Telugu Rebel Fights Free 15
Cre Wallace
Among them was Muhammad Qasim Shah, the last known militant from Tral, a township that had given birth in 2015 to a fresh wave of armed rebels against India following years of steady decline in the number of militants.
After months of gradually moving into the capital Sanaa, it fell to the rebel alliance in January 2015, just as King Salman ascended to the throne in Riyadh. The Houthis opened direct civilian air traffic between Sanaa and Tehran, Iran promised cheap oil for Yemen, and rumors of more Iran-Houthi cooperation spread quickly. The main port at Hodeidah fell to the Houthi forces and they began marching to take Aden, the capital of the south and the largest port on the Indian Ocean.
Almost three years later, the Saudi air and naval blockade of Houthi-controlled territory has created a humanitarian disaster, with millions of Yemenis at dire risk of starvation and disease. The Saudi-led coalition has tightened the blockade and gradually gained more territory, although Hadi has little if any control over the territory recovered from the rebels. He resides in Riyadh. All sides are credibly accused of war crimes.
Anti-American, Pro-Communist
At age 26, Guevara arrived in Mexico. He had spent five weeks in Bolivia and nine months in Guatemala, where he witnessed the overthrow of reformist president Jacobo Arbenz by a CIA-backed military coup. The event forever fixed his hatred of the United States. By then he was a convinced Marxist, and ardent admirer of the Soviet Union. Married to a Guatemalan woman, Hilda Galea, he intended to name his first son Vladimir. He had decided to join the ranks of the Communist Party, "somewhere in the world." But despite his lofty ideals, Ché was little more than a drifter, a wandering photographer, an underpaid medical researcher -- a rebel in search of a cause.
A Comrade
Guevara discovered that cause in late summer 1955, when he was introduced to a daring exiled Cuban rebel leader committed to freeing his country from a dictator. The rebel's name was Fidel Castro, and he was planning to return to his native Cuba and take up arms. "By the small hours of that night I had become one of the future expeditionaries," Ché later recorded. Castro's passion and Guevara's ideas ignited each other. "It was like Lenin and Trotsky, like Hitler and Goebbels, like Mao Tse-Tung and Zhu De," journalist Georgie Anne Geyer would later write.
Jungle Fighter
Ché fought bravely in the mountains. He earned Castro's confidence and was the first rebel to be given the rank of comandante. Marching on Santa Clara in late 1958, his column derailed an armored train filled with dictator Fulgencio Batista's troops and took over the city. Guevara's triumph would be the final blow in the rebel military campaign against Batista.
Legend and Liability
By the late 1960s, Cuba was increasingly absorbed into the Soviet sphere, and Ché was becoming a liability. Unable to ignite successful guerrilla movements, he offended Moscow at every turn. After six months training in the mountains of Cuba, the now legendary rebel entered Bolivia disguised as a businessman, determined "to turn the Bolivian Andes into another Sierra Maestra."
In Bolivia
Guevara's guerrilla group, numbering about 120, were well equipped and scored a number of early successes. Then came a series of disasters. The U.S. government located the group and sent CIA operatives into Bolivia. The local population turned its back on the rebels. Bolivia's Moscow-oriented Communist Party reneged on a commitment to help him. Moreover, Guevara was being hunted by a U.S.-trained elite battalion of Bolivian Rangers skilled in jungle warfare. "Bolivia. July, 1967," Ché wrote in his diary. "The negative aspects prevail, including the failure to make contact with the outside. We are down to 22 men, three of whom are disabled, including myself." By September, he was suffering from acute asthma, weakened by dysentery, and surrounded by the Bolivian Rangers.
The Houthis stepped up their attacks on Saudi Arabia in the following months. In late March 2018, the rebels fired seven missiles at Saudi Arabia in one night and resulted in the of an Egyptian resident. A few weeks later, they struck a Saudi oil tanker in international waters west of Yemen's Hodeidah port.
Dec. 20: Dozens of protestors gathered in Sanaa to demand that Houthi rebels leave the capital. Houthis respond by abducting activist Shadi Khasrouf, who participated in the protests.
June 15: Houthi rebels fired a missile at an Emirati ship carrying medical supplies in the Red Sea. One person was injured in the attack. The United Nations urged warring parties in Yemen to agree to a U.N.-negotiated deal over the management of port city Hodeidah and resuming government salary payments.
Jan. 12: A U.N. panel concluded that Iran violated an arms embargo imposed on Yemen by failing to prevent the Houthi rebels from obtaining Iranian missiles. The report did not say that Tehran had directly supplied missiles to the Houthi rebels, but said the Islamic Republic was in "noncompliance" with Resolution 2216, for failing to keep such weapons out of Yemen.
Jan. 25: Danny Lavon Burch, a U.S. citizen held captive by Houthi rebels since September 2017, was released and taken to Oman. He was accompanied to Oman by Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a senior Houthi leader.
Jan. 30: Houthi rebels said that they fired a long-range ballistic missile at King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh. It was the second time that the Houthis targeted the Saudi airport.
Feb. 14: The Saudi military repelled a cross border attack by Houthi rebels in the southern border town of Nathran. Around 25 Houthi militants were reportedly killed. Saudi helicopters also destroyed three Houthi military vehicles. It was the second cross--border attack by the Houthis in less than a week.
March 29: Houthi rebels fired a ballistic missile from the northern Yemeni province of Saada at the Saudi city of Jizan. Air defenses intercepted the missile before it could strike its target.
March 31: Saudi air defense forces intercepted a missile fired by the Houthis. The missile targeted a Saudi National Guard base in the southern city Najran, a rebel-run news agency reported. An Indian resident was injured by falling debris in the attack.
April 3: Houthi rebels struck a Saudi Arabian oil tanker with a missile west of Hodeidah in international waters. A coalition warship intervened and escorted the tanker, which sustained minimal damage, northwards. The Houthis said that the attack was in response to a coalition airstrike on the rebel-held Hodeidah port that killed 14 people, including women and children, the day before.
April 11: The Houthis launched a Burkan 2-H ballistic missile at the Saudi capital Riyadh and also targeted oil facilities in southern Najran and Jizan, according to the rebel's Al Masirah television network. The missile traveled more than around 500 miles into Saudi Arabia before it was intercepted by Saudi air defenses. The Saudi-led coalition said that it had also shot down two drones in southern Saudi Arabia. The Houthis claimed they targeted some areas with Qasif-1 drones.
May 14: Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile at a Saudi Aramco facility in southern Jizan province. The missile landed in the open desert and no damage was inflicted, the Saudi-led coalition said.
June 13: Heavy fighting resumed in the Durayhimi district south of the Hodeidah port after the Houthi rebels failed to meet a UAE deadline to surrender the port. The Saudi-UAE-backed coalition said that it had plans to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid to Yemeni civilians, even though most aid arrived through the port. The U.N. called for an emergency meeting to discuss the worsening humanitarian crisis.
June 19: Government forces seized the Hodeidah port from the Houthi rebels. The government needed control of the port to protect shipping routes and prevent the Houthis from smuggling weapons into the country.
June 25: The Saudi-led coalition announced that it had killed eight members of Hezbollah in the battle against the Houthis. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite militia and political party supported by Iran, had previously denied accusations that it was providing assistance to the rebels.
Aug. 2: A series of explosions around Hodeidah killed 55 civilians and injured 170 more. The blasts hit crowded population centers, including a fish market and the area surrounding al Thawra hospital. Saudi Arabia blamed the Houthi rebels in a letter to the United Nations and demanded immediate disarmament and enforcement of U.N. resolutions.
Sept. 25: The Saudi-led coalition agreed to open a humanitarian aid corridor between Hodeidah and Sanaa, two rebel strongholds in Yemen. The coalition worked with the United Nations to get supplies to starving civilians.
Nov. 2: The Saudi-led coalition announced that it had bombed an air base near the Sanaa airport. A Houthi media outlet counted 30 airstrikes on the base and surrounding area. The coalition claimed that the Houthi rebels were using the base to launch ballistic missiles and drones, and that no commercial flights or humanitarian aid efforts were affected by the attack.
Nov. 18: In response to demands from the United Nations and a pause in Saudi attacks on Hodeidah, the Houthi rebels promised to stop missile attacks on the Saudi-led coalition. The group said it would agree to a ceasefire if the coalition was ready for peace.
Nov. 20: Outbreaks of street fighting and airstrikes around Hodeidah ended a day-long ceasefire between the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthi rebels. Residents described the fighting as the worst yet.
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