Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Yemen Leader, Flees Country

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

President leaves on a boat as rebels advance

The Associated Press Posted: Mar 25, 2015 5:42 AM ET

Yemeni security and port officials say that President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has left the country by sea, on a boat from the port of Aden, as Shiite rebels and their allies advance on this southern city.

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The officials told The Associated Press that Hadi left with his aides after 3:30 p.m. local time on Wednesday. The entourage departed by two boats, under heavy security. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.

They would not disclose Hadi's destination. Yemen's embattled president is scheduled to attend an Arab Summit in Egypt on the weekend.

Hadi's escape from Yemen comes as the rebels known as the Houthis are closing in on Aden and the city's fall appears imminent.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/abed-rabbo-mansour-hadi-yemen-leader-flees-country-1.3008452

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Saudi Ally Retreats in Yemen as Rebels Advance on Stronghold

by Glen CareyMohammed Hatem
4:25 AM EDT March 25, 2015

(Bloomberg) -- Forces loyal to Yemeni President Abdurabuh Mansur Hadi collapsed in the face of an offensive by Shiite rebel fighters, prompting his government to renew an appeal for military intervention by allies.

Saudi stocks dropped the most in the world after the Houthis captured a major military base near Hadi’s stronghold in the southern port city of Aden. The rebel group is backed by forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was removed from power after an uprising in 2011.

The government is urging allies “to send their fighter jets, their navies and ground forces if necessary” to stop the advance of the pro-Iranian Houthi militants, Riad Yaseen, Hadi’s foreign minister, said in an interview with Al Arabiya television. He said the Houthis would soon seek to consolidate their power with the help of Shiite-ruled Iran.

Yemen is emerging as the latest ground for a proxy confrontation between Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter that backs Hadi, and Iran, where officials have expressed support for the Houthi group. The prospect of a prolonged conflict increases the risk that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council countries may be drawn into the fighting though political analysts question the effectiveness of any military intervention.

more...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-25/yemen-rebels-seize-airbase-north-of-aden-as-hadi-seeks-un-help

[KG]

1. another smashing success in the war on terror...

[bemildred]

2. By boat, for Djibouti. nt

[samsingh]

3. i don't even understand what each side stands for

[Warren Stupidity]

4. shia v sunni part 12

However this is a major win for Iran, which further convolutes our already conflicted and convoluted foreign policy positions in the middles east.

[Xithras]

6. The Yemen War, in a nutshell:

This skips a lot of details, but you'll get the gist:

Until 1990, Yemen was two nations...North Yemen and the Democratic Republic of Yemen (aka South Yemen).

North Yemen was originally founded as a Houthi Shiite kingdom following the fall of the Ottoman empire. It existed as a Shiite kingdom until the 1960's. The DRY existed as a British Colony until the 1960's, when it became a Marxist-Socialist nation.

In 1962, Egypts Nasser decided that he didn't like having a Shiite kingdom controlling North Yemen, and supported an Arab nationalist insurrection in the country (later backed by uniformed Egyptian forces) to depose the Shiite kingdom. The result was the Yemen Arab Republic, which can best be described as a military junta.

Fast forward to 1990, and the Soviet Union is crumbling. The Marxist DRY is losing its aid from the USSR, and the two Yemen nations unify into one Republic of Yemen. Problem is, the leaders of both nations sort of saw themselves as being the "dominant" government in the new nation, and a civil war followed. Saleh, the head of the Yemen Arab Republic military junta, was victorious and defeated the marxists, spreading his military junta to all of the new nation.

In 2004 the Houthi's rebelled. The Houthi's claimed that the Saleh military junta was oppressing them, and wanted to overthrow the junta and replace it with a Shiite kingdom. That war has raged off and on ever since.

In 2011, during the Arab Spring, protesters primarily from the former DRY began an uprising against Saleh and deposed him. The Houthi's declared their support for the rebellion and supported a democratic vote for Yemen's future.

When the election rolled around in 2012, the Sunni Mansur Hadi supposedly won with 99.8% of the vote and a 65% turnout. Hadi was a military guy and had previously worked with Saleh, though they weren't exactly buddies. The Houthi's immediately contested this, and compromise was worked out that limited Hadi's tenure to 2014.

At the same time as the election was happening, AQ declared war on the Houthis. They saw the Shiite Houthi's as infidels and wanted to wipe them out. AQ began a bombing campaign against the Houthis, which rapidly led to a war between the Houthi's and AQAP. This eventually just morphed into an open war against the Yemeni government forces, as the Houthi's saw Hadi's government as both illegitimate and incapable of defending its people from outside attackers. When Hadi and the national congress amended the constitution and passed laws allowing Hadi to remain president, the Houthi's created an entirely new government and declared the Yemeni government to be illegitimate.

In essence, this is a three way "no good guys" war. You have Al Qaeda fighting to commit genocide against the Houthi's and impose a strict Sunni Sharia theocracy on one side, the Houthi's fighting to impose a tribal Shiite theocracy on a second side, and a corrupt and almost certainly illegitimate "democratic" government backed by western nations and residents of the former DRY on a third side.

[samsingh]

7. thanks fo rthe detailed explanation. helpful to understand - but depressing

[Xithras]

8. Yemen is a depressing mess. We're only involved for two reasons.

1. Saleh and Hadi were both pro-western. They have both allowed the United States to use Yemeni ports for their ships, and to establish drone war bases in the country. Neither the Houthi or AQAP are going to allow that.

2. The Houthi have formed ties with Iran. Even though many of their complaints are very legitimate, the Sunni leadership throughout the rest of the middle east won't support anything that might create a Shiite government. Only the Iranians have shown a willingness to help them, leading to some friendliness between the Houthi and Iran. Because Yemen can potentially control access to the Red Sea, there is a lot of western fear that a Houthi-led Yemen could act as an agent of Iran in any confrontation between Iran and the west (though the Houthi themselves have not expressed any interest in doing so).

[MisterP]

5. here's a list of this century's wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen_War

Egypt tries to take over '62, bringing in Arabia
a Southern coup (back in Moscow the diplomats were all like "what happened to the other President?&quot
the South doesn't want to be glued onto the North's permanent military regime
US, Arabia, and al Qaeda vs. Iran and the Houthis
Southern socialists gonna bring back Aden real soon: opposed by Arabia, al-Islah (Islamist party with the liberal female Nobelist), and al Qaeda: no idea who Washington will side with