[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Yemen's ousted president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
said the country's Houthi
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the
Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews...
militias feared a "coup" but that there were no longer any tensions with them, despite strains in the past fortnight.
"There is no crisis and conflict at the moment," the 75-year-old strongman said late Monday in an interview on al-Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
al-Yom television, which his party controls.
On August 24, hundreds of thousands put on a show of force for Saleh at a rally marking the 35th anniversary of his Arab nationalist General People's Congress (GPC) party.
"There were fears and suspicions that the rally would be a coup" against the Iran-backed Huthis, and "this is what their leaders told us," said the former president.
Saleh said Houthi leaders told him there had been "an operation" against them and a GPC plot to "take control of state institutions".
In response, Saleh said he had sent two letters to Abdel Malek al-Houthi, head of the militia group, to reassure him.
"I asked him not to believe the suspicions, and he reacted positively," he added.
Cracks emerged in the alliance between Saleh and Houthis after the two publicly accused each other of treason and back-stabbing.
In an unprecedented outbreak of violence between the allies on August 26, a colonel loyal to Saleh and two militias were killed.