Yemen thread cause fuck you

Not Comms Officer · April 19, 2015, 02:27:02 AM

So this is probably the most under reported country in the whole Greater Middle East proxy war which has been starting up recently between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Green are Houthis, Red is what's left of the Yemeni Government, and Black is AQAP (al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula)

Just some basic background on it, there has been an insurgency going on in Yemen's North from the minority Shi'a Houthis going on for about the past 15 years. Since the Yemeni Revolution "concluded" in the start of 2012, the Houthis have been making steady gains in acquiring more territory.

Fast forward to 2015, and now you have have the Houthis with a solid 30% of the country's landmass (entirely in the West), and the vast majority of the country's population (probably 85% or more). This leave the other 70% of the territory and 10% of the population split between the remnants of Yemen's Central Government and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

What makes this conflict so significant regionally is that the Houthis are being backed directly by Iran, and Saudi Arabia has already launched open military intervention on the side of the Yemeni Government. This marks the first direct military conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran (though they are only Iran's proxies), while they previously only fought eachother through proxies on both sides.

It's pretty much inevitable that the Houthis are going to take the entire country, since they're kind of rolling all over the Yemeni Government and AQAP....

So discuss Yemen, and if you think you have anything to contribute, go ahead and put it in.

Spoiler

inb4ChallengerX

Chakas · April 19, 2015, 07:20:09 AM

So much of a cluster-fuck. Almost nothing in the Middle East is surprising anymore. They've done just about everything short of nuking each other.

Super Irish · April 19, 2015, 09:19:21 AM

I wonder what will happen to the balance of power/religion over there if the Houthi's take full control and are recognised as such. There's just so many sects and ethnicities there that makes it very confusing and kinda hard to follow what's going on in the Middle East currently...hell, all the time tbh.

It always seems like this there:

Naru · April 19, 2015, 10:01:51 AM

It was a great map on Black Ops II

Not Comms Officer · April 19, 2015, 04:49:40 PM

Quote from: SuperIrish on April 19, 2015, 09:19:21 AM

I wonder what will happen to the balance of power/religion over there if the Houthi's take full control and are recognised as such. There's just so many sects and ethnicities there that makes it very confusing and kinda hard to follow what's going on in the Middle East currently...hell, all the time tbh.

It always seems like this there:

The Houthis won't be recognized since the West are at war with them. It's very rare for an internationally recognized Government to be completely toppled and have the successor Government be internationally recognized in turn. Especially if that toppled Government is/was an ally of the West.