US Closes Embassy in Yemen

[Ishmael]

The United States is closing its embassy in Yemen, the Arabian penninsula state where a rebel group has seized control of the capital, embassy employees and a U.S. official in Washington said on Tuesday.

Employees of the embassy in Sanaa said the U.S. mission had been getting rid of documents and weapons and staff had been leaving the capital over the past days with a view of closing down completely by Wednesday.

The ambassador had informed them that Washington may ask the Turkish or Algerian embassies in Sanaa to look after U.S. interests in the country while the embassy was closed.

"The ambassador and the rest of the staff will leave by Wednesday evening," one employee, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Employees at the British, French and German embassies said their missions had also been getting rid of documents and have given local staff two months' paid leave. But there was no immediate word on the missions closing down.

The U.S. embassy had reduced its staff after Shi'ite Muslim rebels from the Houthi movement moved against President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi last month, capturing his presidential office and confining him to his private residence.

Hadi and his government subsequently resigned.

On Sunday, the U.S. embassy said on its website it had "suspended all consular services until further notice", citing the security situation in Sanaa.

Source:english.alarabiya

 

[Elungata]

Now i got chance to answer you about the houthi.
The Houthi are Shia. They are an insurgent group in Yemen.
In the 80s, Yemen used to be two countries: North and South Yemen. The forces that make up the Houthis primarily were North Yemenis.
Yemen unified, then there was a civil war with the South seceding , and the North (supported by the US) won.
But wait?! Most of the government of Yemen is from South Yemen. That's where the money and people are.
The Houthis are, depending on who you ask, regarded as "not muslim". There isa secondinsurgency in South Yemen by Islamist extremists. This is how al Qaeda has found refuge in the southern parts of the country.
Oh yeah, al QaedaHATESthe Houthis and has declared Jihad against them, multiple times.
The Houthis are looking at a government that is weak from fighting the Islamist extremists in the south, the fact that most of the government is from the south, growing extremism in the South from people who would literally murder every single Houthi man, woman, and child, and they say "*** this, we need some autonomy."
So they start taking over provinces, and slowly marching towards the capital.
Here's the kicker. They "win". The government forces are incompetent and corrupt (just like before) so they win.
Then the president of Yemen resigns, and the Houthis refuse to accept his resignation. They want to negotiate. They want quasi-autonomy, access to ports, revenue sharing form oil profits, and the government to get off their asses and fight al Qaeda (who would murder all of the Houthi if they had the chance).
The Houthi want a strong government that takes their demands seriously and fights al Qaeda, and they recognize that the collapse of the country would not bring about those goals, so the president of Yemen is still the president but he refuses to be, the parliament is still the parliament but they don't know what's going on. The military is sitting the situation out because they don't want to kill anyone, and al Qaeda is sitting on the sidelines, observing.
The Houthi give lip service to hating Americans and the west, but they seem to cooperate with the West every single time they're asked to. Their "death to America" chant is aimed more at the corrupt government that the US is backing (because the government wants to kill al Qaeda). The Houthi aren't in a position to govern the entire country, but if they were their own country, you could bet your ass they would have US drones flying overhead killing al Qaeda members..

EDIT-I have heard the houthi have already disolved the parliament,which means they are taking over.