The causes behind the Yemini conflict

On March 18 Saleh loyalists in civilian clothes opened fire on protesters in Sanaa, killing at least 50 people. The episode caused dozens of Yemeni officials, including diplomats, cabinet ministers, and members of parliament, to resign in protest. On March 20 Maj. Gen. Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, commander of the army's 1st Armoured Division, announced his support for the opposition and vowed to use his troops to protect the protesters. The defection of Ahmar, the most powerful military officer in Yemen, was quickly followed by similar announcements from several other senior officers.

On April 23 Saleh indicated his acceptance of a plan proposed by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that would remove him from power and begin the transition to a new government. But he rescinded.

On June 3 2011, Saleh sustained extensive burns and shrapnel wounds when a bomb planted in the presidential palace in Sanaa exploded. He was transported to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment the next day, leaving his vice president, Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, to serve as acting president in his absence.

In 2017 Saleh gave a televised address in effect announcing that he was swapping sides in the civil war, and would be seeking a dialogue with the Saudi and United Arab Emirates-led coalition that he had been fighting, alongside the Houthis, since 2015. The Saudis have sought to reinstall the UN-recognised government of President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi and defeat the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. Hadi has spent most of the past four years in Riyadh,

Ali Abdullah Saleh, however, was killed by the Houthis. Pictures of Saleh's corpse appeared on Houthi-run television after the militia said it had killed him as he fled the Yemeni capital, Sana'a.

Who then is at fault in the current war in Yemen? It would be clear that at 80% Sunni and 15% Shia ,Yemen is just one aspect of a long ongoing Sunni- Saudi conflict. Is it Saudi Arabia?. It is essentially a Sunni country and with the recent Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder and the continual attacks on civilians in Yemen,including a bus strike that killed 40 schoolchildren on 9 August, has caused the UN General Assembly to label Yemen as "the worst humanitarian crisis on earth". Or is it Britain, not noted for leaving its administrative responsibilities in the Middle East in perfect working order, and today, one of the two major supplier of arms to Saudi Arabia, along with the United States