The rebel Houthi group leader Abdel-Malik Al-Houthi this week declared a “war on terrorists” from the Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS) groups that he says are trying to take over the volatile south and north of the country. Meanwhile, Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, who fled the Houthi-held north of the country for the south earlier this year, asked the UN Security Council to protect him and the south. Hadi's acting foreign minister, Riyadh Yassin, also asked Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies to send in armed forces to protect the south from the Iran-backed Houthis. The appeals came after Al-Qaeda and IS forces attacked the central prison in Aden last Friday, releasing more than 800 prisoners, including dangerous Al-Qaeda elements. Al-Qaeda and IS forces also killed more than 50 government soldiers near Aden and killed and injured some 500 people in suicide bombings at two mosques frequented by Houthis in Sanaa during Friday prayers on 20 March. The bombings were carried out by five suicide bombers, two in each mosque; the fifth was discovered before he entered the third mosque in Saada. IS claimed responsibility for the attacks and published the names and photographs of the suicide bombers. IS and Al-Qaeda are now acting together in Yemen, and the IS claim is likely to reduce the anger against Al-Qaeda from tribesmen who are not likely to approve the bombings of mosques, even though they usually support the group. Al-Houthi said that when he declared war on Al-Qaeda and IS, his target was the terrorists and not the south of the country. If the United States and its drones are allowed to fight terrorists in Yemen, he said, then so should the Houthis. In Huta, 20 km from Aden, Al-Qaeda and IS terrorists killed 50 soldiers staying in a hospital and government offices, he said. The city has become a ghost town since government and commercial banks and buildings were looted. Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda has taken over the southern city of Dhale'e. Local people said on Monday that Al-Qaeda leader Jalal Beliedi had been seen walking in the streets of the city along with dozens of fighters. Hadi is in Aden, where he still enjoys the title of the country's legitimate president. However, this legitimacy apparently does not extend to securing the country and defending his people. After Houthi fighter jets from Sanaa bombed his residence in Aden, Hadi asked the Gulf states to halt the warplanes, threatening to return to the capital Sanaa and even to the Houthi stronghold of Saada. He would “plant the Yemeni flag in Marran,” where the house of the Houthi leader is located, he said, pulling down the flag of Iran. In reality, the flag of the former South Yemen now flies throughout the south and not the flag of the united Yemen. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been supporting Hadi, seeing it as in their interests to do so, and Al-Qaeda and IS are also using the so-called legitimacy of Hadi to expand across the country. The country's weakened army and security services and its two centres of government in Sanaa and Aden have all helped Al-Qaeda and IS to expand their operations. UN envoy to Yemen Jamal bin Omar is acting as the mediator of the national dialogue sessions in Sanaa. He told the UN Security Council this week that neither Hadi nor the Houthis could win the war in Yemen and urged both sides to continue the dialogue. All the country's groups are attending for the time being, but at the same time all are readying for civil war. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been reporting the continuation of the national dialogue, ignoring the fact that a dialogue without the Houthis will be little better than a monologue. For the time being, the first battles in the war have taken place in Mareb and Lahj. Dozens have been killed or injured over the last few days in Mareb, as fighters in the city have tried to withstand Houthi fighters from Beidha in the south, Serwah-Khawlan and Sanaa in the west and Jawf in the north. Al-Qaeda forces supported by tribesmen are fighting the Houthis in Beidha. On Monday, Al-Qaeda leader Mohamed Al-Saadi Humaikani was killed in a battle in the Zahar district where dozens of men from both sides were killed. Lahj is the border area between the south and north, and Houthi forces are being mobilised in Taiz, the third-largest city in the country after Sanaa and Aden and the most heavily populated. Southern tribesmen started to deploy in the border areas before the 1990 unity of South and North Yemen, including from the Karesh and Anad tribes. The Houthis have not tried to invade the south, but have been trying to move in, as they did in Sanaa last September. More than two thirds of the country's army and security forces in the south and the north are under the control of the Houthis, including the air force. The remaining third is split between Hadi, Al-Qaeda and the Hirak group. Local supporters of the Houthis in the south will be key elements in what happens next, as they were in Sanaa. Hadi has been urging people not to agree to be ruled by the Shia Houthis or from the Houthi stronghold in the north, in so doing using both sectarianism and regionalism to incite feelings against the Houthi forces.
