Yemen crisis

 

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

Yemen has descended into conflicts between several different groups, pushing the country "to the edge of civil war"

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  Hadi to flee the capital Sanaa in February 2015
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

Who are the Houthis?

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.


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. 

Yemen's security forces have split loyalties, with some units backing Hadi, and others the Houthis and Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has remained politically influential

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 situation 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

Saudi Arabia leads air strikes against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels

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 President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi to intervene and launched air strikes on Houthi targets
The coalition comprises five Gulf Arab states and Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan.