Yemen is in the grip of its most severe crisis in years, as competing forces fight for control of the country.
Impoverished but strategically important, the tussle for power in Yemen has serious implications for the region and the security of the West.
In recent months Yemen has descended into conflicts between several different groups, pushing the country "to the edge of civil war", according to the UN's special adviser.
The main fight is between forces loyal to the beleaguered President, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, and those allied to Zaidi Shia rebels known as Houthis, who forced Mr Hadi to flee the capital Sanaa in February.
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Yemen's security forces have split loyalties, with some units backing Mr Hadi, and others the Houthis and Mr Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has remained politically influential. Mr Hadi is also supported in the predominantly Sunni south of the country by militia known as Popular Resistance Committees and local tribesmen.
Both President Hadi and the Houthis are opposed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has staged numerous deadly attacks from its strongholds in the south and south-east.
The picture is further complicated by the emergence in late 2014 of a Yemen affiliate of the jihadist group Islamic State, which seeks to eclipse AQAP and claims it carried out a series of suicide bombings in Sanaa in March 2015.
After rebel forces closed in on the president's southern stronghold of Aden in late March, a coalition led by Saudi Arabia responded to a request by Mr Hadi to intervene and launched air strikes on Houthi targets. The coalition comprises five Gulf Arab states and Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan.
What happens in Yemen can greatly exacerbate regional tensions. It also worries the West because of the threat of attacks emanating from the country as it becomes more unstable.
Western intelligence agencies consider AQAP the most dangerous branch of al-Qaeda because of its technical expertise and global reach. The US has been carrying out operations, including drone strikes, against AQAP in Yemen with President Hadi's co-operation, but the Houthis' advance has meant the US campaign has been scaled back.
The conflict between the Houthis and the elected government is also seen as part of a regional power struggle between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, which shares a long border with Yemen.
Gulf Arab states have accused Iran of backing the Houthis financially and militarily, though Iran has denied this, and they are themselves backers of President Hadi.
Yemen is strategically important because it sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, through which much of the world's oil shipments pass. Egypt and Saudi Arabia fear a Houthi takeover would threaten free passage through the strait.
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In short, after months of tightening their hold, the Houthis have formally seized power. In January, the group said it would dissolve parliament and announced plans for a new interim assembly and five-member presidential council, which would rule for up to two years.
The move filled a political vacuum which had existed since President Hadi, the prime minister and cabinet resigned earlier that month after the Houthis placed President Hadi under house arrest and detained other leading figures.
But the Houthis are minority Shia from the north, and their declaration has not been recognised by Sunni tribesmen and southern leaders, threatening Yemen with a further descent into chaos.
President Hadi, who is recognised as Yemen's legitimate leader by the international community, managed to escape to Aden, which he declared the de facto capital.
The Houthis are members of a rebel group, also known as Ansar Allah (Partisans of God), who adhere to a branch of Shia Islam known as Zaidism. Zaidis make up one-third of the population and ruled North Yemen under a system known as the imamate for almost 1,000 years until 1962.
The Houthis take their name from Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi. He led the group's first uprising in 2004 in an effort to win greater autonomy for their heartland of Saada province, and also to protect Zaidi religious and cultural traditions from perceived encroachment by Sunni Islamists.
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After Houthi was killed by the Yemeni military in late 2004, his family took charge and led another five rebellions before a ceasefire was signed with the government in 2010.
Map of Yemen
In 2011, the Houthis joined the protests against then President Saleh and took advantage of the power vacuum to expand their territorial control in Saada and neighbouring Amran province.
They subsequently participated in a National Dialogue Conference (NDC), which led to President Hadi announcing plans in February 2014 for Yemen to become a federation of six regions.
The Houthis however opposed the plan, which they said would leave them weakened.
In recent years Yemen has seen violent conflicts largely caused by underlying problems of unequal access to power and resources.
There have been six rounds of fighting between the state and the Houthis in the north; separatist unrest in the south; frequent attacks by AQAP; and power struggles between tribal and military factions.
For much of the 20th Century, Yemen existed as two separate countries - the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR) in the north and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south. In 1990, the countries chose to unify and create the Republic of Yemen. However, southerners soon began complaining of political and economic marginalisation by the government in Sanaa, and fought a civil war in 1994 in a failed attempt to reverse the unification.
Instability and large-scale displacement, as well as weak governance, corruption, resource depletion and poor infrastructure, have hindered development in the poorest country in the Middle East.
Unemployment, high food prices and limited social services mean more than 10 million Yemenis are believed to be food insecure.
The Arab world’s poorest and most misunderstood country has been facing multiple crises for years: a shortage of oil and water, a rapidly growing population, hunger, dictatorship, corruption, an international terrorist presence and deep internal regional and political differences. Now escalating regional rivalry between neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Iran has sparked a wider war that threatens chaos and possible collapse.
What’s the story?
Yemen has been in deep trouble for months, but military intervention led by Saudi Arabia, backed by the US and Britain, marks a new and dangerous stage of its conflict. Last September, after UN-sponsored political dialogue broke down, Houthi rebel fighters from the north took over the capital, Sana’a, and have recently spread out across the country, overthrowing the internationally recognised president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled first to Aden, and then to Riyadh.
The southern separatists of the Hirak movement and al-Qaida fighters, targeted by US drones, are fighting their own separate campaigns. Restless tribes add to a volatile mix. An ominous recent innovation was the claim by Islamic State that it had carried out twin suicide bombings in Sana’a. Central government authority has all but disintegrated.
Saudi air raids, which began on 26 March, have targeted Houthi air and army bases and weapons. But they have also killed dozens of civilians and led to calls for an immediate ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. Hospitals, homes, schools and civilian infrastructure have been hit, as have airports and power stations. The UN high commissioner for human rights has warned that Yemen is “on the verge of total collapse”.
How did this happen?
The immediate crisis dates back to Yemen’s chapter of the Arab spring, which in 2011 saw the removal of president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had ruled the country for 33 years, and famously compared his job to “dancing on the heads of snakes”. The Saudis and their Gulf allies, supported by the west, oversaw a political transition that brought in Hadi as president.
That temporarily avoided civil war but failed to introduce more fundamental changes, as Saleh (who was given immunity from prosecution) continued to manoeuvre behind the scenes. Hadi’s attempts to reform the military also backfired badly. The Houthis, who call themselves Ansar Allah (“supporters of Allah”), belong to the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam (who represent 20-30% of Yemen’s population).
A female Yemeni student living in Iran flashes the victory sign during a protest against Saudi-led airstrikes. Facebook Twitter Pinterest
A Yemeni student living in Iran flashes the victory sign during a protest against Saudi-led air strikes. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA
Most experts say the conflict is fundamentally about power and resources rather than sectarian confrontation. From 2004, the Houthis fought Saleh, partly to resist growing Saudi influence and also because they opposed his close relationship with the US during the post-2001 “war on terror”. Today, however, Saleh is said to be backing the Houthis, perhaps as a way of eventually giving power to his son, Ahmad Ali, and weakening his enemies.
But Iranian support for the rebels – the extent of which is unclear – has fed into wider Saudi anxieties about Tehran’s influence in the Gulf, at a time when it is making advances in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The Saudis and their Sunni allies – Turkey, Egypt, Qatar and the UAE – all see Yemen through the prism of strategic rivalry with Tehran and Shia-Sunni competition as they fret about an American withdrawal from the Gulf and rapprochement with Iran.
The declared aim of Operation Decisive Storm is to “protect Yemen and its people from the aggression of the Houthi militias that are supported by regional powers whose goal is to establish hegemony over Yemen and to make it a base for its influence in the region”. Pakistan is also considering sending forces. Iran has condemned the operation.
The issues
The big question is whether the Saudi-led intervention will make things better or worse. Most experts predict the latter, unless bombing can be used as a way of pressuring the Houthis. Negotiations, however, would clearly be difficult. The Saudis are demanding the Houthis withdraw from all areas they have taken from Sana’a southward, disarmament and Hadi’s reinstatement.
“The immediate reactions of Houthi leaders to the Saudi-led air strikes have been resolute, expressing a strong determination to continue fighting and to make the neighbouring kingdom pay a heavy price for its actions,” commented the Yemeni political scientist Gamal Gasim.
A milk factory hit by an air strike in Houdieda on Wednesday.
A dairy factory hit by an air strike in Houdieda. Photograph: Stringer/Reuters
Linked to that is the looming question of whether the Saudis will commit ground troops. The Aden area, where the Egyptian navy has also been in action, is a major concern. The Saudi intervention against the Houthis in late 2009 stopped short of sustained cross-border ground operations and failed to suppress the insurgency.
The risk is that deeper Saudi involvement will push the Iranians to follow suit, giving the conflict even more of a proxy character. Yemen experienced that in the 1960s, when Nasser’s Egypt and Saudi Arabia backed different sides in its civil war, almost certainly prolonging it.
The military option, analysts argue, needs to give way to renewed efforts, with international backing, to share power peacefully, making constitutional amendments and holding elections. The alternative is further destruction, misery and radicalisation that will only benefit the most extreme elements in Yemen and fuel wider instability. “Neither Saudi Arabia, nor Iran, nor the United States nor, to state the obvious, Yemenis, stand to gain from an extended armed conflict,” argues Adam Baron of the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“But worries are rife that the time for talks may have passed. Indeed, by striking Yemen, the anti-Houthi coalition may very well have opened a Pandora’s box that could shake the Arabian peninsula and the rest of the region in uncertain ways in the days, weeks and months to come.”
Less than a week after the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2201, the political landscape in Yemen has been further complicated by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's surprising escape from the Houthi-imposed house arrest.
Despite the Houthis' attempts to downplay Hadi's escape and spin it in their controlled media outlets, it certainly happened against their political will and desire.
The Security Council resolution came on the heels of desperate calls by both UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has warned the international community of the severe ramifications if Yemen falls into complete chaos, and a ministerial communiqué from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) asking the Security Council to authorise the use of military intervention in Yemen under Chapter 7 of the UN charter.
The UN Security Council Resolution 2201 (2015) includes three key elements:
First, while deploring the Houthis' control of key government institutions, the resolution emphasised the return to the GCC Initiative and the National Dialogue Conference outcomes as the legal foundations of Yemen's transitional period.
Second, the resolution called for the release of the president, Prime Minister Khalid Bahah, and other members of the Yemeni government.
Finally, the Security Council requested Ban to report back to the council on the implementation of this resolution after two weeks.
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Upon his arrival to Aden, Hadi addressed Yemeni citizens in his capacity as the legitimate democratically elected president of the unified Yemen, proclaiming all political measures adopted by the Houthis since January 21, to be unconstitutional.
Hadi's significant - and unexpected political move - has unquestionably affected the trajectory of the ongoing negotiations that Jamal Benomar, the UN special envoy to Yemen, is administering among Yemeni political actors including the Houthis, the General People's Congress, and the Joint Meeting Parties.
The Yemeni political scene seems more complicated than ever, but for the time being many in Yemen are saying: 'Bravo Mr President, but please do not disappoint us again because the country cannot afford another political failure.'
There is growing demand now to relocate these political negotiations from Sanaa to Taiz or Aden. Moreover, Hadi's escape to Aden - although details of his escape remain undisclosed - has not only politically embarrassed the Houthis and generated political upheaval in Sanaa, but also shows that the Houthis lack the sophisticated security capabilities to provide political security in Sanaa and other key areas under their control.
Yemenis are left to wonder how, if the Houthis couldn't effectively secure the house arrest of Hadi, will they be capable of managing state political institutions during this very volatile time in Yemen's history.
What is most important about Hadi's escape is that it has given Yemenis a glimmer of hope that the balance of power may now be tipping in favour of the anti-Houthi forces - including Hadi, who has been politically resurrected and now has a rare second chance to lead Yemen during the coming months.
Until January 21, almost every political actor in Yemen blamed Hadi for the ongoing unrest, including - ironically - the Houthis, who he had helped tremendously through grave political miscalculations that allowed them to expand their influence and gain control of Yemen's northern cities one after another.
RELATED: The Houthi challenge
Although Hadi has not been entirely responsible for Yemen's political problems since the ousting of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, he has repeatedly demonstrated unsophisticated political skills.
Even before the Houthis placed him under house arrest, Hadi never met Yemenis' expectations and did little to solve their chronic political and economic problems.
Furthermore, Hadi rarely spoke directly to the public during that period and failed to inspire them when he did speak. He lacks the charisma of Yemen's late President Ibrahim al-Hamdi who served during the mid-1970s, and the unscrupulous Machiavellian political skills of Saleh.
However, Hadi's short-lived political resignation, his endurance of the house arrest, and indeed his surprising escape from Sanaa to Aden have helped boost his support among many anti-Houthi forces.
The international community - including the UN, the United States, and the GCC - has not yet lost confidence in him. The last Security Council resolution was unanimously approved, increasing the Houthis' isolation.
One Minute Yemen
In response to Hadi's escape and political declaration, the Houthis issued a political decree on February 22, calling on the Bahah government to resume its work despite its resignation on January 22, until the formation of a new government.
Although it is doubtful that such a government would withstand international pressure, this unilateral step suggests the likely formation of two Yemeni governments, one in Sanaa under the Houthis and another in Aden under Hadi.
If this occurs during the coming weeks, will it mean the practical separation of the north and the south? Will Hadi's escape help to strengthen or weaken al-Hirak (the secessionist movement) in the south?
The answers to these questions depend a great deal on Hadi's political intentions, which have so far favoured unification under a new federal system and a new constitution that would decentralise power to a greater extent to more effectively address the south's political grievances.
The Yemeni political scene seems more complicated than ever, but for the time being many in Yemen are saying: "Bravo Mr President, but please do not disappoint us again because the country cannot afford another political failure."
