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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-shoot dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Saudi military base also targeted by missile fired deep inside the kingdom near holy city of Mecca.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/10/navy-ship-targeted-missile-attack-yemen-161010034052132.html

A US Navy destroyer has been targeted in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels, a US military spokesman says.

In another attack, a ballistic missile launched from Yemen targeted a Saudi airbase near the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi and rebel media reported Monday, the deepest strike yet into the kingdom by the rebels and their allies.

Two missiles failed to hit the US Navy ship after being launched on Sunday, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis told Reuters news agency.

"USS Mason detected two inbound missiles over a 60-minute period while in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen. Both missiles impacted the water before reaching the ship," he said. "There were no injuries to our sailors and no damage to the ship."

Lieutenant Ian McConnaughey, a Navy spokesman, said on Monday that it was unclear if the Mason was specifically targeted, though the missiles were fired in its direction.

The destroyer at the time of the missile fire was north of the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, which serves as a gateway for oil tankers headed to Europe through the Suez Canal, a defence official said.

[...] On Monday, Saudi state television broadcast a brief clip of what appeared to be a projectile landing in Taif and the flash of an explosion, followed by images of emergency vehicles.

Taif is home to Saudi Arabia's King Fahad Air Base, which hosts US military personnel training the kingdom's armed forces.

The Saudi military said the missile fired late on Saturday caused no damage. The US military's Central Command, which oversees troops in the Middle East, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Al-Masirah, a satellite news channel run by the Houthis, identified the missile as a local variant of a Soviet-era Scud missile. It said the Volcano-1 missile targeted the airbase.


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  • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:16AM

    by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @03:16AM (#412781) Journal

    I've heard that a hospital and clinic were bombed, and according to an NGO there was no valid military reason. That sounds like war crimes have been committed. But why do you use the term "genocide"?

    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/27/middleeast/yemen-msf-hospital-attack/index.html [cnn.com]
    https://web.archive.org/web/20160929134825/http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/09/28/aid-group-coalition-bombed-yemen-hospital-to-hit-vehicle.html [archive.org]

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:22AM (#412808)

    Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_civil_war_(2015%E2%80%93present) [wikipedia.org] for more detail, but this is basically a civil war along Sunni/Shia boundaries. Both sides haven't been playing nice with local populations. Saudi Arabia has been using US supplied weapons, including cluster munitions, and there is some evidence they targeted Shia civilians on a number of occasions. There is also evidence of Sunni populations being targeted by Shia forces.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:03AM (#412817)

      From today's news:

      Thousands protest Saudi bombing that killed and wounded over 700 in Yemen [wsws.org]

      Tens of thousands of Yemenis, many of them armed, took to the streets of Sanaa, the country’s war torn capital, Sunday to protest the savage bombing of a packed funeral hall the day before [October 8] by Saudi warplanes. The airstrike left over 700 civilians dead or wounded, representing the worst in a long series of war crimes carried out with the backing of the US, Britain and France.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:33AM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @11:33AM (#412898) Journal

      ...but this is basically a civil war along Sunni/Shia boundaries.

      Ah. So they are fighting over which version of their fairy tail is the better version.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:40PM

        by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:40PM (#412927) Journal
        It looks like that at a glance but it's not all that accurate.

        It's kind of like Northern Ireland, the combatants are mostly identified with religions but what they are actually fighting over isn't religious as much as national at root. The locals in much of Yemen are Zaydis, have been for centuries, but religion only became an issue relatively recently, with the importation of Saudi Wahhabism and eventually Al Qaeda. One of the responses this has triggered is a heightened interest in religion and increase in religiosity among the Houthi.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 2) by BK on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:57PM

          by BK (4868) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:57PM (#412995)

          Ok... Help me out. What is a Zaydi and how will I know if I meet one?

          --
          ...but you HAVE heard of me.
          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday October 11 2016, @06:02PM

            by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @06:02PM (#413032) Journal
            Just as the Shia and Sunni split over Ali, the Zaydis and the rest of the Shia split over his grandson, Zayd ibn Ali. If you can't tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shia you just met you probably wouldn't tell a Zaydi from either of them.
            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:34PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:34PM (#413129)

            Islam is far more diverse than Christianity. There are hundreds of different sects within the broad umbrella. All it really takes to be muslim is to practice the five pillars of faith. Everything else is up for debate. One effect of being such a broad and inclusive religion is that it is considered a big insult to accuse someone of not being a real muslim. Nevertheless it still happens a lot (the ISIS types do it all the time because they are assholes) and you'll occasionally hear it between Iran and Saudi when things get really tense between the two countries.

            Zaydis are just one of the many sects.

            • (Score: 2) by BK on Sunday October 16 2016, @03:37AM

              by BK (4868) on Sunday October 16 2016, @03:37AM (#414766)

              But how diverse is it compared to buddhism? Since you wish to provide comparative context, I need context that is relevant to me and not other groups. Can you be a real muslim if you believe that raping 9 year olds [usc.edu] is evil?

              --
              ...but you HAVE heard of me.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:49PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @02:49PM (#412949)

        > So they are fighting over which version of their fairy tail is the better version

        No. And religion is never the cause of war, at most it is just the uniform that the sides wear.
        But understanding that takes effort. Easier to blame the uniforms.

    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:54PM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @01:54PM (#412931)

      Genocide still isn't the correct term because Iraq which was previously Sunni under Saddam's dictatorship is now a Shia democracy because of the US.

      --
      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
      • (Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:44PM

        by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @04:44PM (#412991)

        > Iraq which was previously Sunni under Saddam's dictatorship is now a Shia democracy because of the US.

        You mean The Sunni minority used to control Iraq, but boycotted elections (which they can only lose) after the US intervention, giving full control to the Shia, who then made a clear point about the temperature revenge should be served at, in a display few would bother to call democracy.

        The end result was polarization and physical exodus along religious lines, of people who used to live next door under the mostly secular dictator...

        • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:10PM

          by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:10PM (#413004)

          Excuse me, but i don't think you were there when we were digging up tens of thousands of Shia corpses from their failed rebellion after Gulf War 1. There is a good reason why those Sunni didn't vote, they were Ba'ath party and literally couldn't. If non-Ba'ath Sunni did not vote then that is on them. (I will personally be voting 3rd-party in the next US election because i think Trump and Clinton both suck.) Allowing Ba'ath to vote and have a real party is like saying you think the Nazi party should have been allowed to exist post WW2.

          As far as Sunni killing Shia (and vice-versa) that was going on long before the elections. Then we have the Sunni practically invite ISIS in and they have paid for it dearly. Sunni having their cities saved by southern (Shia) militias is very ironic, imo. It also shows that some Shia believe in a nation composed of more than one religion. Though, maybe they look at it from a "let's get converts" angle. We can guess all day probably.

          --
          SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:27PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:27PM (#413012)

            Just trying to figure out if you're misinformed or confused... It's like you see all the pieces of the puzzle but you seem to be hammering them at odd angles.

            • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:45PM

              by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 11 2016, @05:45PM (#413024)

              A lot of my information is first-hand. There can be a blindness when standing too close. So let's call it confusion for now : )

              To get back to the original argument, i say that the US can't be committing genocide on the Shia when they helped create a nation of (mostly) Shia. Genocide isn't the right word here. US foreign policy seems too fluid for such a thing anyways. Ten years from now the US might be courting the Yemen Shia as allies, lol.

              --
              SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:01PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:01PM (#413053) Homepage Journal

          Actually, bob_super, that's exactly what democracy always is. Oppression of minorities by the majority. The thing is, looked at properly, everyone belongs to a minority. Democracy guarantees everyone will have their rights trampled.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:18PM

            by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday October 11 2016, @07:18PM (#413064)

            In a perfect democracy filled with fair humans (don't wake me up if you find one), the boundary between oppressed and oppressors would be constantly changing depending on the topic of that day. Only people constantly in the minority in behavior and opinions would find themselves permanently repressed. Obviously, who cares about those?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:40PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 11 2016, @09:40PM (#413131)

            > Actually, bob_super, that's exactly what democracy always is.

            That's direct democracy which doesn't exist in any group much larger than a town.