Yemen Crisis: The players in it's civil war

August 7, 2017

The story

You haven’t heard much about Yemen since

Chandler Bing moved there

. But Yemen's conflicts (like

Back up. Why did this start?

In 2011, Yemen rode the

Arab Spring

wave that was sweeping through the region, and minority groups overthrew the country’s dictator.

President Hadi

stepped in, and eventually became one of the US’s

closest allies

Then what happened?

Enter: the Houthis. They’re an Iran-backed rebel group that has been pushing for

more political representation

for a while. In 2015, they stopped asking and

took it

. They kicked out Saudi-backed Hadi and sent him on a

permanent vacation

in Saudi Arabia. He was able to

come back

What's the latest?

Saudi Arabia has been

launching airstrikes

against the Houthis. Iran responded by

deploying warships

off Yemen’s coast. The

US made a cameo

by sending its own warships. After a while, the UN stepped in and said, 'let's talk this out.' They helped put a

temporary ceasefire

Why do other countries care?

Because Yemen’s become a

proxy battle

between Iran (pro-Houthis) and Saudi Arabia (pro-Hadi) – two top dogs in the Mideast that are backing opposite sides of the fight. Because Yemen sits on a major

oil shipping route

Tell me more.

AQAP

– al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – is one of al-Qaeda's most active branches and have set up camp in Yemen. Over the last few years, they’ve become a major terror threat to the West. They’re the ones responsible for

this

and

this

. They also claimed responsibility for the

Charlie Hebdo attacks

in Paris. AQAP doesn’t have a side in this fight. But they turned chaos into opportunity by stepping up their recruiting and

taking over infrastructure

Anything else?

One more thing. The World Health Organization says that the war has caused a

breakdown of Yemen's health and sanitation infrastructure

. Now, the country is facing a deadly cholera outbreak. Nearly

2,000 people have died

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