The Arab Spring

Hm, yeah, not that convincing, as Silas points out. Will, however, keep an eye on Damascus for awhile to see if anything changes drastically.

Also, knowing very little else, I should point out how hard it is to destroy an entire regimental-sized unit in just a single series of fire strikes (aviation or ground-delivered), especially if it's stationary and dug-in. You need a lot of munitions to destroy and not just suppress, delivered over a period of time.

So Hadi has sent a proposal for a ceasefire...basically demanding the Houthis surrender.

And I expect this to die like the rest of the proposals. No one is ready to give up juuuuust yet.

It would be an insult to surrender to Hadi.

Better news: Saudi Apache down

edited 22nd Aug '15 2:54:51 AM by GrandPrincePaulII

IS may be horrible, but man, look at what they've done for the environment.

Guess that's one for the antinatalists to be smug about, then.

I think they'll go right back to complaining about how the conflict has resulted in depleted uranium everywhere as usual.

Where in the Eastern European Politics thread?

Anyways, back on-topic. What are the relations between Islamic State and the Houthi rebels?

The Houthi rebels and ISIS are enemies, like ISIS and everyone who is not ISIS.

That said, IS doesn't have a franchise in Yemen to my knowledge.

Daesh is already there

The Houthis are a Shia sect, and their enemies have occasionally made a Deal Withthe Devil or two with Al-Qa'eda (who are busy rampaging around southern Yemen) to keep them out. IS, meanwhile, is up to their usual trick of muscling out their old buddies in AQ and presenting themselves as the only Sunni fundamentalist brand in town, which naturally also pits them against Al-Qa'eda's Shia enemies in the country as well.

Al Qaeda deploy in Yemen's Aden, British hostage freed

edited 23rd Aug '15 9:19:31 AM by GrandPrincePaulII

And now comes the real test for the Hirak, to see if they'll stop fighting alongside the Emiratis and Saudis to keep AQ out of the city or if they'd even be allowed to do so, considering how weak they are.

The Houthis, so far, are being proven right.

@Hallow Hawk - Just go back a few pages in that thread. It's not too far away.

Any chance the Saudi's and Emerati's will send their troops against the Al Quaeda forces in Aden?

Violant protests in Lebanon over government incompetence. The tipping point was uncollected garbage in Beirut, so of course the movement is called "You Stink." I wonder if this will benefit or harm Hezbolah, or maybe neither.

edited 23rd Aug '15 1:44:02 PM by JackOLantern1337

Not until the Houthis are wiped out. And even in the off chance they succeeded, maybe not even then.

EDIT-

Still reading up on it from that article and others, but it seems Lebanon is about to restart the Spring in its original form. As such, I dunno if either will benefit or both will or what.

edited 23rd Aug '15 2:54:15 PM by FFShinra

They've delayed elections in Lebanon for years, so this is overdue.

Some news: Seems like Saudis are finally putting some skin in the game in Yemen: they just crossed the border into Northern Yemen from Jizan, to stop Houthi attacks there.

Reuters is noting the rising disatisfaction with the GCC campaign and that a failure of the imminent invasion of Sana'a would almost certainly lead to Yemen's partition.

Hmm... guerillas with a decade of experience fighting on their home turf versus a badly inexperienced group with a bunch of fancy American toys.

This'll go well, surely.

The three AJ journalists have been found guilty by Egypt again (though one isn't in the country anymore) and resentenced to 3 years, without credit for time served.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-34097236

Does anyone else get the sense that the Sisi regime has no idea what the fuck it's doing?

I don't. Bog-standard authoritarian repression, it seems to me.

Ottawa doesn't seem to mind the fact that a Canadian citizen got jailed for being a journalist, so they don't lose face on that front. But morally bankrupt foreign policy stances are a staple of the current Canadian government.

So it seems a member of the Lebanese cabinet is being rather defiant to the protestors.

This will end well.

My guess is they think they're protected by the fact that any elections the country could have right now would be chaos, and that most Lebanese realize that and so would never follow through on any protests, although that implies that they're living in some sort of bubble because when the people want elections, they're going to get them.

Indeed.

And in a powderkeg like Lebanon, I can only imagine what such chaos would do to the neighboring countries.....

^ Well I guess that depends on how much that could be politically set on fire is already on fire.