Page 198 - What Kind of Yemen ?

What Kind of Yemen?

sour Hadi, who was put under house arrest after this uprising, fled to
Aden in the south of the country and declared that he resumed his post

as the President. The UN Security Council did not recognize the Houthi
government and declared that Mansour Hadi government is the official
Yemeni government.
Just before the operation, Houthis besieged Aden after seizing the
city of Lahij, 60 km to Aden and Aned, the greatest air base in the south
of the country. That was the last straw that broke the camel's back.
It is not possible to say that Houthis enjoy a wide public support
however they have about 100-120 thousand closely organized people at
their root and about twenty to thirty thousand armed forces.

Is the Yemen Operation a reflection of Saudi-Iran Conflict?

The visible justification for the operation is the Saudi Arabian sup-
port together with the allies to the legal Yemeni government against the
dissident Houthis. Saudi Arabia is thus planning to blockade the Houthi

structuring that is a threat in their southern border. However there are
many other dynamics leading to this current state.
The most important one of those dynamics is that Yemen is the
focal point in the traditional Iran-Saudi conflict. Iran who increased
involvement in the Middle East affairs by reinforcing support to the
Shia formations in Iraq and to the Al-Assad regime is also urging to
reinforce its hand in Yemen by means of the Houthis they have

equipped and organized behind the curtains for decades.
As a matter of fact, in one of his statements, the Iranian Chief of
Staff defined Sana'a as the fourth capital city under the influence of Iran.
As is known Yemen is a country with direct access to the Red Sea and
the Aden Gulf and has a great strategic importance. In this way Tehran
is planning to gain the upper hand by besieging its main competitor
Saudi Arabia.
Of course Saudi Arabia, which regards this development as a grave

196