Here's a current comment from Jane Novak at her Armies of Liberation blog. She's the goto source for info on Yemen and has been for years.
"President Saleh is an extremely irrational player, and has never learned from his mistakes. Maybe thirty years in power makes you go nuts. Look at Khadaffi… Saleh makes the same plays over and over, with the same results. In addition, the fractured nature of the regime means the government is often at odds with itself. Its important to keep in mind the Yemeni government tactics in dealing with internal civil unrest. In the south, as HRW recently found, the Yemeni government is shooting peaceful protesters in the head and engaging in mass arrests, and has been for well over a year. Dozens have been killed. In the north, the Yemeni military is bombing civilian areas on a regular basis and blocking the delivery of international aid, creating a humanitarian crisis in Sa’ada, long called “Yemen’s Darfur.” Do we want to equpt this slaughter? Any arms or equipment to Saleh will go straight to Sa’ada or Aden, with some show raids on al Qaeda, big announcements and underlings rounded up as the main facilitators and figure heads escape unmolested as they have done for years."
Just make Jane Novak an important source for you for news on Yemen. She has connections everywhere there. How this all came about is an interesting story in itself.
If the World had an armpit, Yemen...
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Ditto that. I used to live in Yemen in the Hadhramaut area.
We used to tell people it isn’t Hell, but close enough to see it from here.
It does have some interesting history, ancient history that is.