Yemen:On the Crossroads to WAR-UPDATE

Yemen is smoking again...

The ancient struggle between Shia and Sunni threatens to engulf Yemen. The casulty count is over 2000 dead this month as US allies battle Iran's proxies on a second front of this undeclared war. As the House of Sauud strives to prevent itself from being surrounded by Shia dominated countries, Yemen's northern mountains have become a flash point as the government wages intense battles for control.

Debka lists 8 main features:

1. Two weeks ago, president Ali Abdullah Saleh's army launched the sixth round since the year 2000 of his war with the Houthis, deploying about 20,000 troops for a major offensive to dislodge the 15,000 Houthis from their mountain fastnesses (12-18,000 feet tall) in the northern province of Saada.

2. The Houthis are Zaydis who claim they adhere to the purest form of Shiite Islam. They are fighting to bring the true faith to Yemen by restoring the Zaydi imamate overthrown in 1962. Their name derives from the movement's founder, Badreddin al-Houthi, who was killed by the Yemeni army in 2004. The Houthi Shiites and Iranian Shia have nothing in common barring Tehran's exploitation of the Yemeni rebels as a proxy force (like the Lebanese Hizballah) for gaining Iran a military foot through the door to the Saudi Arabian border and the southern Arabian peninsula.

3. The sheer quantities of hardware the Iranians managed to transfer to the Houthis in two weeks amazed Washington, Sanaa, Riyadh and Cairo, even through Iran had previously displayed this capability by the speed with which it replenished and augmented Hizballah losses after the 2006 war against Israel. The Yemeni army is therefore hard put to quell the heavily-armed insurgents or even prevent the battles from spilling out of the Saada region into other parts of the country, including the capital.

4. Fearful that the conflict and Zaydi influence may seep across Yemen's northern border into the southern Saudi regions of Najran and Asir, Saudi Arabia has sent its air force to help the Yemeni army by pounding the Houthi strongholds in Saada's mountain villages.

5. The small 66,000 Yemeni army, lacking organized military stockpiles, soon began running out of ammunition and military equipment. The Egyptian army is running these necessary supplies to Yemen through a naval and aerial corridor.

6. The Obama administration has pitched in with financial assistance for the Saudi and Egyptian efforts to help Yemen. This was agreed at the meeting the US and Egyptian presidents held at the White House last Tuesday, Aug. 18. In this fashion, US president Barack Obama is making a stand against Iran alongside Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah.

7. Just as the US and Israel were taken by surprise by the Iranian surrogate Hizballah's military capabilities in the 2006 Lebanon War, so too were the US and its allies astonished by the Houthi rebels' command of the battlefield. The Yemeni army's First Mechanized Infantry Division, fortified by every one of its six paratroop and commando brigades and Saudi air support, has proved unable in two weeks of combat to break into the rebels' mountain strongholds.

8. Without this breakthrough, the conflict threatens to spread and escalate into the biggest and most dangerous war to strike any part of Arabia in the last 18 years, ever since Saddam Hussein ordered the Iraqi army to invade Kuwait in 1991.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This activity frames the violent aftermath of Iran's election and the scope of our intent to battle radical Islam (regardless of who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave) making war ON Iran inevitable!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UPDATE:
Saudi Prince wounded in terror homicide bombing!

Debka Reports:

It is the first time in the eight-year anti-terror campaign launched by Saudi Arabia after the 9/11 attacks in the United States that a terrorist has got close enough to a Saudi royal for an attempted assassination. Muhammad bin Nayef, son and assistant of Interior Minister Prince Nayef who spearheads the kingdom's crackdown on al Qaeda, was injured Thursday night, Aug. 27, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at an open Ramadan gathering in Jeddah. He was officially termed lightly wounded. The king Abdullah rushed to visit him in hospital before he was reported discharged. Prince Muhammad had been spending most of his time in recent months in his Jeddah office on Saudi's Red Sea coast, running Saudi involvement in the Yemeni army's campaign to suppress a revolt backed by Iran and al Qaeda.

This indicates Saudi Royal Family efforts to destroy al Quedas presence have not been totally successful. It also signals that their support for the regime of President Saleh of Yemen is likely responsible for al Qaeda targeting the Royal in charge of the support program. Strategic significance of Yemen cannot be overstated and hostile control would jepordize flow of goods transiting the Red Sea or Suez Canal. Hostile control of Yemen could destabilize all countries along the western coast of the Red Sea and south at least as far as Kenya. Egypt would also be threatened as Hezbollah cells are infiltrating from Gaza.

Yemen is Smoking INDEED!