The causes behind the Yemini conflict

This avid reader of every news blog that appears on his screen had long wondered what were the causes behind the Yemini war. And which side had started the war. The lack of explanations for the war initiated several hours of digging. Here are the results. Those who know better are urged to comment.

The Yemen conflict appears to be a power conflict between two would-be presidents who wanted power; with overtones of a Shia – Sunni religious conflict. But it also goes back to the legacy left by British colonial powers. In 1962, Yemen's northern and southern regions were governed separately. North Yemen was an independent state ruled since the 1930s by a monarchy, while South Yemen was under British colonial administration. In September that year factions within the armed forces in North Yemen overthrew the monarch, Imam Muḥammad al-Badr, and proclaimed the Yemen Arab Republic. Al-Badr evaded capture and rallies tribal support, leading to a civil war. Saudi Arabia, ever conservative, intervened on behalf of the monarch. In South Yemen a newly formed nationalist group, the National Liberation Front, launches a guerrilla campaign against the British. In 1962,the British withdraw. The Royal Marines, who had been the first British troops to occupy Aden in 1839, were the last to leave.

The royalists and republicans in North Yemen reach a reconciliation in 1970. That same year South Yemen renamed itself the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, aligning itself with the Soviet Union and embarking on a socialist development program.

In October 1972, fighting erupted between north and south; North Yemen was supplied by Saudi Arabia while South Yemen was supplied by the USSR.

Following the cease-fire, both sides agree to political unification, but relations between the two countries deteriorated in the following year, stalling unification.

Following the assassination of two presidents of North Yemen in two years, Ali Abdulla Saleh becomes president of North Yemen in 1978.

.Another brief war broke out between North and South Yemen in 1979. Hostilities are ended with a unification agreement that once again collapsed.

After months of negotiations, the Republic of Yemen is proclaimed on May 22, 1990 uniting North and South Yemen. Ali Abdullah Saleh of the north became Head of State.

The newly united Yemen suffered international isolation and economic losses when it opposed the use of force to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait following the Iraqi invasion that prompted the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). This was the war waged by 35 nations, at the initiative of the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait. Led by Saudi Arabia, several Arab countries cut off aid to Yemen and expelled Yemeni workers.

Yemen held its first direct presidential elections in September 1999, electing the existing President Ali Abdullah Saleh to a 5-year term.

In 2004 Government forces suppressed a rebellion around the northern town of Ṣaʿdah. The conflict was sparked by the government's attempt to arrest Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, a Zaidi religious leader of the Houthis and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty. The rebels, led by members of the al-Houthi family, a Zaydi Shiite clan, called for the preservation of Zaydi religious identity .They condemned the Saleh regime as pro-Western. Zaydis make up about 42% of Muslims in Yemen, with the vast majority of Shia Muslims in the country being Zaydi. The Washington Institute tells us that Yemen's Zaidis are " A Window for Iranian Influence " (February 2, 2015).

Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled Yemen for more than 30 years in total. He was forced to resign as part of the 2011 Arab Spring revolt. On February 20 thousands of Yemeni university students and recent graduates staged a sit-in on the campus of Sanaa University, vowing not to end their protest until Saleh stepped down as president. Thousands of inmates rioted at the central prison in the capital, also calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. One person was killed and over 100 were injured. Saleh resisted calls for his ouster, saying that his early departure would cause chaos in the country.

On March 18 Saleh loyalists in civilian clothes opened fire on protesters in Sanaa, killing at least 50 people. The episode caused dozens of Yemeni officials, including diplomats, cabinet ministers, and members of parliament, to resign in protest. On March 20 Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, commander of the army's 1st Armoured Division, announced his support for the opposition and vowed to use his troops to protect the protesters. The defection of Ahmar, the most powerful military officer in Yemen, was quickly followed by similar announcements from several other senior officers.

On April 23 Saleh indicated his acceptance of a plan proposed by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that would remove him from power and begin the transition to a new government. But he rescinded.

On June 3 2011, Saleh sustained extensive burns and shrapnel wounds when a bomb planted in the presidential palace in Sanaa exploded. He was transported to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment the next day, leaving his vice president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, to serve as acting president in his absence.

In 2017 Saleh gave a televised address in effect announcing that he was swapping sides in the civil war, and would be seeking a dialogue with the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition that he had been fighting, alongside the Houthis, since 2015. The Saudis have sought to reinstall the UN-recognised government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and defeat the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Hadi has spent most of the past four years in Riyadh,

Ali Abdullah Saleh, however, was killed by the Houthis. Pictures of Saleh's corpse appeared on Houthi-run television after the militia said it had killed him as he fled the Yemeni capital, Sana'a.

Who then is at fault in the current war in Yemen? It would be clear that at 80% Sunni and 15% Shia ,Yemen is just one aspect of a long ongoing Sunni- Saudi conflict. Is it Saudi Arabia?. It is essentially a Sunni country and with the recent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder and the continual attacks on civilians in Yemen,including a bus strike that killed 40 schoolchildren on 9 August, has caused the UN General Assembly to label Yemen as "the worst humanitarian crisis on earth". Or is it Britain, not noted for leaving its administrative responsibilities in the Middle East in perfect working order, and today, one of the two major supplier of arms to Saudi Arabia, along with the United States