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Tearing Yemen apart
The Guardian ^ | September 14, 2009 | Simon Tisdall

Posted on 09/14/2009 9:01:22 PM PDT by G8 Diplomat

Renewed fighting in northern Yemen between government and rebel forces is feeding fears that a Middle Eastern proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is spreading to the ungoverned spaces of the southern Arabian peninsula. But western analysts are staring boggle-eyed at quite a different spectre: the prospect that the biggest beneficiaries of Yemeni weakness will be the fanatical jihadis of al-Qaida.

UN agencies raised the alarm last week after 55,000 people, mostly women and children, fled clashes in and around Sa'ada city in northern Yemen between the forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's Sunni-led government and the Zaydi Shia followers of Sayyid Abd al-Malik al-Houthi. The exodus brought to 150,000 the number of people rendered homeless since July by a conflict that rekindled in 2004 but whose roots reach back to 1962.

The UN complained that its $23m emergency appeal launched on 2 September "has not yet received a single cent" despite the refugees' acute need. "Internally displaced people from Sa'ada governorate who fled to Amran arrived traumatised and exhausted, having spent three to five days walking in the desert," the UN said. Access to the remote area was hazardous and attempts were under way to open a humanitarian corridor from Saudi Arabia.

Yet according to the Houthi rebels, the Saudis are part of the problem. Claiming Riyadh is arming and supporting government forces, they issued a video last week purporting to show captured Saudi mortars. They also claim to have been bombed by Saudi jets. "We are placing before everyone the fact of direct Saudi support," a rebel statement said. "The regime has ceded sovereignty [and] delivered the country to foreign interests." Saudi Arabia denies the charges.

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alhouthi; hawthis; houthi; houthis; iran; saudiarabia; yemen

A post from a site called "Syria Forums": http://s88179113.onlinehome.us/2009-09-09/faloja-syrian_regime_meddles_in_yemen/post.html


Rough translation:


It’s hard for us to prove the involvement of the Syrian regime in supporting the Hawthis in Yemen, but the day is coming that will confirm our thoughts that this regime has allied itself with the Hawthis by supporting them in Yemen or in Cairo, as one of their leaders there converted to Shi’ism and fled to Damascus, which gave him asylum. The Syrian regime desperately seeks to spread Shi’ism to Lebanon, Iraq, and the Gulf States, and attract scores of students to Shi’ism and teach them about it in seminaries now deployed in Syria....


The Hawthis have publicly urged Tehran and Iraq to open an office for them in Baghdad and to create new settlements in Iran to defend their spies in the Gulf. Taking these risks will cost the Hawthis much by forcing them to give up other issues such as pressuring the Syrian regime to smuggle weapons to the Shi’ites in eastern Saudi Arabia. This strategy now would be solely in the Syrian regime’s hands.

1 posted on 09/14/2009 9:01:23 PM PDT by G8 Diplomat
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To: G8 Diplomat

No, that’s an archival site for this page:

www.faloja1.info/vb/showthread.php?p=560409#post560409


2 posted on 09/14/2009 9:15:58 PM PDT by Cindy
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To: All

Background Link:

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2335825/posts

JIHADIS REPORT OF SYRIAN MEDDLING IN YEMEN
INTERNET-HAGANAH.com ^ | September 9, 2009 | n/a
Posted on September 9, 2009 3:29:40 PM PDT by Cindy

09 September 2009 JIHADIS REPORT OF SYRIAN MEDDLING IN YEMEN

Not that I consider jihadis to be a reliable source on such matters, but you know what they say about broken clocks...

(Excerpt) Read more at internet-haganah.com ...


3 posted on 09/14/2009 9:19:05 PM PDT by Cindy
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To: G8 Diplomat

While all of this is telling, about the reality of events in the Middle East, I will repeat my contention that when it comes to the tug-of-war between the Shia and the Sunni, or between the Wahabi and the Iranian Mullahs, it is one contest where the West does not have ANY dog in the race; even if that tug-of-war opens temporary opportunities for non-state and/or “radical” players to exploit.

Meanwhile, while it is fine for us to oppose many of the non-state terroristic players, it should be a universal position of ours, regardless of which Islamic or Arab or Middle East camp that they claim to be part of.


4 posted on 09/14/2009 9:54:04 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Wuli
"...it is one contest where the West does not have ANY dog in the race..."

If you don't like being bitten by fire ants, when two colonies of them get into a killing frenzy, stand back and think positive.

5 posted on 09/15/2009 1:59:00 AM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another agitator for republicanism like Sam Adams when we need him?)
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To: G8 Diplomat

We built an enormous military infrastructure for the F-ing Saudi’s and then they decided we aren’t moral or moosie enough to be in their f-ing country to defend their sorry asses.

Any way to encourage an all out war between both gutter countries Iran and Saudi Arabia to get into an all out knock down drag out war against each other?
Now that I’d love to watch.
Let both kill each other off.


6 posted on 09/15/2009 2:15:44 AM PDT by Joe Boucher (google; operation garden spot and REX84 (FUBO))
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To: Wuli

I agree


7 posted on 09/15/2009 9:18:32 AM PDT by G8 Diplomat (To err is human, to think is Vulcan)
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