progress has been made to form a governing coalition in germany after months of uncertainty chance the i'm going to merkel and opposition leader martin shills have agreed to move forward with formal negotiations after finding common ground on refugees and the eurozone. catalonia is deposed leader economist meeting his newly elected m.p.'s in brussels they'll be negotiating with other process session is parties they're discussing the formation of a group in the parliament that we elect the regions next president with the hope of restoring leader more than seven hundred seventy people have been arrested across tunisia following five days of anti-government protests people are angry at plans for tax rises and higher food prices activists are calling for a major demonstration this friday a charity group linked to the main suspect in the two thousand and eight mumbai bombing has held a rally in the pakistani city. it's one of a series of protests sponsored by the u.s.

decision to recognize them as israel's capital the demonstrators are also angry at violence in the disputed kashmir region those are the headlines on al-jazeera coming up next it's inside story. the rebels in yemen say they've built their own surface to air missile it comes days after saudi arabia said that it intercepted a ballistic missile that was fired towards its territory so is there an end game to this near three year conflict this is inside story.

hello welcome to the program i'm adrian finnegan it's a new year but the same old story in yemen nearly three years on since the saudi led coalition began its military campaign more people are dying at least eleven were killed in a saudi airstrike on wednesday that targeted the markets in more than sada province that region is a stronghold of the rebel suv been in control of much of the country since twenty fifteen well fighting has killed at least ten thousand people and displaced millions more just this week the rebels announced that they've built a new locally designed missile to fight against the saudi led coalition and now the rebels are threatening to block the red sea shipping lanes if the coalition keeps pushing towards the western city of data which the who control the u.n. has called yemen the world's worst humanitarian crisis with eight million people on the brink of famine thousands of others suffering from malnutrition and disease

including cholera but on tuesday the world health organization said the bolder the five hundred people have been infected with diptheria forty eight of them have died since the outbreak began in august. so let's bring in our guests in yemen's capital sanaa we're joined by aqim must marry editor in chief of the yemen post now bill curry is the former deputy chief of mission with the u.s. embassy in yemen he joins us from washington d.c. and finally from london and. creagh regional defense and security specialist an assistant professor with king's college london welcome to you gentlemen address let's start with you in december there is something like a sixty seven percent rise in the number of bombing raids carried out by the coalition recent reports would have us believe that the saudi led coalition has now begun to make progress on the ground against who the rebels is that indeed the case is the coalition now beginning to win this war. no we're far away from it

unfortunately this conflict is you know going into its third year and going actually in it's always into its fourth year i mean this is been going on it's a tit for tat with the shifting alliances on the ground where international backing particularly from the u.a.e. and saudi arabia are playing one side of the conflict against the other and you know we have to make sure to say that there is no binary side to this con this is not a binary conflict this is not one side versus the other side this is a multi-polar conflict where different people are shifting around all the time so it you know there are different battlefields with different actors in different spaces around the country and yes on some of these friends there are sometimes some progress is made on other fronts progress is not made the problem generally is with this air power led operation is that targeting is very poor there's very poor intelligence on the ground in determining where the targets are and who you want to

target if you actually look at the numbers two thirds of all of these air strikes that being conducted by these saudi led coalition actually missed their target or hit civilian targets and i would suspect that the saudi led coalition didn't want to actually hid their civilian targets but they did so it's from an air power point of view it's been very unsuccessful actually to make to enable people on the ground because airpower is always there to support forces on the ground and the forces on the ground have shifted and they are the previous allies that the u.a.e. and saudi were supporting have not made the progress then they thought they could get saleh and his men on the side to use them as their ground forces then he was killed and the whole. his own parties dissolve ng and back the book down in a fight with who these in the north the southern coalition which is led by the u.a.e. themselves are trying to move from thais towards. those are two words of data trying

to take the port but here also i mean there's been region a very low core progress has been made on the tactical level the issue though is that on the strategic level the military wing the air power wing of this saudi coalition doesn't have the punch because it can't really achieve what a ground force actually has to achieve if you don't have a capable ground force to actually seize an old territory there's nothing that airpower can do particularly when airpower targeting is so poorly done the bill corey what do you make of that is this conflict any closer to ending any time soon or is it completely intractable a cork mile. it's a relative question by killing ali abdullah saleh the who thieves have definitely shot themselves in the foot in a big worry weakening themselves politically by losing most of the x. ruling party the g.p.c. and militarily by losing at least of the armed forces that were loyal to ali

abdullah saleh now with the reappearance of spartak. the. nephew of the former president inside yemen and apparently working with ali mohsen. and now know the correlation led by saudi arabia is in a much stronger position and making moves towards her data and towards breaking the what you see around the car as. if the if the whole of the user loses her there and died as they've essentially lost the war now the question is if you are trying to achieve talk of defeat of the who things. how long will this take and what rights and here is the problem is that even with the last

offer there and cards the whole thing is would still be strong in some hour and further north and sunnah also on the ground which is where it matters the most the call ition against them is divided is working at cross purposes sometimes and therefore they would not be able to stand allies any territorial recover from the whole of these which means a prolonged war at one level or another sad part of this is that at some point this war has to and a political agreement so what would be the point of thousands upon thousands more casualties if you could strike a bargain right now. and here's the sad part is that i don't think they're about to strike a bargain. the whole fees are not politically astute in fact they were quite stupid

and killing saleh. and it seems saudi arabia under its new leader is intent on it complete military victory so i don't see anything in the ear handed to any eighteen other than more frightening war casualties and more suffering by the yemeni people and rest of it if there was a serious international effort to end this conflict could it actually be done yemen is not syria it's not libya i suppose you could draw parallels with afghanistan or could you can a comprehensive peace deal ever be reached in yemen given the tribal nature of much of its society and will it just continue to experience ongoing strife of some sort going into the future that just being the very nature of yemen. exactly it's the very nature of yemen we have to understand that yemen has never been a unitary nation state it's never really applied to the western idea of having

territoriality and serenity there are multiple conflicts that were always simmering within yemen and these multiple conflicts all need to be somewhat addressed under ali abdullah saleh he was able to kind of keep a lid on most of it by playing one side against the other but you know we have over the last couple of years always looked at it from a binary point of view the media has the media has even portrayed the who these as the evolved and then the how the government as the good government so it's like black and white but also even the u.n. has looked at it in a binary way as look as the union as the who these coalition versus the south. and those the u.a.e. saudi coalition and bring those two sides together in reality i mean specially since the arab spring and sense that assad has been ousted and then returned i mean this conflict this country has really erupted into multiple conflicts so any comprehensive solution has to be an inclusive one one where all the different parties have after come to the table and the problem with the u.n.

approach is that a lot of the other very important players on the ground have not been included they're not even part of the approach that the u.n. is taking or the international community's thinking so really what is needed then is something similar to the two thousand and twelve national dialogue which has to be inclusive and it has to be that inclusive to also include the who these and they could think there was part of the problem that there were these were somewhat alyan aided in to leaving the national dialogue and i think now the u.a.e. saudi coalition they seem to think that a solution could be found even with alice laugh which you do you are you oppose initially because they're affiliated or used to be affiliated with the muslim brotherhood but they don't want to talk to the who these and the thing with the who these is and that's why i think there is a great comparison to be done here with afghanistan is that they are very much. a mountainous people who know how to operate as a guerrilla insurgency fourth force within a certain environment what they are not good at is politics they're not good at

actual engagement and reaching out also because they have been alienated multiple times before by various coalitions and by alienating them further by not including them in the process you're actually exacerbating the problem at the moment i think though these think that they can still win in the north although they have been politically politically weakened and somewhat militarily we could they can fight another day because they can just retreat to the northwestern part of yemen where they come from where they originate they don't have the ambition to rule all over yemen and a comprehensive solution for yemen means we need to address all these other conflicts that are going on in the northeast that are going on in the south and that are going on the how to remote in the east so i think we're looking at least four or five different conflicts with different tribal factions that can be brought together so the new balance means all these parties have to be included in the bill period as the u.n. and international powers being too simplistic in their approach to finding peace in yemen this binary approach that we heard about are there to what extent are they

are they talking to to the wrong people in their attempts to bring peace to the i think the you in diplomacy as well as united states that lomas. laws have been very limited in terms of the people do approach american diplomacy has struck the key been missing. the u.n. unfortunately right now other than limiting itself to the people it's talking to also is not moving with. good political skills. i think right now there are two possible approaches to feast one is going back to the u.n. to the security council specifically to produce a new resolution that would hopefully have unanimity within the council and would start fresh with a new approach given and former resolution to the one sixth is now pretty much

obsolete. failing a consensus at the security council and i think it's very hard to achieve that consensus the yemeni parties need to forget about the region forget about the united nations and forge peace among one another for that to happen you need a national leader of stature is strong figure who could inspire the yemeni people inspire all the yemeni factions including the who he is to bring them together and say let's camera out an agreement if the yemenis agree with one another no power outside can destroy that no power outside can continue the war if they themselves agree with one another unfortunately right now

the who are not showing that kind of political skill or leadership to inspire the country. they failed miserably as has hakim said they they are in good guerrilla movement but they're not good they're ruling. with the death of saleh you know with all that one can say any for him or against them he was a very strong leader a national figure knows no one else like now with an understand sure how he is certainly not the person to do it. so again i am not optimistic but so while we wait for an else and then. of yemen to appear i'm afraid we're just going to see more misery for the well let's hear from someone who came out mr are you optimistic or pessimistic about finding a solution in the in the near term to this this conflict and where does the blame for the continuation of it lie with the huth these the saudi led coalition iran the

u.s. the u.k. who. all sides are not to blame all sides are trying. to flex their muscles in the war and not on the political dialogue or. trying to reach a solution it's very sad to see that in sanaa right now are. basically no worry if this work continues for months and months or even longer than that they feel that they are there are powerful they are stronger than they were last year but this is not the case because after death of x. president saddam it's a different story over the last couple of weeks we visited numerous of the g.p.c. officials to their houses trying to join them with the officials trying to put them back on their feet they have to be involved in this. political solution and the circle itself without the g.p.c. that we can speak now which has i don't see any hope in a peaceful resolution being reached without the d.p.c.

standing again on their feet putting the suffering behind and taking the lead in the political table this is we will take time out as of now sadly or fortunately most of the officials the side of party officials are under house arrest they do move and their house and there are numerous with the intel or officials who are with them all day so they need to we store their power in order to for this move we'll to move they have the experience they have the political experience the negotiation experience unlike the who these are wired mainly focused on military activities and into gathering intelligence so are the only way i see that the political wheel will be moving is if the d.p.c. starts standing again on their feet and that you and. i have a stronger role there he said that over the last year or so that last week or the first visit of a u.n. official over the last ten months alone so it completes still made by the u.n. side i have

a lot of cooperation from both the saudi the collision and the who are these here and sign up so i can eat you talk about the new things need you two of the two things lack of political experience as evidence to suggest that the key political players in yemen benefiting from the war economy it's not exactly the who these interests to bring this conflict to a close is it. i saw somewhere the other i agree with that because right now they are in control and entirely in areas they control there are no rights given to the citizens when it comes to salaries electricity etc they have no . intention of handing over salaries and if they do one month a year so they have no. side that's pushing them to and for us to give the rights to the people who are under their control so this gives the movies more power internally but locally and i'm going to people generally their

reputation is not doing well most of the people in sanaa are not allied with them but because a fear of aggression or fear of having problems with these they stay quiet or ignore any complications of them but again it's not about the who it is not about the g.t.c. party or the socket for the allies it's about how to end this war still possible to save the millions of lives while suffering if the un is not a community and the world powers do not interfere politically that this war can take a very long time to solve and as of now over the last eighteen months no side has gained ground on the ground but it's early each side has gained a couple of amateurs here and there but in general there has been no sign even ground in either the way ok so the only way to reach a solution is politically and through dialogue address you were talking about the shifting sands in yemen to what extent is time of the essence not only to bring about an end to the suffering but given the average age of alliances on the ground

is the moment a danger that the situation could simply become too complex to sold. yemen has always been complex obviously into i completely agree with the previous speaker said i mean the problem in yemen is that we have an international it's a it's a proxy war whereby different international powers have their stakes in a conflict which essentially was a yemeni conflict but the problem is that any weakness that yemenis show or different parties show the more divided the yemenis are the more they invite people to interfere from outside and i think that is pretty much the key problem here the problem is that yes the iraqis have their own policy towards the south of yemen the saudis have their own policy towards the north of yemen at least they pretend to have an objective to be achieved the g.c.c. as a such doesn't exist anymore there is no common g.c.c. approach there is not and then there are many other parties that are not represented by internationals the problem is also the absence of us leadership more

than that even the us administration the trump ministration seems to be backing the saudi led coalition giving them a blank check to do whatever they deem necessary without actually trying to mediate so you have a multitude of different actors trying to thrive or of what's going on domestically and then obviously domestically you have local order you don't have a yemeni order there is no such thing as a very emanation where there is a local order that somewhat is keeping the country going but at a very very low level so i mean until people come to realisation that there is nothing further to be gained from military action and i think the who these are still not at a point where they think they can have nothing more to gain until that point fighting will continue so what the internet's community should do is really address the nation states who are involved in it and that is in iran and that is saudi arabia and the u.a.e. and to a lesser extent also the united states they need to sit together and try to find a solution in order to enable those people on the ground to make concessions if you

keep on keep giving money if you keep on weaponize ing if you keep the military wing going i do think that the parties on the ground have no. incentive to actually sit down and talk to one another and actually that will be more dividing the longer the war exists the more dividing it will get the bill corey do you agree with that should external actors who have interests in yemen should they be involved in peace talks what would any attempt to ignore them b.p. successful well i mean obviously the ideal thing would be for international actors to put diplomacy first and to put peace first and to push very hard to make that happen are the two parties that could do that are the united states and saudi arabia. but the reality is that neither saudi arabia nor the u.s. seems to be interested in doing that the u.s.

keep supplying arms to the saudi led coalition the saudis keep pushing for a total victory and some people inside yemen are supporting that idea the u.n. has been flailing about without a good leadership and good skills so as a result i don't think there's any hope of internationally reaching a solution that. that's why i say perhaps the burden should be on the yemenis it is difficult to ignore a foreign powers the regional especially because they have so much rested interest but then peace is never easy and the main thing is to sense of national unity gone and i'm sorry to be able to interrupt you he came. out of time. what do you make of

that where does the key to solving. the intractable problem that is yemen lie what's it going to take to get this war to end this as it was described by the un's humanitarian coordinator for yemen as an absurd war. it's very complicated but. the problem is that most of the people or the sides who are involved right now in the many solution or file i'm not aware or do understand yemen in general they have to understand yemen to be to solution the u.n. envoy. well the sheriff he tried his best he gave afterwards but it seemed that he didn't understand the side to him and the history of the side what's how the complications live i know he was here many years ago during the x. times time and you know it he knows how comforting it is so involving experts who know yemen involving experts who know how to reach

a solution who one of the people on the ground is not enough who are talking outside to talk to officials you have to know on the ground it's happening and know how to reach a solution or the problem makers on the ground which are the tribal leaders the political. officials who are not in the scene right now but they have a lot of influence but it could be any as well why not resigning in cairo except there are so these sides who are respected by all the political parties. whether by the saudi allies by the with the coalition of their being sidelined so these people should be given look more power or influence along with the u.n. to try to help reach a position rather just focusing on the i'm the charity and having just one statements i think that we want there so i came where at a time many thanks indeed gentlemen for taking part in today's discussion hakeem all this money in the bill cody and address creek thank you for watching don't forget you can see the program at any time just by going to the website at al-jazeera dot com for further discussion join us on our facebook page at facebook

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