Yemen’s embattled president asked the UN Security Council to authorize a military intervention in support of his government to oust Houthi Shiite rebels who control much of the disintegrating country’s north and are advancing south.

The Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for yesterday’s suicide bombing in Leithi which killed six people, two of them ambulance drivers. It has published pictures of a suicide bomber, a Tunisian whom it called Abu Yaqin Al-Tunsi,

Despite initial reports from LNA sources that there were two bombs, it now appears that there was only one. The IS photos show just one man at the wheel of a truck, presumable;y laden with explosive. The pictures also include an aerial shot of the devastation, presumably taken by a camera attached to a small drone.

The number of dead is now put at seven following the death this morning of one of the injured. The figure is said to include the bomber.
They have been named as:

• Abd Salam Bel Kasem Dersi (Saiqa)
• Alaa Abdussalam Zaroug, aged 38 (36 Battalion, Saiqa)
• Omarn Jomaa Alamour, 50 (Saiqa)
• Akram Abdulla Werfali, 36 (26 Battalion, Saiqa)
• Abdullah Moustafa Kadaki, 62 (ambulance driver)
• Fathi Ali Younis Jalali (ambulance driver)

According to Jelaa Hospital, it also has an unidentified body brought from the scene of the explosion. It is not clear if it is that of the suicide bomber.

Moroccan authorities said a “terrorist cell” they dismantled had brought in arms through the Spanish enclave of Melilla to carry out attacks for the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group.

The cell was made up of 13 members aged between 19 and 37, most of them without primary school education, said Abdelhak Khiame, head of Morocco’s newly-formed judicial investigations agency.

He told reporters that 440 rounds of ammunition, six pistols, 31 handcuffs and electronic gear were seized at a cache near Agadir in southern Morocco.

The weapons had transited through Melilla, one of two Spanish enclaves in the north of Morocco, Khiame said.

String of assassinations
Moroccan authorities had been watching the suspects for over five months, he said, but it was not yet clear if they were linked to cells in Europe.

Spain says it has dismantled several networks, particularly in Melilla and its other North African enclave, Ceuta, recruiting fighters for the Islamic State.

The two enclaves, the only land borders between Africa and Europe, attract thousands of mostly sub-Saharan Africans trying to reach European countries.

The interior ministry said on Sunday the Moroccan cell was dismantled in a nationwide operation and that the arms seized were to have been used for a string of assassinations.

Large amount of ammunition
The announcement followed last Wednesday’s attack on the national museum in the capital of fellow North African state Tunisia, claimed by ISIS, that killed 20 foreign tourists and a policeman.

Raids were carried out in several cities including Agadir, Marrakesh in the south, Boujaad in the centre, Tangiers in the north, Ain Harouda near Casablanca and in the Western Sahara.

“Firearms and a large amount of ammunition” to be used “to assassinate political, military and civilian figures”, were seized near Agadir, the ministry said, quoted by the official MAP news agency.

It said members of the dismantled network had pledged allegiance to IS and vowed to target the Moroccan security forces and send recruits to fight in Syria and Iraq.

According to official figures, between 1 500 and 2 000 Moroccans are fighting or have fought alongside jihadists in Iraq and Syria as well as in Libya.

President Bashar al-Assad has called for Syria and Iraq to cooperate in their struggle against terrorism, with both countries locked in combat with jihadist group Islamic State (Isis).

Following a visit to Damascus from Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Assad called for greater cooperation between the countries.

“Consultation and coordination between Syria and Iraq reinforces the successes of their people and their armed forces in the face of terrorism,” Assad was quoted as saying in a tweet from his official account, reports Reuters.

Jafaari said Syria “will emerge from the crisis stronger and strategic relations between the two countries will continue to evolve”, state news agency SANA said.

Both the Assad regime in Syria and the Shi’ite-dominated Iraqi government have close ties with Iran, and Shi’ite militias, including Hezbollah, have played a key role in battling Sunni extremist group Isis in both countries.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem held talks with Jafaari, with Syrian state television reporting the two focused on “the fight against terrorism and common dangers that threaten our countries”.

Muallem said the nations were engaged in a joint struggle against terrorism and Iraq will do everything in its capacity to assist Syria, including breaking the “siege imposed on it,” reports the Turkish World Bulletin news site.

Neither party specified which terrorist groups they were referring to, though both governments are engaged in the battle against IS. The agency reported he later met with Assad.

The member of the Parlaimentary Foreign Relations Committee, Muthana Ameen, emphasized that it is time to form an Arabic Joint Army to face terrorism.

“Such step can be coordinated through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to address the Arab League to conduct the required measures according to the principals of the AL,” he concluded.

Houthi forces backed by allied army units attacked a big airbase about 60 km (37 miles) north of Aden on Wednesday, triggering heavy fighting with defenders loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, security sources and residents said.

The fighting at the al-Anad facility was also reported by media affiliated with the Iranian-backed Houthi movement, which has taken over much of the north of the country in recent months and contests U.S.-allied Hadi’s legitimacy as head of state.

Things are going so well in Barack Obama’s big foreign-policy “success,” Libya, that people are literally dying to get out. Vice News recently posted a 27-minute documentary video on the hideous conditions in Libya’s “migrant prisons”—internment camps where refugees are left to rot after their attempts to flee the country across the Mediterranean fail.

Not all of these prisons are run by the Libyan government (either of them). Some are managed by the country’s numerous militia gangs. The inmates speak of horrendous human rights violations atop the horror of watching friends and family drown in the Mediterranean because Libya can’t offer extensive search-and-rescue services at the moment.

“Each day I hear that slavery is over, but slavery is here in Libya,” says one man who has spent time in four different camps. Later in the video, interviewees tell of refugees who have been picked up at sea numerous times by rescue workers, only to vow that they will keep trying until they either reach Europe or die in the attempt. Some migrants hand over huge sums of money to smugglers, who often betray their trust.

The desperation of the filmmakers to get their story out is palpable and heartbreaking. Libyan coast guard officers struggling to cope with the immense wave of refugees speak of facing an impossible challenge far beyond their meager resources, even if they did not have to worry about trouble from warring militias and terrorist groups.

One officer says his government has begged the European Union for help. Another recalls instances where he and his fellow rescue workers have come under fire from militias, and the many times he has been unable to save migrants from drowning. It is said that at least 3,000 people drowned while trying to escape Libya in 2014.

Of course, even if the refugees could reach Europe safely, the problem would hardly be solved. European nations are not necessarily eager to absorb thousands of immigrants from Libya or take responsibility for feeding and sheltering an army of refugees.

It is a pity more thought was not given to the postwar fallout after the overthrow of Gaddafi, but by now we should be accustomed to make-it-up-as-you-go foreign policy that counts on the media putting every disaster in the rear-view mirror one news cycle after the last bomb drops.

The Iraqi government asked the U.S. military to conduct aerial surveillance over Tikrit.

Until this development, the Iraqi military and militiashad rejected any U.S. involvement in the Tikrit operation, preferring Iranian help.

However, since the operation stalled about ten days ago, some officials have admitted that Coalition strikes are needed to rid the city of Islamic State militants.

That requestcould come any day, according to an anonymous diplomat from one of the Coalition countries.

Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, US officials said on Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict.

The build-up follows a southward advance by Iranian-backed Houthi Shi’ite militants who took control of the capital Sanaa in September and seized the central city of Taiz at the weekend as they move closer to the new southern base of US-supported President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The slide towards war in Yemen has made the country a crucial front in Saudi Arabia’s region-wide rivalry with Iran, which Riyadh accuses of sowing sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis.

The conflict risks spiraling into a proxy war with Shi’ite Iran backing the Houthis, whose leaders adhere to the Zaydi sect of Shi’ite Islam, and Saudi Arabia and the other regional Sunni Muslim monarchies backing Hadi.

The armour and artillery being moved by Saudi Arabia could be used for offensive or defensive purposes, two US government sources said. Two other US officials said the build-up appeared to be defensive.

One US government source described the size of the Saudi build-up on Yemen’s border as “significant” and said the Saudis could be preparing air strikes to defend Hadi if the Houthis attack his refuge in the southern seaport of Aden.

Another US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Washington had acquired intelligence about the Saudi build-up. But there was no immediate word on the precise location near the border or the exact size of the force deployed.

Hadi, who supported Washington’s campaign of deadly drone strikes on a powerful al Qaeda branch based in Yemen, has been holed up in Aden with his loyalist forces since he fled Sanaa in February. On Tuesday, forces loyal to Hadi drove Houthi fighters from two towns they had seized hours earlier, residents said, apparently checking an advance by the Shi’ite fighters towards Aden.

SAUDIS “DEEPLY CONCERNED”

Saudi Arabia faces the risk of the turmoil spilling across its porous 1,800 km (1,100 mile)-long border with Yemen and into its Shi’ite Eastern Province where the kingdom’s richest oil deposits lie.

“The Saudis are just really deeply concerned about what they see as an Iranian stronghold in a failed state along their border,” US Ambassador to Yemen Matthew Tueller told Reuters on Monday at a conference hosted by the National US-Arab Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

But a former senior US official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the prospects for successful external intervention in Yemen appeared slim. He said Hadi’s prospects appeared to be worsening and that for now he was “pretty well pinned down.”

Riyadh hosted top-level talks with Gulf Arab neighbors on Saturday that backed Hadi as Yemen’s legitimate president and offered “all efforts” to preserve the country’s stability.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said on Monday Arab countries would take necessary measures to protect the region against “aggression” by the Houthi movement if a peaceful solution could not be found.

In March 2011, Saudi troops, along with those from the United Arab Emirates, entered neighboring Bahrain after weeks of protests by that country’s Shi’ite majority that Riyadh feared could lead to an expansion of Iran’s influence.

A spokesman for the Saudi embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on any military movements.

Yemen asked the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to back military action by “willing countries” to combat Houthi militias, according to a letter from Hadi seen by Reuters.

Hadi wants the 15-member body to adopt a resolution that would authorize “willing countries that wish to help Yemen to provide immediate support for the legitimate authority by all means and measures to protect Yemen and deter the Houthi aggression.”

Fighting has spread across the Arabian peninsula country since last September when the Houthis seized Sanaa and advanced into Sunni Muslim areas.

US officials said on Saturday that the United States had evacuated all its remaining personnel in Yemen, including about 100 special operations forces, because of the security situation. The end of a US security presence inside the country has dealt a blow to Washington’s ability to monitor and fight al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate.

The Houthis have denied taking material and financial support from Tehran. But last year Yemeni, Western and Iranian sources gave Reuters details of Iranian military and financial support to the Houthis before and after their takeover of Sanaa last year.

However, US officials have said that Iranian backing for the Houthi rebels has been largely limited to funding. They say Iran has its hands full providing armed assistance to its allies in Syria and Iraq.