Betcha didn’t know there was a war in Yemen! I vaguely knew it. Actually, I didn’t really know there was a war, perse, in Yemen as much as I thought it was just an out of control country. I think of Yemen as being chaotic and a country in anarchy.
There has been an ongoing struggle in Yemen between rebels seeking to impose another Shi’a theocracy and the republican government.
Jane Novak of The Arab American News writes about the possibility of an end to hostilities in Yemen.
The Sa’ada war in northern Yemen may be coming to a close. The Yemeni government announced on June 15 that a cease-fire had been negotiated through the good offices of the Emir of Qatar. Shi’a rebels agreed to lay down their arms after nearly three years of fighting. Hopes are high that an end to hostilities will allow immediate assistance to over a half a million Yemenis in Sa’ada province adversely affected by the fighting.
The rebellion began in 2004 led by cleric Hussain al-Houthi. According to government officials, the rebels aimed to re-institute the Shi’a theocracy overthrown by North Yemen’s republican revolution in 1962. After Hussain was killed in 2004, leadership of the movement transferred to his brother, Abdelmalik al-Houthi. The rebels, known as the Houthis, say they oppose Yemen’s alliance with the U.S. and regime corruption.
Yemeni officials repeatedly accused both Libya and Iran of funding the rebellion situated on the Yemeni-Saudi border. An informed source maintains that the Houthis received millions of dollars from an African country. Monetary transfers intended for the rebels began in the summer of 2006 and continued into 2007, the source claims. This and other reports of foreign meddling raised the specter of the bloody rebellion spiraling into a proxy war between regional heavyweights with hundreds of thousands of Yemeni civilians caught in the middle.