Coordinated and synchronized ground offensives by Iranian-backed Houthi fighters and drone strikes conducted by the US against Sunni jihadists coupled with US-Iranian intelligence cooperation enabled the Houthi militants to overthrow the Government of Yemen on Friday, February 6th. On that day, the Houthi leadership dissolved parliament, seized power and placed Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi –the overthrown president – and his cabinet under house arrest; and have pledged to rule through a revolutionary council.
Intelligence sources from the General Intelligence Presidency – the intelligence agency of Saudi Arabia – have revealed that Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen’s former president whose ruled spanned two decades, 1990-2012) masterminded the Houthi coup and facilitated the actualization of its objectives.
Saleh is a Zaidiyyah, the same confession as the Houthis. Zaidiyyah, Zaidism or Zaydi is a branch of Shia Islam whose adherents are known as Fivers or Zaidi Muslims; and they compromise more than 35% of Yemen’s population.
Saleh rallied his supporters in the military and intelligence agencies and channeled their resources to the Houthi revolt thus enabling the Houthi militants to overpower Hadi’s regime and capture a substantial quantity of sophisticated American-made munitions and military hardware. Their grip on power has also been strengthened by the resumption of US drone strikes against Sunni insurgents in South Yemen – primarily AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) terrorists who also happen to be the most formidable foe to the current Houthi-led government.
The Houthi (who also refer to themselves as Ansar Allah) adopted Iranian anti-Americanism ideology and their shared Shia confession has obliged Iran to aid them in their fight against the Yemeni government, rival rebel groups and Sunni jihadists.
The Gulf Cooperation Council – a political-economic union of six Sunni Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia and UAE – issued a statement to the UN Security Council on Sunday 7th calling on the Security Council and the international community to end the coup in Yemen and de-escalate the Yemeni conflict.
Intelligence Analysis.
SIS has assessed the development in Yemen and concluded that the Iranian-US scheme has fragmented Yemen into two loose confederations with both confederations falling under control of rabidly anti-American forces – the pro-Iranian Houthis in the North and AQAP in the South. This has heightened the threats facing the most important regional ally of America, Saudi Arabia, as Iranian-controlled Yemen creates a southern Shiite vanguard while Sunni jihadists – affiliated to ISIS and Al-Qaeda – pose a threat from the North. The Obama Administration has been largely non-committal to Saudi requests that the US uses its military, diplomatic and economic resources to stymie Iranian geopolitical ambitions and stabilize Yemen. This indicates that the US considers Sunni jihadists as a greater threat to its national interests as compared to Shiite militants; and this explains the collaboration between the US and Iran in fighting Sunni terrorists in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
The ultimate benefactor of this collaboration is Iran as the current military offensives against Sunni jihadists only empower its Shiite pawns thereby extending its sphere of influence into Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Syria. Sunni nations and Sunni-led countries alongside Israel have deep foreboding concerning the emerging Iran-US collaboration since it will alter the geopolitical landscape of the region, destabilize multi-confessional nations as well as allow Iran to become the pre-eminent geostrategic power in the Middle East.
