Huthi announcement of govt bad for Yemenis

The UN’s special envoy for Yemen says an announcement by the Houthi rebels and allies from the deposed President’s party to unilaterally declare the formation of a new government in Sanaa is an obstacle to the peace process.
UN Special Envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said in a statement that the announcement “does not serve the interests of the people of Yemen in these difficult times.” 
Meanwhile, the internationally recognized government’s army removed 36,000 landmines, which Tehran-backed Houthi militias and Saleh backers had planted in the Marib province.
Brig. Gen. Sheikh Zayd Thabet, chief of the military engineering unit in the army, told reporters that they have so far destroyed 6,500 mines. These mines, they said, date back to World War II, in addition to other Russian and Iranian-made mines and locally produced mines. 
A recent Yemeni human rights report said 47 civilians were killed in Marib while 98 others were injured by these mines, reported Al Arabiya.
Meanwhile, international investigators have found a suspected “weapon pipeline” from Iran through Somalia to Yemen where Shiite rebels are battling the government, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The analysis by Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is based on the seizure in February and March this year of weapons from dhows, traditional sailing vessels, in the Arabian Sea.
British-based CAR, which is primarily funded by the European Union, analyzed photographs of weapons confiscated from the dhows by the Australian warship HMAS Darwin and the French frigate FS Provence.
The ships were part of a joint international task force that operates separately from the Saudi coalition.
HMAS Darwin seized more than 2,000 weapons, including AK-type assault rifles and 100 Iranian-manufactured rocket launchers, from the dhow bound for Somalia, CAR said.
The seizure by FS Provence included 2,000 assault rifles “characteristic of Iranian manufacture” and 64 Hoshdar-M Iranian-made sniper rifles, all of which were in new condition, CAR said.
There were also nine Russian-made Kornet anti-tank guided missiles, it said.
UAE forces within the Saudi-led coalition reported recovering in Yemen a Kornet which CAR said is part of “the same production run” as those on the dhow.
This “supports allegations that the weapons originated in Iran and that the dhow’s cargo was destined for Yemen,” CAR said.
French government sources said the dhow was headed to Somalia “for possible transhipment to Yemen,” CAR said.
Light machine guns, suspected to be North Korean made, were found with the same serial number sequence on both dhows, “which suggests that the material derived from the same original consignment,” the report added. It also referred to the US Navy’s seizure from a dhow in March of AK-type assault rifles, rocket launchers and machine guns which the US believed “originated in Iran and were destined for Yemen.”
Two of the dhows were made by Al Mansoor of Iran, CAR said.
Although their findings were “relatively limited,” the investigators said their analysis “suggests the existence of a weapon pipeline extending from Iran to Somalia and Yemen.”
This involves “significant quantities of Iranian-manufactured weapons and weapons that plausibly derive from Iranian stockpiles,” they said.
It said that traffickers offload weapons in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia “for local arms markets or as transhipment points for onward supply to Yemen.”
Other analysts have questioned the extent of Tehran’s influence over the Houthis.

Source: Arab News