Yemen's proxy wars explained | MIT Center for International Studies

Five years ago today, Yemen became a new front in the “Middle East Cold War” when aSaudi-led coalitionintervened to restore President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. Hadi, who took over the presidency after longtime authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced out during the Arab Spring, had fled to Saudi Arabia in late March 2015 following a months-long takeover of the Yemeni capital of Sana’a by Ansar Allah, a Shia militia supported by Iran and known widely as the Houthis.Hadi remains in Saudi Arabia, and a coalition including Saudi and the UAE have failed to defeat the Houthis. The conflict has led to a humanitarian disaster, the persistence of jihadist groups like al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and over100,000 casualties.The international dimension in Yemen mirrors other civil wars—about 60 percent of which experiencethird-party interventionsthat often worsen the fighting. In proxy wars, states arm and support actors in another country to achieve their broader ge...