…Yemeni officials say Saudi-led airstrikes kill 28 in Hodeida***
A British warship docked in Tokyo on Friday as Britain seeks to expand its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
The HMS Albion, which has been conducting maritime security and surveillance operations in the Pacific, is the second of three British warships being deployed to Asia this year. They are the first such deployments in several years.
“Our presence here is part of a much wider commitment of the Royal Navy to the Asia-Pacific in 2018,” Capt. Tim Neild said at a welcome ceremony at Harumi Pier on Tokyo Bay.
Britain and Japan agreed last year to step up defense cooperation in the face of a growing threat from North Korea and China’s efforts to bolster its claims to disputed territory in the South China Sea.
Neild said that the British navy is committed to enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea and protecting a rules-based international system, a veiled reference to China’s island-building activities. The waters are a major shipping lane for global trade, with 35 percent of Britain’s trade passing through the Asia-Pacific, he said.
A senior Japanese officer welcomed Britain’s increased commitment to the region including the enforcement of sanctions on North Korea.
“No single nation or navy alone can deal with all these issues today,” said Vice Admiral Gojiro Watanabe of the Maritime Self-Defense Force, as the Japanese navy is known.
The Albion is an 18,500-ton amphibious assault ship that can launch landing craft into waters for a coastal attack. Neild said one of its major activities during its Asia tour will be a joint exercise with Japan later this month at a beach southwest of Tokyo.
The Japanese military, concerned about Chinese designs on some islands that both countries claim, is developing an amphibious brigade.
In the meantime, the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Shiite rebels conducted airstrikes in the rebel-held port city of Hodeida on Thursday killing at least 28 people and wounding at least 70, Yemeni medical officials said, the latest escalation in fighting along the country’s west coast.
The airstrikes took place close to the city’s main public hospital, al-Thawra, situated near a popular fish market, the officials said. The wounded, mostly civilians, were hospitalized. The medical officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
The rebel-run Al Masirah TV reported that airstrikes killed 52 people and left more than 100 wounded. The Saudi coalition couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
Ahmed Yehia, who witnessed the attack, said body parts were scattered in the area of the strike: “There is a pond of blood outside the hospital’s building,” he said.
The Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen’s internationally recognized government has sought to expand control over rebel-held areas along Yemen’s west coast, particularly in the vital Read Sea port city of Hodeida, the main entry point for food in a country teetering on the brink of famine. The coalition has been at war with the Iran-aligned rebels, known as Houthis, since March 2015.
U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths has held talks with both sides in recent weeks in the hopes of preventing a full-scale coalition assault on Hodeida. He has been pushing to bring the warring parties to restart peace talks. Yemen’s government maintains that the rebels’ “unconditional withdrawal” from Hodeida is key to restarting the talks. Houthis have long refused to hand over the city.
Later on Thursday, Griffiths announced plans to invite Yemen’s warring parties to Geneva on Sept. 6 to hold the first round of consultations.
He said on his official Twitter account that the consultations “will provide the opportunity for the parties to discuss the framework for negotiations, relevant confidence-building measures and specific plans for moving the process forward.”
The three-year stalemated war has killed over 10,000 people, badly damaged Yemen’s infrastructure and crippled its health system. The country is now in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.
ABC with additional report from Fox
