Battle on the Arabian Peninsula
The Yemeni military is currently engaged in a large offensive against well-armed, Iranian-backed Zaydi Shiite militants in the north of the country, resulting in over 100,000 people leaving their homes. The Saudis are concerned about the instability spreading inside their borders, and the West as a whole should be concerned about how a militant Shiite enclave in Yemen could give Iran the capabilities to strike inside the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa and shut down traffic through the Red Sea.
The militant Zaydi Shiites are often referred to as Houthis in order to specify their radical strain within the Zaydi community, named after their spiritual leader, the late Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, killed in 2004. They are currently led by his brothers with Abdul-Malik taking the leading role.
The followers of the al-Houthi family leading the rebellion, which call themselves “The Young Believers,” are rabidly anti-American, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic and seek to overthrow the current gov