(August 2018)
Yemen's Civil War and Saudi Imperialism.
While not as famous as the Syrian civil war, the civil war in Yemen is no less
chaotic and deadly. The main reason why it is neglected by the Western media is
that there is no confrontation (or alliance) between the USA and Russia. And of course because there are no Yemeni refugees flooding Europe.
The political upheaval in Yemen started exactly at the same time that it started in the rest of the Arab world: the "Arab spring" of 2011 immediately infected Yemen, one of the poorest Arab countries.
Yemen, like Libya, Syria, Iraq and many other former European colonies, is not
a homogeneous nation but a federation of regions with different histories,
religions and economies. The port of Aden, an important stop for the oil cargoes
of the world, belongs to Yemen, as does the island of Socotra, famous of its
picturesque trees. For a long time Yemen was split in two, a South Yemen
ruled by a communist dictatorship, and a North Yemen with a large Houthi
population ruled by the non-Houthi president Ali Abdullah Saleh who eventually
(in 1990) united the two. The Houthis are Shiite, the Muslim brand associated
with Iran. They have never accepted Sunni rule. In 2009 the Yemeni government
bombed a Shiite refugee camp in Adi killing more than 100 people and
Saudi Arabia bombed Houthi villages killing more than 70 people.
At the same time Yemen has been a base for Islamic terrorists since the founding of Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula.
The USA was already using drones to kill Al Qaeda terrorists, and in
2009 the Muslim cleric Al-Awlaki launched his own version of Al Qaeda.
In december 2009 a US drone killed 14 women and 21 children.
So when the Arab Spring came to Yemen in 2011 it found a country that was already torn apart by Houthi (Shiite) rebels and Sunni terrorists
(in 2012 a suicide bombing in the capital killed more than 90 soldiers, and that
was just the beginning).
Saleh eventually fell and fled the country, while the army was fighting against
the Houthis in the north and Al Qaeda in the south, and Al Qaeda was also occasionally blowing up Houthis (Sunni terrorists hate Shiites even more than the hate the USA).
The USA continued its drone campaign against Al Qaeda militants, mainly in southern Yemen (in 2013 a drone killed 17 civilians by mistake) while the Houthis
in 2015 conquered the capital.
That's when Saudi Arabia formed a coalition and began
launching air strikes against Houthi rebels that were rapidly extending their
rule over the rest of Yemen.
Coincidence or not, that's when ISIS began infiltrating the
chaos of Yemen the same way it had taken advantage of the chaos in Syria, and
it targeted Houthis. The Saudi-led coalition has killed scores of Houthi
civilians, and ISIS has killed scores of Houthi civilians (the first major
ISIS attack,
a suicide bombing that killed 137 people in two Shiite mosques,
took place exactly when Saudi Arabia started the bombings).
Saudi Arabia and ISIS began competing about who could kill more Houthi
civilians.
Saudi bombs killed 135 civilians at a wedding (september 2015),
more than 140 people at a funeral (october 2016),
26 people at a market (october 2017),
40 children on a school bus (august 2018),
22 children and four women who are fleeing fighting (a few days later),
etc.
These were all killed with weapons made in the USA: Saudi Arabia is the main
buyer of US warplanes and missiles.
Meanwhile, the USA kept targeting the remaining Al Qaeda camps.
Saudi Arabia claims that the Houthi rebels are armed by Iran, which is likely
to be true. Saudi Arabia, however, doesn't say who arms Al Qaeda and ISIS.
To be fair, ISIS also killed a lot of soldiers of the Saudi-backed government in the south.
Nobody ever asked the people of Yemen whom they prefer, but it is likely
that nobody wants Al Qaeda, ISIS or Saudi Arabia, and that many cities welcomed
the Houthis.
See also A Quick Tour of the Middle East for more on Saudi Arabia and Iran.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2018 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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