financial markets—already in a fragile condition because of the rise in global debt—both of governments and corporations.

This was expressed in the letter by Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm, to shareholders this week. He said, “protectionism has returned in force” and that in his conversations, people were “more anxious about the economy than at any time in recent memory.”

Recent memory, it should be noted, includes the global financial crisis of 2008 and the financial crisis of March 2020, which saw the freezing of the US Treasury bond market.

Trump is imposing the sweeping tariff regime under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, passed under the Democratic Carter administration, which gives him the power to declare a national emergency if there is an “unusual and extraordinary” threat from outside the US that impacts national security, foreign policy or the economy.

The so-called Fact Sheet issued by the White House said the national emergency was the result of the large and persistent trade deficit. It was $918 billion in 2024, an increase of 17 percent from the previous year.

The White House statement made clear that military considerations are a central driving force of the new tariff regime. The “reciprocal tariffs” are directed against countries “with which the US has the largest trade deficits,” but virtually every time economic matters are raised in the document, they are linked with military issues.

It said that “pernicious” economic policies and practices of trading partners undermined US ability to produce goods for the public “and the military, threatening national security.”

“‘Made in America’,” it declared, “is not just a tagline—it’s an economic and national security priority of this administration.”

US stockpiles of military goods were “too low to be compatible with national defense interests,” and developments in bio-manufacturing, batteries and microelectronics had to be made “to support defense needs.”

Explaining the focus on non-tariff barriers, particularly with regard to China, it said they had not only undermined US competitiveness but threatened “US economic and national security by increasing our reliance on foreign-controlled supply chains for critical industries, as well as everyday goods.”

The Fact Sheet outlined the central core of the economic war.

“Today’s IEEPA Order,” it said, “also contains modification authority, allowing President Trump to increase the tariff if trading partners retaliate or decrease the tariffs if trading partners take significant steps to remedy non-reciprocal trade arrangements and align with the United States on economic and national security matters.”

In other words, get in line or you will be hit—and even harder if you lift a finger.

The tariff measures are not just a preparation for war—they are certainly that, and in earlier times could have been considered an act of war. Today, the lines between the states of war and peace are blurred, as the war on the economic front is tied directly to the expansionist drive of US imperialism—the threats to make Canada the 51st state, the ongoing operations to take over Greenland, and the increased bombing of the Houthis in Yemen, to name just a few.

3 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor

Palestinian Territory – The international community must hold Israeli officials andresponsible individuals accountable for the deliberate killing of 15 paramedics and first responders from the Palestinian Red Crescent and Civil Defence. The victims—killed by the Israeli military in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip—also include an employee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). This killing is part of Israel’s widespread and systematic attacks on humanitarian, medical, and UN workers, all of whom are protected by international law.

According to field evidence, Israeli forces killed eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, five Civil Defence personnel, and one UNRWA employee; all were on duty at the time of their targeting. The crime has been referred to as “the largest mass execution of humanitarian workers in the history of modern warfare”.Following the total destruction of the workers’vehicles, the majority of their bodies were subsequently interred in a deep pit that was then filled with sand. This horrifying scene serves as further evidence of Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and is a major crime that is a serious breach of international humanitarian law.

The crime is just one of a string of intentional assaults that have been directed at humanitarian and medical workers since 7 October 2023. Since then, Israel has killed over 1,400 medical personnel, 27 Red Crescent paramedics, and 111 Civil Defence personnel as part of a systematic campaign to destroy the Gaza Strip’s health and relief infrastructure to kill Palestinians, while simultaneously aiming to destroy their means of subsistence as well.

A Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance left Rafah’s Hashash neighbourhood early on Sunday (23 March 2025) to evacuate injured individuals who had been hit by Israeli attacks. However, the medical staff inside the ambulance suffered injuries themselves as a result of the Israeli occupation forces’ intense fire. Three more ambulances were sent to evacuate the injured, including the crew members hurt in the initial attack, as the situation worsened. The area was thenabruptly surrounded by a strict security cordon by the occupation forces, which has since cut off all communication with medical personnel.

That same day, a Civil Defence rescue team in Rafah’s Tal al-Sultan neighbourhood received urgent calls to travel to al-Hashash area. The calls stated that Israeli occupation forces had unexpectedly invaded the area, killing and injuring dozens of people and trapping medical personnel. Though the call was answered by a team of six Civil Defence personnel, communication with the team was lost shortlyafter they left to do their job.

One of the crew members was severely beaten by the Israeli occupation forces and then released that evening. The rest—the UNRWA employee, five Civil Defence personnel, and eight Red Crescent paramedics—were killed.

Additional ambulance and Civil Defence crews were able to reach the scene on Friday 28March, following international coordination, and discovered the mission leader, Civil Defence officer Anwar Abdul Hamid al-Attar, dead, with his body shredded. The rescue crews that arrived Friday also found all of the Red Crescent vehicles, fire trucks, and ambulances completely reduced to charred metal.

Despite being protected by international humanitarian law, the paramedics were directly targeted, as evidenced by the ripped remains of the safety gear discovered at the crime scene. Additionally, evidence shows that theIsraeli occupying forces not only killed the victims, but also covered up their crime byusing bulldozers and other large equipment tobury the bodies in a mass grave.

The bodies of the eight Red Crescent paramedics were recovered by rescue crews on Sunday 30 March 2025, the first day of Eid al-Fitr. One crew member is still missing, and is thought to be being held by the Israeli military. The bodies of the UNRWA employee and five Civil Defence personnel were also discovered on 30 March.

The Palestinian Red Crescent has identified the following victims: Mohammed Bahloul, Ashraf Abu Labda, Mohammed Al-Hila, Raed Al-Sharif, Mustafa Khafaja, Ezz El-Din Shaat, Saleh Muammar, and Refaat Radwan. The victims from the Civil Defence are Yousef Rasem Khalifa (ambulance officer), Fouad Ibrahim Al-Jamal (ambulance driver), Ibrahim Nabil Al-Maghari (firefighter officer), Samir Yahya Al-Bahabsa (firefighter officer), and Zuhair Abdul Hamid Al-Farra (firefighter driver). The victim who worked for UNRWA is Kamal Mohammed Shahtout.

“As soon as the incident occurred, we entered the site west of Rafah with OCHA crews,”Sufyan Ahmed, a member of the Civil Defence team involved in the effort to recover the victims’ bodies, said in a statement to Euro-Med Monitor. “The Israeli army told OCHA that the bodies of the victims were found next to a fire truck and an electrical pole. Using a small bulldozer, we started our excavation at the spot the army had designated. One body was discovered. After examining it, it was determined to be the body of the mission leader, Anwar Abdel Hamid al-Attar.”

He continued: “We used OCHA to get in touch with the army and enquire about the whereabouts of the other bodies. They replied that the bodies were in the same hole from which we had taken al-Attar’s body, next to the electrical pole. We dug deeper into the hole and kept looking, but we could not find anything. We then had to leave the site because the army had given us a limited amount of time.

“We went to the site the following day and waited at a nearby location, awaiting the army’s approval to enter,” he added. “After roughly five hours, we were told that entry was refused, so we departed. The following day, we anticipated being granted access to the site, but were still denied permission. After a few days of waiting, we received approval yesterday, Sunday, and were able to access the site. We were told that the army would stay with us until they told us where the bodies were interred so that we could start the excavation process.”

Explained Ahmed: “When we got to the site, a quadcopter was flying overhead, showing us where the bodies were buried. We received a sign pointing to the graveyard from the drone. We were shocked to learn that the designated site was far from the one where we had previously been informed the bodies were interred. At that moment, we recognised that they had been attempting to delay, procrastinate, and waste our time the first [few days]. We, the Civil Defence staff (two paramedics and two drivers), convened briefly after the new location was determined to devise a strategy for safely retrieving the bodies. We had prior experience on similar missions and had the required equipment.

“We started digging right away, discovered a body, and recovered it. We dug out another body that we found underneath. We then found a third body underneath. We dug further until all of the Red Crescent and Civil Defence personnel’s bodies were found in the same hole. The body of an UNRWA employee was the only one still missing. We asked OCHA about its location, and they told us that it was close to the ‘barracks’ area, west of Rafah.

The bodies had distinct features, but they were in the early stages of decomposition. When they were examined, it was evident that a barrage of bullets had struck them. Based on my observations, the injuries were located in the chest region. A closer look revealed that some of the victims had still been alive despite their injuries—they were apparently buried alive with their feet bound.

“Among the bodies we looked at was Ibrahim al-Maghari’s. His body was covered in severe bruises and showed evidence of torture, and his legs seemed bound. After being shot in the back of the head, his face was completely ripped apart. Regarding Fouad al-Jamal’s body, he was shot in the head from a very close distance, causing his skull to shatter,[giving the appearance of] crushed bones. We discovered that every employee of the Palestinian Red Crescent had been shot in the left and right sides of the head.

After getting permission from the Israeli army, we removed the bodies with immense grief and suffering, moved them to ambulances, and left the site for the hospital.”

Ahmed went on, “We saw bags, blankets, clothing, and other items belonging to thousands of citizens who had been displaced that day, when we first arrived at the scene of the incident and collected the body of Anwar al-Attar. However, these items were absent when we returned to the site a few days later, indicating that the incident site had been altered and tampered with.”

He affirmed: “We were joined by a Red Cross delegation and a forensic physician with expertise in autopsies when the bodies were recovered. Along with documentation experts, we were joined by a delegation from UNRWA and OCHA. All of them observed the process of recovery.”

Another Civil Defence crew’s testimony, which was obtained by Euro-Med Monitor, claimsthat the victims were cruelly tortured and killed by the occupation forces. The body of one Civil Defence member was wearing handcuffs, while others were discovered in a state of partial undress, and additional victims were found to have suffered from extreme torturethat led to their deaths, such as having more than 20 bullets fired into their chest. Most of the victims’ bodies were discovered in a mass grave that was two to three metres deep, thistestimony confirms, suggesting that Israeli soldiers forced the victims out of their cars, killed them in cold blood, and then buried them to hide any evidence of the crime.

The Geneva Conventions, which provide protection for medical personnel, relief and humanitarian workers, and United Nations personnel, are gravely violated by this heinous crime, which also blatantly violates international humanitarian law. This is one of many full-fledged war crimes committed by Israel as part of its genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The international community must take prompt legal action and hold Israel and its allies accountable, as Israel is clearly attempting toeradicate the Strip’s Palestinian population, either by killing them directly or by destroying the institutions that support their existence—the gravest possible crimes.

All states must swiftly launch international criminal investigations to bring every perpetrator to justice. This includes using national courts to hold their own citizens accountable for any crimes related to Israel’s genocide, as well as supporting the International Criminal Court’s work and assisting the Court in any way possible, such as by issuing arrest warrants and turning over any criminals to the appropriate authorities. In order for states to fulfil their responsibilities under international law, Israeli citizens or dual citizens who have committed crimes against the Palestinian people must be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

Every state, both individually and collectively, must fulfil their binding legal obligations and act quickly to end the genocide in the Gaza Strip. Since this is a fundamental, non-negotiable right of a population under international law, states should take all reasonable steps to protect Palestinian civilians in the Strip; protect medical, humanitarian, and UN personnel there; lift the blockade on the enclave; and permit the immediate and unhindered entry of humanitarian aid. There is no legal exception that would permit Israel to deny this aid to the Palestinian people.

The international community must impose economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions on Israel due to its egregious and ongoing violations of international law. These sanctionsshould include a travel ban; a freeze on the financial assets of officials linked to crimes against Palestinians; a suspension of military cooperation; and a ban on arms sales to—and purchases from—Israel. In addition, trade privileges and bilateral agreements that give Israel economic advantages and allow it to carry out crimes against Palestinians must besuspended as part of these sanctions.

The United States and other nations that give Israel any kind of support or assistance in connection with the commission of itsegregious crimes, including aid and contractual relationships in the military, intelligence, political, legal, financial, media, and other areas that contribute to the persistence of such crimes, should be held accountable and prosecuted.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is a Geneva-based independent organization with regional offices across the MENA region and Europe

2 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

By Quds News Network

Gaza (Quds News Network)- All bakeries in the Gaza Strip have been forced to close due to Israel’s blockade on food and essential supplies, amid ongoing bombardment that has killed over 1,000 Palestinians.

Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami, the head of Gaza’s bakery owners’ association, announced on Tuesday that bakeries had shut as a result of lack of fuel and flour.

“The World Food Programme [WFP] informed us today that flour had run out in its warehouses,” Ajrami said.

“Bakeries will no longer operate until the [Israeli] occupation opens the crossings and allows the necessary supplies to enter.”

The WFP supports the running of 19 bakeries in the enclave. Their closures will worsen a starvation and malnutrition crisis that has devastated Gaza’s two million residents.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that the WFP was closing its remaining 19 bakeries after shuttering six others last month. She said that hundreds of thousands of people relied on them.

For four weeks, since March 1, Israeli forces have closed off the supply of all sources of food, fuel, medicine and essentials into the Palestinian enclave. It’s the longest continuous such blockade since war began 18 months ago.

“All entry points into Gaza are closed. At the border, food is rotting. Medicine is expiring. Vital medical equipment is stuck,” said Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian chief.

“If the basic principles of humanitarian law still count, the international community must act to uphold them.”

The four weeks coincided with the holy month of Ramadan and the festival of Eid al-Fitr.

A WFP memo circulated to aid groups on Monday said that it could no longer operate its remaining bakeries, which produce the pita bread on which many rely. The UN agency said that it was prioritizing its remaining stocks to provide emergency food aid and expand hot meal distribution.

2 April 2025

Source: countercurrents.org

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei delivered a speech at the Grand Mosalla mosque of Tehran where he led this year’s Eid al-Fitr prayers.

At the beginning of his speech, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution offered feliciations on the occasion of Nowruz, the Persian new year, as well as the Eid al-Fitr.

He also hailed the Iranian nation’s turnout in this year’s International Quds Day rallies across the country.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Leader referred to the ongoing barbaric actions of the Israeli regime throughout the region, considering the Israeli bloodshed of innocent people a bitter incident for Muslims.

He went on to say that the assassination of officials is a common practice of the Israeli regime, which is backed by the US and Western governments.

The Leader added that Israel is committing genocide and, if given the opportunity, it will invade other countries’ territories, just as it invaded Syria as the proxy force of the colonizers.

“The Zionist regime, this criminal group, must be eradicated from Palestine; and by God’s grace and power, it will be eradicated.”

“There is only one proxy force in this region, and that is the corrupt usurper Zionist regime. The Zionist regime invades countries on behalf of the colonialists,” he stressed.

He stressed that if enemies commit evil against Iran, they will definitely receive a strong and reciprocal blow. “And If they seek to create sedition within the country, the (Iranian) nation itself will (give a proper) answer to them.”

MP/

31 March 2025

Source: en.mehrnews.com

By Jon Gambrell

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A new American airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthi rebels appears more intense and more extensive, as the U.S. moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in city neighborhoods, an Associated Press review of the operation shows.

The pattern under U.S. President Donald Trump reflects a departure from the Biden administration, which limited its strikes as Arab allies tried to reach a separate peace with the group. It comes after the Iran-backed Houthis threatened to resume attacking “any Israeli vessel” and have repeatedly fired at Israel over the country’s refusal to allow aid into the Gaza Strip.

The Houthi attacks and the response to them have drawn new scrutiny in Washington after security officials in Trump’s administration shared plans for the first round of strikes on the rebels in a group chat that included a journalist. But bombing alone may not be enough to stop the Houthis, whose earlier barrage of missile fire toward the U.S. Navy represented the most intense combat it had seen since World War II.

“Folks that say, ‘We’ll go in there and take out everyone with the last name Houthi and we’ll win.’ The Houthi leadership has been taken out in history in the past, and they are resilient,” retired U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Kevin Donegan said. “They came back and they grew stronger. So this isn’t something that is a one-and-done.”

Meanwhile, concerns are growing over civilians being caught in the middle of the campaign. While the U.S. military has not acknowledged any civilian casualties since the strikes began over a week ago, activists fear strikes may have killed noncombatants already in territory tightly controlled by the Houthis.

“Just because you can’t see civilian harm doesn’t mean it’s not happening,” warned Emily Tripp, the director of the U.K.-based group Airwars, which studies Western airstrike campaigns.

A new, intense U.S. airstrike campaign shakes Yemen

The Trump campaign began March 15. American warships fired cruise missiles while fighter jets flying off of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier dropped bombs on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, a nation on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula that is the Arab world’s poorest.

“No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World,” Trump said in a social media post announcing the campaign, days after his administration reimposed a “foreign terrorist organization” designation on the Houthis.

So far, the Houthis say the airstrikes have killed 57 people.

That’s just over half the 106 people the Houthis’ secretive leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, claimed the U.S. and U.K. killed during all of 2024. He provided no breakdown of combatants versus noncombatants. Houthi fighters often aren’t in uniform.

Al-Houthi said the two countries launched over 930 strikes last year. The U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, known as ACLED, has recorded 305 strikes. The discrepancy between the figures could not be immediately reconciled, though the Houthis could be counting individual pieces of ordnance launched, rather than a single event with multiple bombs used, as ACLED does. The rebels also have exaggerated details in the past.

Between March 15 to March 21, ACLED reported 56 events. The campaign also has seen the highest number of events in a week since the American bombing campaign began on Yemen during the Israel-Hamas war.

Trump administration officials have touted the differences between their strikes and those carried out under President Joe Biden.

“The difference is, these were not kind of pin prick, back and forth, what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks,” Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told ABC’s “This Week” on March 16. “This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.”

Waltz has also claimed key members of Houthi leadership, including their “head missileer,” have been killed. The Houthis have not acknowledged any losses in their leadership.

There are indeed clear differences, said Luca Nevola, the senior analyst for Yemen and the Gulf at ACLED. Under Biden, the focus appeared to be on mobile launchers for missiles and drones, then infrastructure, he said. Trump is targeting urban areas more intensely, judging from the number of strikes on cities so far.

“It’s very likely that somehow the Trump administration is pursuing a decapitation strategy,” Nevola added.

The Trump administration is also allowing the U.S. military’s Central Command, which oversees Mideast operations, to launch offensive strikes at will, rather than having the White House sign off on each attack as under Biden. That will mean more strikes — like a particularly intense set early Friday.

Israel, which has repeatedly been targeted by Houthi missile fire and drones, including Thursday, also launched four rounds of airstrikes in 2024 and another in January.

Less transparency, growing concerns about civilians being harmed

During the Biden administration, Central Command offered details to the public on most strikes conducted during the campaign. Those details often included the target struck and the reason behind it.

Since the start of the new campaign, however, there’s been no similar breakdown.

Donegan, the retired vice admiral, praised that strategy during a recent call hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “You don’t tell the enemy what you’re going to do, and you don’t tell them what you’re not going to do.”

But that also means the Houthis’ description of targets is the only one that’s public. They’ve claimed two attacks targeted an under-construction cancer clinic in the city of Saada, as well as private homes and crowded city neighborhoods. There’s been no effort so far from the U.S. military to either dispute that or offer evidence to support strikes on those targets.

“It’s an extremely complicated information environment in Yemen,” Tripp, of Airwars, said. “The Houthis have extensive restrictions on (activists) and operations, media and press.”

Even so, some information can be gleaned from Houthi-released footage. One strike around Saada that the Houthis say killed a woman and four children included missile debris. Serial numbers on the fragments correspond to a contract for Tomahawk cruise missiles, an AP examination of the imagery showed. That corresponded to an assessment separately made by Airwars.

Including that Saada strike, Airwars believes it is likely that at least five U.S. strikes in the new Trump campaign that have hurt or killed civilians, based off of videos and photos from the site, Houthi statements and other details.

The U.S. military declined to answer questions regarding possible civilian casualties but said the “Houthis continue to communicate lies and disinformation.”

“CENTCOM won’t provide details on strikes and locations until the operation has concluded, and there is no additional risk to U.S. personnel or assets involved,” it added, using an acronym for Central Command. “At the direction of the president, CENTCOM continues to conduct strikes across multiple Iran-backed Houthi locations every day and night to restore freedom of navigation and restore American deterrence.”

Houthi attacks started over the Israel-Hamas war

From November 2023 — weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began — until January of this year, the Houthis targeted over 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two and killing four sailors.

The rebels said the campaign in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait connecting the two waterways was carried out in solidarity with Hamas. It stopped with the ceasefire reached in that war in January.

The attacks greatly raised the Houthis’ profile as they faced economic problems and launched a crackdown targeting any dissent and aid workers at home amid Yemen’s decadelong stalemated war.

Since the ceasefire ended, the Houthis have not resumed their attacks on shipping in the vital corridor for cargo and energy shipments moving between Asia and Europe. Still, overall traffic remains sharply reduced.

A European Union naval force has been patrolling the Red Sea and escorting ships, as well as taking Houthi fire. However, the vast majority of Houthi attacks toward military targets has been pointed at U.S. Navy vessels.

More US forces move into Mideast as Yemen’s future in question

The U.S. airstrikes have kept up a daily tempo since beginning March 15. Meanwhile, the USS Carl Vinson and its carrier strike group is to transit into the Middle East.

That, along with the Truman, will likely give the American military two places to launch aircraft since it hasn’t immediately appeared that any strikes came from bases in other Mideast nations — where public sentiment remains strongly with the Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war.

The U.S. military also may be bringing additional firepower, as radio transmissions from B-2 stealth bombers and flight-tracking data suggested the U.S. Air Force is moving a number of the aircraft to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Satellite images from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by the AP showed three B-2s parked Wednesday at Camp Thunder Cove on the island. That would provide a closer location for the long-range bombers to launch that’s still far outside of the range of the rebels — and avoids using allies’ Mideast bases.

In October, the Biden administration used the B-2 to target what it described as underground bunkers used by the Houthis.

But the future of Yemen itself remains in question. The Houthis broadly maintain control over the capital of Sanaa and the country’s northwest. Yemen’s exiled government is part of a fractious coalition that for now appears unable to wrest any control back from the rebels. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which launched a war 10 years ago against the Houthis, have pushed for peace talks as fighting appears broadly frozen on the ground.

“The United States can hurt the Houthis, it can weaken them,” wrote Gregory D. Johnsen, a Yemen expert at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, “but without effective ground troops — either its own or someone else’s — it will not be able to eliminate their capabilities.”

Jon Gambrell is the news director for the Gulf and Iran for The Associated Press.

28 March 2025

Source: apnews.com