Free Republic

Just for a little background watch this from the end of September: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTHKGXpKQvA Fast forward to today: "CNN – Yemen’s presidential palace has been completely taken over by Shiite Houthi rebels, the country’s Minister of Information Nadia Sakkaf told CNN on Tuesday amid reports of renewed clashes. Sakkaf said the Prime Minister’s residence was also under attack from the street. She called the situation “the completion of a coup,” adding that “the President has no control.”" What a success story! Obama really knows how to pick’em.

Yemen’s powerful Shiite Houthi rebels shelled the residence of the country’s embattled president Tuesday and simultaneously swept into the presidential palace in the capital, Sanaa, as a top military commander warned that a full-fledged “coup” was underway. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was inside the residence as it came under “heavy shelling” for half an hour but he was unharmed and protected by guards, officials said. In New York, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting over the chaos in Sanaa. The shelling was a dramatic development that put the U.S.-backed Hadi into a precarious position and represented the...

Breaking News: Rebels in Yemen have seized the presidential palace in the capital city of Sanaa, according to the army commander. http://fxn.ws/1C2Q7Fq For further developments on this story, stay tuned to Fox News Channel.

On a cold night in January 2012, I attended a celebration marking the birth of Prophet Muhammad in Yemen’s capital Sana’a. Gathered in a square in the city’s old quarter beneath fairy lights strung from lampposts were a group of middle-aged men in white robes. Some of the men, Zaydi Shiites - a branch of Islam adhered to by around a third of Yemen’s population - were chanting hymns and handing out sweets to children. Others were holding hands and spinning in a circle with their heads tilted back, as a cleric recited Quranic verses into a microphone. The gathering,...

the seizures came after clashes broke out Thursday night in the eastern city of Marib between tribesmen and army troops. They say the tribesmen suspected that the soldiers were heading to join the Shiite rebels who have been gathering outside of Marib for several weeks ... The Shiite rebels known as the Houthis are backed by ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh. They have overrun the capital and other cities in a power grab that has plunged Yemen into turmoil. ... Sunni al-Qaida has recently intensified its attacks against the expansionist Shiite Houthis, especially in Yemen's predominantly Sunni central region.

Yemen's government said Sunday it will accept a truce offer only if the rebels operating in the country's north comply with six previously laid-out conditions. The Shiite Muslim rebels, known as the Houthis, had indicated Saturday that they were open to a cease-fire and to accepting the government conditions. But they demanded an end to military operations first. The intractable stance on both sides means the conflict, which had lasted more than five years, is likely to continue. In August, Yemen laid out cease-fire terms that included removing checkpoints, ending banditry, handing over all military equipment and weapons, and releasing...

Video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erk22YkMybA Saudi Arabia uses fighter jets against Yemeni Houthi rebels. Both Yemen & Saudi Arabia accuse Iran of arming the rebels. Why did Arab satellites carriers drop Iranian Al Alam TV? And will the war of proxies lead to a confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran ?

A senior official from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has recently met with Houthi rebels and Hizbullah activists in Yemen to coordinate joint military operations against Saudi positions along the border. Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, quoted on Sunday Arab sources as saying the three-way meeting also aimed at developing a plan to escalate the military situation along the Saudi-Yemeni border.

SNIPPET: "Yemeni Shi'ite Cleric and Houthi Disciple 'Issam Al-'Imad: Our Leader Houthi is Close to Khamenei; We Are Influenced Religiously and Ideologically By Iran" SNIPPET: "On September 28, 2009, the Iranian website ayandenews.com, which is affiliated with former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezai, published an interview with cleric 'Issam Al-'Imad, who is a disciple of Hussein Al-Houthi, leader of the Houthi rebels in Yemen. [1] Al-'Imad, who was born 1968 in Yemen, received his religious education in Saudi Arabia, but after studying Shi'ite Islam left Wahhabism to become a Twelver Shi'ite. Since1989 he has been pursuing advanced Islamic studies in the...

Note: Photos included. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Geopolitically strategic Yemen has become a focus of local Iranian-Saudi Arabian strife. The Yemeni government accuses Iran of supporting Zaydi-Shi’ite (Houthi) rebels in the northern part of the country with weapons, money and propaganda. Subverting local Shi’ite populations in the Middle East is a frequent Iranian modus operandi.

Renewed fighting in northern Yemen between government and rebel forces is feeding fears that a Middle Eastern proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran is spreading to the ungoverned spaces of the southern Arabian peninsula. But western analysts are staring boggle-eyed at quite a different spectre: the prospect that the biggest beneficiaries of Yemeni weakness will be the fanatical jihadis of al-Qaida. UN agencies raised the alarm last week after 55,000 people, mostly women and children, fled clashes in and around Sa'ada city in northern Yemen between the forces of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's Sunni-led government and the Zaydi Shia...

09 September 2009 JIHADIS REPORT OF SYRIAN MEDDLING IN YEMEN Not that I consider jihadis to be a reliable source on such matters, but you know what they say about broken clocks...

Blog Note: The following blog entry is a quote: Larijani In Yemen On Reassurance Visit The London daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reports that Iranian Majlis speaker Ali Larijani is visiting Yemen to reassure it regarding fears of Iranian involvement in rebel activity in southern Yemen, and regarding activity by the Houthis in the Sa'ada district in northern Yemen. Senior Yemeni officials have accused Iran of supporting the Houthis (see Yemeni Official: Iran Clearly Involved In Al-Houthi Rebellion). According to the report, Larijani told Yemen President Ali Abdallah Saleh that his country supported Yemen's stability and security. Source: Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, London, May...