Word: yemen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With the current war raging, Yemen is getting a lot of support (though how much is unclear) from its larger wealthier neighbor, Saudi Arabia, which joined the fight last month. Separately, President Barack Obama recently requested $65 million for Yemen to help battle terrorism and al-Qaeda...
There are as yet unsubstantiated reports of massive human rights abuses, village bombardments and foreign involvement. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of refugees are pouring out of the frontlines, making the hidden conflict increasingly impossible to keep out of the international spotlight.(See why Yemen might be the next Afghanistan...
...Houthis says their quest for cultural and religious rights since 2004 intensified in August, when the government responded by razing villages in an assault the Yemenis called "Operation Scorched Earth." Yemen and Saudi Arabia say the Houthis, part of a Shi'ite Muslim sect known as the Zaydis, are receiving their funding, weapons and training from Iran in a bid to destabilize the region.(See pictures of the hidden war in Yemen...
Destabilizing is right on one count. Yemen is already reeling under the converging crises of lawlessness, growing poverty, a water crisis, a looming al-Qaeda threat, a southern separatist movement, and oil reserves that are quickly running dry. Indeed, analysts cite this multiplicity of factors as presaging Yemen as a failed state. "I think the major challenge for Yemen is really economic development," Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubaker Abdullah Al-Qirbi told TIME. "It could be a failed state in some aspects, certainly, if it doesn't get the support it needs...
...most immediate flash point in tensions between Iran and its Arab neighbors is Yemen, one of the regions poorest and most unstable countries, where Shi'ite Houthi rebels in the north launched attacks in neighboring Saudi Arabia last month, sparking an air strike by Saudi jets on Houthi territory. U.S. officials say they have no proof that Iran is involved in the Yemen conflict, but deeply suspicious gulf states, including Yemen, are sure Tehran is stoking a potentially explosive war. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told TIME last month that the rebels "want to follow the system of Iran...