The “Abraham equation”, which refers here to the developing cooperation among the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, Israel, and the United States, strengthens regional maritime alliances in the Middle East, especially in the Red Sea. The main goal is still to counter Iran, its allies — such as Yemen’s Ansar Allah (the Houthis)— and proxies. However, the UAE, to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia (who did not normalise relations with Tel Aviv), and Israel increasingly show different perceptions and policies as regards Tehran.
In Yemen la strada della diplomazia è sempre in salita e gli yemeniti sono “bloccati in una condizione di guerra indefinita”.[1] Il 5 settembre 2021, giorno in cui il nuovo inviato Onu per lo Yemen, lo svedese Hans Grundberg, è entrato ufficialmente in carica, gli huthi (gli insorti sciiti zaiditi del nord, sostenuti dall’Iran) hanno intensificato il lancio di missili e droni contro l’Arabia Saudita, colpendo obiettivi civili.
Saudi Arabia’s rebalanced alliances within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are producing recalibrated power relations in Yemen, too, as the new United Nations Special Envoy — the Swedish diplomat Hans Grundberg — has been appointed. In fact, three external factors contemporarily affect Yemen’s peace prospects and war dynamics, which could alter the diplomatic stalemate that paralysed negotiations in the last couple of years, though the mediation outlook remains complicated.
Sulla guerra in Yemen, i principali attori del conflitto non sono sincronizzati: segnali tendenzialmente positivi dalle potenze internazionali e regionali, segnali fin qui negativi dai protagonisti yemeniti. Si apre dunque qualche spiraglio diplomatico per lo Yemen, ma il conflitto prosegue. Mentre l’amministrazione statunitense spinge per una soluzione politica, l’Arabia Saudita offre agli huthi un cessate-il-fuoco nazionale, con qualche apertura inedita su aeroporto di Sanaa e porto di Hodeida, ovvero i collegamenti aerei e marittimi dei territori controllati dagli insorti.
The decisions taken by the Biden administration to end the war in Yemen have ironically yielded the opposite effect: an unprecedented military escalation, more victims, and a worsening humanitarian crisis.
The Houthi Movement, known officially as Ansar Allah, is a Zaydi revivalist movement that takes its name from its eponymous founder, Hussein al-Houthi. Leadership of the movement remains in the hands of the al-Houthi family and especially Abd al-Malik al-Houthi.
The 2011 Yemeni uprising opened up new political spaces of contention against the existing structures of power.
Ten years after the 2011 uprising and six years since the civil war outbreak in 2015, Yemen’s main, “old” political parties, the General People’s Congress (GPC) and Islah, are coping with a fragmented and deeply transformed country. On identity and alliance-making, Yemen’s political structure is traditionally marked by fluidity and pragmatism.
After a decade of uprisings and conflict, what is going on with Yemen’s politics, political parties, and mobilization, as Saudi Arabia announces a new UN-supervised ceasefire proposal to end the conflict? The General People’s Congress (GPC, the party of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh) and Islah (which rallies the Muslim Brotherhood, part of the Salafis and the conservative-business-tribal milieu) are Yemen’s main political parties.
The new Rome MED This Week newsletter provides experts’ analyses and informed comments on the most significant developments in the MENA region, bringing together unique opinions on the topic and reliable foresight on future scenarios. This week, Yemen takes centre stage after Biden’s recent announcements that could change the critical situation on the ground.
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In Yemen e sul “dossier Yemen”, la politica pare essersi arresa. Il neo-governo unitario con i secessionisti del Consiglio di Transizione del Sud (Stc) ha subito due attentati aerei, attribuiti agli huthi, nel giorno in cui il velivolo di stato atterrava ad Aden per reinsediarsi nella capitale provvisoria. A gennaio il Dipartimento di Stato americano uscente guidato da Mike Pompeo aveva deciso di classificare il movimento politico degli huthi, Ansar Allah, come organizzazione terroristica, designando come terroristi globali tre dei suoi capi.
Nel primo discorso al Dipartimento di Stato, il presidente Biden dice no alle offensive saudite in Yemen e delinea una ‘politica estera per la classe media’.