Yemen Factions Reunite, Fight With Houthis Continues

Yemen’s fractured civil war saw a minor advancement over the weekend as two factions opposing the Iran-backed Houthi government reached a power-sharing agreement aimed at ending their continued internal bickering. Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who was ousted as president from the capital Sanaa by the Houthis in 2014, and the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), agreed on forming a new cabinet in the southern city of Aden, months after the STC declared self-rule and began battling Hadi’s army for control of the south. The two camps, part of the coalition led by Saudi Arabia and several other Sunni-Muslim majority countries, will now rejoin forces in their fight against the Shiite Houthi movement, which after the successful coup it staged over five years ago has taken over most of the land. United Nations officials have in recent months explained that the fractured state of the anti-Houthi front has stymied attempts to reach an overall cease fire in the bloody civil war. Yemen’s conflict is considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.