IS attacks Yemen’s Houthis as violence in Yemen continues

Islamic State militants attacked Houthi rebel leaders in Yemen’s capital late Monday afternoon, killing at least 28 people. Two Houthi leaders, Faycal and Hamid Jayache, were the targets of IS’s self-proclaimed attack on the “Shiite nest”. This attacks comes as the latest in a string of attacks by IS in Yemen. On June 16, 31 people were killed in IS led attacks in Sana’a. Days later two people were killed when an IS car bomb was detonated outside a Yemen mosque. IS launched its assault on Yemen in March with suicide attacks that killed more than 130 people attending prayer at mosques.

In addition to IS’s presence in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has also made massive moves in Yemen, actively taking advantage of sectarian conflicts in other parts of the nation in order to seize territory in desolate southeastern Yemen. Despite the deaths of multiple of its senior leaders due to US airstrikes, AQAP is showing no signs of slowing down its operations, being the most successful branch of al-Qaeda in recent years. In addition, AQAP militants stormed a Yemeni prison in April and freed 300 inmates, and 1,200 more inmates were free on Tuesday in another jailbreak carried out by AQAP.

The Iranian-backed Houthis have made massive advances as well in their rebellion, forcing President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to leave the country. Iran’s funding and arming of their Shiite comrades has led sunni Saudi Arabia to launch an air-campaign beginning in March against the Houthi rebellion. The US has openly supported the Saudi air campaign, attempting to ease tensions which have grown between the US and their Gulf allies who openly opposedU.S. reconciliation with Iran over its nuclear program and activities in Iraq.

US Special Forces were pulled from Yemen in March along with the closing the US Embassy in Sanaa, casting doubts on how the US would collect valuable intelligence with no personnel on the ground in Yemen.

With the Houthis, Saudis, IS and AQAP all staging attacks in and around Yemen, United Nations aid organizations are struggling to aid the 150,000 citizens who have fled their homes due to the violence.

As civil war continues to engulf Yemen, neither Saudi Arabia nor Iran appears to be willing to abandon their respective proxies. Peace negotiations have come and gone in Geneva with little to no progress made in relation to the conflict.    With Yemen the battle ground of a proxy war between Sunni and Shia forces led by Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively, there’s little reason to believe that the violence in Yemen can be ended absent resolution of the wider conflict.