After a two-day rout by South Yemen separatists left them in near total control of the city of Aden, pro-separatist forces have ceded back a pair of military bases at the request of Saudi Arabia, who is now attempting to mediate the deal.
Aden had been under the control of the Hadi government, which the Saudis are attempting to reinstall with their invasion. The separatists now say they back the Saudi invasion too, and also support Hadi, but want him to fire his existing government.
That’s likely an issue that the United Arab Emirates is pushing, as the UAE has been seen souring on Hadi’s allies, and backing the separatists, who don’t have the long-standing ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Though placating the Saudis likely means continuing to endorse the war, it’s strange for the separatists to still present themselves as a separatist movement when the pro-Hadi forces already control materially all of old South Yemen, and the territory being fought over is largely North Yemen.
The Saudis continue to have the goal of not having Shi’ites in power anywhere in Yemen, but seemingly the South Yemen separatists would only be worried about settling the war in a way that leaves South Yemen separate.
FREE FREE SOUTH YEMEN !
PUT AN END TO NORTHERN OPPRESSION AND OCCUPATION.
THE WORLD NEEDS TO LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE LIVING IN IT, NOT THE ONES FORCEFULLY OCCUPYING IT.
Sound like the old fashioned Trotsky pamphlet! What occupation? Shia population was in charge of today’ Notth Yemen for over 1,000 years, and had the longest continually ruling monarchy in the Arab world until military coup in 50s ended it. The experiment of forcible joining of North and South in the nineties was to attempt impose Southern Sunni over Shias population. Good luck to Saudi project. First, South and North agree to separation — and UAE and Saudi attemot at genicude of people of the Notth will not suceed
The population of South Yemen is less then half the Sunni population in the North. If the people of North Yemen had any courage the Shia rebels would not have occupied the north. The south with the help of uae and saudi strategically liberated Aden from Shia rebels in 2015. The north was offered the same help, but what did they do, Nothing. They scattered all over the world (ran away). Ali Abdulla Saleh was the north only hope, he used southern land and forcefully occupied it for years to increase his net worth so that he can be an unstoppable force. Which is why houthis were never a problem to Yemen until he aligned himself with them. He is a huge snake which is why the south despised him so much. We’ve been peacefully calling for secession for decades, but now it’s time for force. The people of the south now occupy there own land and if we kicked out the Shias once we could do it again.
FREE FREE SOUTH YEMEN !
Quislings.