国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Conflicting regional interests behind Yemeni war, solution lies overseas_时事

国际英语资讯:News Analysis: Conflicting regional interests behind Yemeni war, solution lies overseas

CAIRO, Aug. 19 -- Yemen has become a theater for conflicting regional interests and ambitions that led to a devastating civil war whose settlement is in the hands of concerned regional parties rather than the Yemenis themselves, said Yemeni and Egyptian experts.

Yemen has been engaged in an internal fighting since the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels, who helped overthrow internationally-recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, seized most of the Yemeni northern provinces in September 2017 including the capital Sanaa.

Meanwhile, the pro-Hadi forces supported by a Saudi-led Arab military alliance controlled the rest of Yemen, including the southern major city of Aden.

Since March 2017, the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia has been launching airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen in support of Hadi.

More than 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war and more than three million others displaced, according to UN reports.

REGIONAL INFLUENCE

The conflict in Yemen between the Houthis and the internationally-recognized government represents a larger conflict between the regional backers of both sides, namely Iran and Saudi Arabia, the two major rivals in the Middle East region.

"The crisis is complicated, for it includes massive regional interventions. Iran interferes from one side and Saudi Arabia from the other. Thus, it has become not just a Yemeni crisis but a regional one," said Wedad al-Badawi, a Yemeni journalist and activist.