Armed With US Weapons, Yemen Rebels Advance On President As Saudi Arabia Prepares For War
UPDATE: *PRESIDENT OF YEMEN SAID TO HAVE LEFT THE COUNTRY ON BOAT FROM ADEN, AP SAYS
Previously we reported that in the latest “coup” for US foreign policy, the US had “lost” over $500 million in weapons in Yemen, until recently an Obama administration foreign policy “success story”, following the abrupt evacuation of the US embassy there, all of which ended up in local rebel and al-Qaeda hands.
It didn’t take long for the local Houthi rebels to put all these weapons to good use: as Reuters reports, Houthi forces in Yemen backed by allied army units seized a key air base on Wednesdayand appeared poised to capture the southern port of Aden from defenders loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, local residents said.
As a reminder this is the second time the Yemeni president, so close to Obama, will be forced to uproot and get out of Dodge, after his prompt “evacuation” from the capital Sanaa a month ago:
The Houthis and their military allies later advanced to within 40km (25 miles) of the city, where Hadi has been holed up since fleeing the group’s stronghold in the capital Sanaa last month.
Yemen’s slide toward civil war has made the country a crucial front in mostly Sunni Saudi Arabia’s rivalry with Iran, which Riyadh accuses of sowing sectarian strife through its support for the Houthis.
Sunni Arab monarchies around Yemen have condemned the Houthi takeover as a coup and have mooted a military intervention in favor of Hadi in recent days.
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