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...is convulsed by the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with rampant disease, famine and a ruinous war pitting supporters of president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi against Iran-aligned 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...
rebels.
But the fall of Yemen has coincided with the rise of Marib, once seen as an Al Qaeda bastion, which has been spared much of the misery owing to its oil and gas reserves, proximity to Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
and rare tribal cohesion that has helped repel Houthi incursions.
"We have managed to push the war far away from Marib," said provincial governor Sultan Al Arada. "Marib is untouchable."
The border city is now Yemen's most thriving industrial hub, thanks in part to an influx of hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people, among them entrepreneurs, doctors and Yemen's elite that is driving up investments and real estate prices.
Hundreds of new businesses have come up, ranging from eateries to water bottling plants.
Jobs in Marib offer salaries, a novelty to legions of employed youths in a country with chronic joblessness.
"The spectacular rise of Marib has come not despite the conflict, but because of it," Farea Al Moslemi, a Yemen expert at Chatham House think tank based in London.
"Marib has gained from the chaos surrounding it."
Its university is expanding and businessmen who once fled the war are slowly returning.
That includes Obaid Zubaiyen, head of a family-run trade and construction enterprise with interests across the Arabian Gulf, who fled Yemen in 2011 amid increasing turmoil.
"The family is back because Marib means opportunity," said Misbah Ohag, a group manager, showing a blueprint of a planned multimillion dollar project of villas, apartments and malls.
Governor Arada plans an international airport and aims to make Marib, home to temple ruins from the ancient Sabaean kingdom, a magnet for tourists.
But some scars of the war rumbling on outside Marib are still visible inside the province.
At a rehabilitation centre for child soldiers, drawings sketched by the youngsters are telling.
One showed a grenade, a tank, a helicopter gunship and crimson splashes of blood.
"They blew up my school," read the caption.
Houthi rebels have planted thousands of landmines around Marib and the mangled wreckage of cars litter its mountainous border.