Saturday, April 11, 2015

Springtime for Saleh

Reuters, 18 March 2011 --

Gunmen on rooftops shot dead up to 42 protesters at an anti-government rally in Sanaa after Muslim prayers on Friday, enraging the opposition and prompting President Ali Abdullah Saleh to declare a state of emergency. Medical sources and witnesses told Reuters that Yemeni security forces and plainclothes snipers, who protesters said were government security men, had opened fire on the crowds. The Interior Ministry put the death toll at 25, but doctors said 42 people had died and at least 300 were injured. 

Despite widespread condemnation of that incident and others like it, there's never been any accountability for it. Four years later, Saleh is now bankrolling and supporting the Houthi revolt, and his aligned forces include snipers on rooftops in Aden. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Not least the trick where he cons gullible western governments that he might be the solution to Yemen's endless faction fighting.

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