War in Yemen

Yemen a great desert in the Arabic peninsula , located south to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and left to Oman , has also a shore : mainly on the Red Sea and on the Gulf of Aden. Yemen has some natural resources (oil) but unfortunately it is considered as the poorest Arabic country. Yemen is now The Republic of Yemen because of the reunification made on 22nd May 1990. Before that day Yemen was divided into two separate countries , the first known as the North Yemen Republic which was controlled by tribes so far the worst tribal system in the world , on the other side , the Yemen of the South known as the world's worst communist regime. But in 1994 , a civil war turned the south and the north against each other. We are going to study this civil war in a chronological order , from where it started to where it ended.

The Government of the North was chaired by Colonel Ali Abdullah Saleh , member of EL-AHMAR ,a part of the big tribe : Hached. He was especially interested for the well being of the petroleum and oil present in the north's soil. Whereas for the South controlled by the communist Ali Salem El-Bide was trying to give the worst soviet image out of it's self by introducing whatever is soviet-like to the life of everyday : weapons , aircraft

, boats , tanks Ð'... When the reunification occurred , the republic of Yemen had to be ruled by one man, but because the citizens of the Ex-north Yemen where twice as much as those of the south , the president was chosen to be Ali Abdullah Saleh. And so the vice president became the leader of the Ex-south : A.S. El-Bide. And the president of the minister's council was Abu Bakr Haydar El-Attas , who was well known for the liabilities he had in the past (of which : president of the southern Yemen).

Nevertheless reuniting two opposite things is difficult , it was even harder to reunite a communist and a tribal types of governments. And so in the years after the reunification , things were not going very well as the south wanted to keep it's communist identity and ideology and the north wanted to keep it's long going tribal system. From there started some fundamentalist movements each wanting what in the past was theirs. Two years were more than enough to distinguish between the different structures on the political scheme and on the socio-economic scheme.

It was a while that Salem El-Bide was shaky , not knowing what he wants , when came May 1993 he refused to celebrate the Day of Reunification , just to contradict the president. And then he stayed more than 2 months in his property , not attending any council , conference or appointment. At that time everybody felt the upcoming danger, and the local currency (the Riyal) started it's freefall compared to the foreign currencies.

The divergence in the atmosphere between the two was getting wider , rumors accusing interventions by other states (close or far away) were floating everywhere

Just so that the hatred between the colonel and the communist would raise.

Something was needed to cool the atmosphere , and for that a reconciliation became imminent , and was seen as the only way out. It was Sinan Abullouhoum a great Sheikh of some important tribe who volunteered him self to "sponsor" the reconciliation , and so he invited them to his house in Hodayda , a town between Sana'a and Aden (respectively , capital of the north and of the south) and there everything went smoothly.

Everybody thought that this tension was over between the two but six months after , Mr. Ali Salem El-Bide called those close to him to a special gathering in Abian (a southern City) where Mig23 , Mig29 and Sokhoiy were proving their abilities in the skies , the communist was unofficially planning for something big , the nation felt it , and fear once again filled the hearts.

In April 1994 , in a military camp outside Sana'a , a big battle occurred between armored vehicles , each backed up by the south or the north. War was at the gates , People started taking their precautions , Embassies were heavily guarded.

Friendly states like Jordan , Egypt and France assigned their military advisors in their embassies to investigate and try to calm things down , but the three almost died in another small battle outside Sana'a (Sana'a is a plateau at 2500 m in altitude , surrounded by high mountains) .

Thursday 9 May , at dawn , two Sokhoiys from the south attacked the airport and The president's residence ,both in Sana'a . The North released its Mig 21 , a Sam 9 rocket destroyed accidentally a Mig 21 , AAA (Anti Aviation Artillery) were blazing from every where. Ð'... Ð'... the war was declared !

11th of May , the first SKUD missile took off from the south and landed on a residential zone in Sana'a killing more than 50 people , In the next 12 hours Embassies started evacuating their citizens from Yemen whether by planes or boats.

Sana'a had already been hit by a dozen of SKUDs , but at the same time , the northern army together with some guerillas from the northern tribes were heading strait for Aden (capital of the south located on the border of the sea and surrounded by a desert). Their crossing the desert stopped at a southern military base called AL-ANAD (which means "persistency") , this base was one of the left-overs of the soviet reign in the big Yemeni desert , it holds underground hangars and barracks over a great surface , it was the strongest airport-military soviet base in the region.

The battle happened over twenty days while the rest of the south armies were reduced to their minimum but were still able to launch deadly SKUDs on Sana'a . the south's last resort was Al-Anad base , which was defending it's self , meanwhile , the north acquired the cooperation of other tribes , reinforcing their armies at the southern front.

The balance turned in favor of the north , and finally they swept threw Al-Anad base. Southern