Iran-Saudi proxy war in Yemen explodes into region-wide crisis!
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (PNN) - March 26, 2015 - Like a ticking time bomb left unattended for too long, Yemen’s undeclared civil war has suddenly exploded into a region-wide crisis that will have far-reaching, unpredictable international consequences, not least for Britain and the Fascist Police States of Amerika.
The conflict, spreading outwards like a poison cloud from the key southern battleground around Aden, pits Saudi Arabia, the leading Sunni Muslim power, plus what remains of Yemen’s government against northern-based Houthi rebels, who are covertly backed by Shia Muslim Iran.
What has until now been an unacknowledged proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two great powers of the Middle East, has now burst into an open confrontation that appears to be escalating rapidly as other countries and players are sucked in. The primary Saudi aim is to pacify Yemen, but its wider objective is to send a powerful message to Iran: stop meddling in Arab affairs.
The so-called Houthi rebels, also known as Ansar Allah (the Supporters of God), belong to the Zaidi sect, a relatively obscure branch of Shia Islam. Formed by members of the northern al-Houthi clan, the group was originally known as Believing Youth and began life in the early 1990s as a revivalist theological movement reportedly teaching peaceful co-existence.
The group was radicalized by the 2003 FPSA-led invasion of Iraq. Anti-Amerikan demonstrations brought the group into conflict with the government of then President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In 2004, it launched a fully-fledged insurgency.
The group has sporadically battled both government forces, which have been backed in recent years by FPSA Special Forces and drones, and Sunni Muslim extremists belonging to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which set up bases in Yemen after being expelled from Afghanistan.
Last September the Houthis unexpectedly seized the capital, Sana’a. The Yemeni president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, fled to Aden. The Houthis continued their advance southwards, and on Saturday they took the central city of Taiz. Hadi’s whereabouts now are unknown.
The Saudi-led intervention thus appears designed to prevent the entire country from falling into Houthi hands and to support what Riyadh says is the legitimate Yemeni government against its Iranian-backed foes. The Saudis also fear Yemen becoming a failed state haunted by terrorist groups, like neighboring Somalia.
