-:Undertaker:-
02-03-2015, 05:26 AM
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-yemen-aden-20150223-story.html#page=1
http://www.dw.de/yemens-alarming-disintegration/a-18258770
Yemen's alarming disintegration
Long the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is now in a deep crisis. The collapse of the state - a breeding ground for Islamist terror groups such as al-Qaeda - can no longer be ignored.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_CH8QsWkAAP6b3.jpg
A replica Big Ben still looks down on the harbor. Queen Victoria casts a dour gaze from her bronzed throne in a patch of green fronting the port.
But this onetime jewel of the British empire has fallen onto hard times -- and now seethes with sedition as Yemen lurches toward civil war and possible disintegration.
The return this weekend of ousted President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, a southerner, after weeks of house arrest in the capital, Sana, has done little to quell separatist furor here in the south.
Blue-tinged flags of an erstwhile new independent nation are ubiquitous. Gaggles of pro-independence protesters march on the streets. Separatist slogans line the walls. Talk of rebellion is rampant.
"If there is no secession, then this area will become the biggest conflict in the Middle East -- bigger than Iraq or Syria," warned Mohammad Nasser Hattab, who heads a "popular committee" militia that has commandeered a police station across from the tattered park where a stolid and plump Victoria still observes the horizon.
"The situation has gotten to the point that it is us or them on this land," said Nasser, amid nods of agreement from fellow militiamen with Kalashnikovs and checkered head scarves gathered on the second floor of a dingy police precinct office in the portside Tawahi district, known as Steamer Point during British rule.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4068/4383682271_4ffae14018.jpg
A statue of Empress-Queen Victoria stands in the port city of Aden: a reminder of the more stable colonial past of Yemen
This fractured nation of 26 million, the poorest in the Arab world, has many hot spots in the aftermath of the fall of the capital, Sana, to the northern-based Houthi faction, a mostly Shiite Muslim group in a largely Sunni Muslim nation. The Houthis overran the capital in September and consolidated control in recent weeks, placing Hadi and others in his administration under house arrest and dissolving parliament.
The emergence of the Houthis, an ally of Iran, threatens to turn Yemen into yet another geopolitical battleground with profound implications for U.S. policy. The nation has until now been relatively free of the sectarian-fueled violence that has ravaged Iraq and Syria.
Fostering stability here has been a major goal of the Obama administration, which has touted Yemen as a success of its counter-terrorism strategy. The nation is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded as among the most potent of the global terrorist network's branches. U.S. drone strikes continue to hit Al Qaeda targets in Yemen, despite the Houthi takeover.
The port of Aden, still bustling but much depleted since its colonial-era days as one of the world's busiest harbors, was the site of a signature Al Qaeda attack: The 2000 strike on the U.S. destroyer Cole that left 17 U.S. service members dead and 39 wounded.
The Houthis have vowed to destroy Al Qaeda, a Sunni group that has repeatedly targeted them. But others argue that the Houthi advance has become an Al Qaeda recruiting bonanza, drawing in Sunni youth and tribesmen.
"Many tribes had abandoned Al Qaeda, but the arrival of the Houthis in Sana pushed the tribes back to Al Qaeda," Aden Gov. Abdul Aziz bin Habtoor said in an interview here.
To the east of Sana, Sunni Arab tribes, some allied with Al Qaeda, are arming against a possible Houthi thrust into resource-rich Marib province, source of much of the nation's oil and gas and its major energy infrastructure. Sunni tribal leaders, reportedly receiving aid from Saudi Arabia, Yemen's wary northern neighbor, have vowed to resist.
Meanwhile, the central government in Sana appears to have lost much of its control over the south.
Click the link to read on...
It was only a matter of time with the removal of the strongman Saleh.
Interestingly though, this state seems to be disintegrating back into the former colonial borders which were erased when the country unified back in the early 1990s which is the complete opposite of the situation in the (former) Iraq and Syria. There's an independence movement in the Aden area which is the former British Crown Colony of Aden, and then there's the south and north of the country which were separate states.
A massive security nightmare by the Saudi kingdom though, two failed (and unfriendly) failed states both to the north and the south.
Thoughts?
http://www.dw.de/yemens-alarming-disintegration/a-18258770
Yemen's alarming disintegration
Long the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is now in a deep crisis. The collapse of the state - a breeding ground for Islamist terror groups such as al-Qaeda - can no longer be ignored.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B_CH8QsWkAAP6b3.jpg
A replica Big Ben still looks down on the harbor. Queen Victoria casts a dour gaze from her bronzed throne in a patch of green fronting the port.
But this onetime jewel of the British empire has fallen onto hard times -- and now seethes with sedition as Yemen lurches toward civil war and possible disintegration.
The return this weekend of ousted President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, a southerner, after weeks of house arrest in the capital, Sana, has done little to quell separatist furor here in the south.
Blue-tinged flags of an erstwhile new independent nation are ubiquitous. Gaggles of pro-independence protesters march on the streets. Separatist slogans line the walls. Talk of rebellion is rampant.
"If there is no secession, then this area will become the biggest conflict in the Middle East -- bigger than Iraq or Syria," warned Mohammad Nasser Hattab, who heads a "popular committee" militia that has commandeered a police station across from the tattered park where a stolid and plump Victoria still observes the horizon.
"The situation has gotten to the point that it is us or them on this land," said Nasser, amid nods of agreement from fellow militiamen with Kalashnikovs and checkered head scarves gathered on the second floor of a dingy police precinct office in the portside Tawahi district, known as Steamer Point during British rule.
https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4068/4383682271_4ffae14018.jpg
A statue of Empress-Queen Victoria stands in the port city of Aden: a reminder of the more stable colonial past of Yemen
This fractured nation of 26 million, the poorest in the Arab world, has many hot spots in the aftermath of the fall of the capital, Sana, to the northern-based Houthi faction, a mostly Shiite Muslim group in a largely Sunni Muslim nation. The Houthis overran the capital in September and consolidated control in recent weeks, placing Hadi and others in his administration under house arrest and dissolving parliament.
The emergence of the Houthis, an ally of Iran, threatens to turn Yemen into yet another geopolitical battleground with profound implications for U.S. policy. The nation has until now been relatively free of the sectarian-fueled violence that has ravaged Iraq and Syria.
Fostering stability here has been a major goal of the Obama administration, which has touted Yemen as a success of its counter-terrorism strategy. The nation is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded as among the most potent of the global terrorist network's branches. U.S. drone strikes continue to hit Al Qaeda targets in Yemen, despite the Houthi takeover.
The port of Aden, still bustling but much depleted since its colonial-era days as one of the world's busiest harbors, was the site of a signature Al Qaeda attack: The 2000 strike on the U.S. destroyer Cole that left 17 U.S. service members dead and 39 wounded.
The Houthis have vowed to destroy Al Qaeda, a Sunni group that has repeatedly targeted them. But others argue that the Houthi advance has become an Al Qaeda recruiting bonanza, drawing in Sunni youth and tribesmen.
"Many tribes had abandoned Al Qaeda, but the arrival of the Houthis in Sana pushed the tribes back to Al Qaeda," Aden Gov. Abdul Aziz bin Habtoor said in an interview here.
To the east of Sana, Sunni Arab tribes, some allied with Al Qaeda, are arming against a possible Houthi thrust into resource-rich Marib province, source of much of the nation's oil and gas and its major energy infrastructure. Sunni tribal leaders, reportedly receiving aid from Saudi Arabia, Yemen's wary northern neighbor, have vowed to resist.
Meanwhile, the central government in Sana appears to have lost much of its control over the south.
Click the link to read on...
It was only a matter of time with the removal of the strongman Saleh.
Interestingly though, this state seems to be disintegrating back into the former colonial borders which were erased when the country unified back in the early 1990s which is the complete opposite of the situation in the (former) Iraq and Syria. There's an independence movement in the Aden area which is the former British Crown Colony of Aden, and then there's the south and north of the country which were separate states.
A massive security nightmare by the Saudi kingdom though, two failed (and unfriendly) failed states both to the north and the south.
Thoughts?