With dazzling weapons, live-loaded street battles, thrilling and bloody attacks, operation Red Sea, released on the first day of the Chinese New Year, has feasted on military fans. This military action film based on the true events of the 2015 Yemeni evacuation inherits the main theme of "Wolf Warrior 2", and the scene is more shocking and achieves good box office results.
△ Stills from Operation Red Sea
The film streamlines the plot, weakens the background, and pays little attention to the "Republic of Ivia", a fictional country "located in the Arabian Peninsula". However, it is not difficult for viewers familiar with the situation in the Middle East to find that the "Ivia Republic" of the bloody coup in 2015 does have a shadow of Yemen, and the so-called "rebels" and "Xhaka organization" in the film are vaguely similar to the Houthis and extremist organizations active in the Yemeni battlefield.
So what does the real situation in Yemen look like?
<h1>Scuffle "Republic"</h1>
The real Yemen is more turbulent than the fictional "Ivia Republic", with guns, tribal divisions, separatism, sectarian tensions, dictatorships, extremist organizations... It's a collection of almost all the chaotic genes of modern civilization.
△ Yemen situation map, green for the Houthi armed forces, red for the Hadi government, white for the "base", yellow for the "Southern Movement" Source: Ali Zifan
After the reunification of Yemen in 1990, the Rift between North and South under the Cold War mentality remained unhealed, and in 1994 a civil war broke out again and ended with the victory of the North. President Saleh, who was born into the Northern Hasheid Tribal Confederation, continued to monopolize power and began to vigorously suppress southern forces. Yemen's economic structure is originally homogeneous, with 80% of oil revenues coming from the southern provinces, but only a very small part is used for the development of the south. Against this backdrop, separatist forces in the South, led by the Southern Movement, made up of veterans from the South, emerged and joined forces with opposition parties such as the Islamic Gathering for Reform after the 2011 Yemen crisis.
The separatist situation in the south is getting worse, while the Houthis, a tribal powerhouse in the north, are gaining momentum. 44% of Yemen's population is a Shiite Zayid, concentrated in the northern provinces. In the 1980s, the Houthis, the third largest Shiite tribe in Yemen, launched a Houthi movement to revive Shiiteism in Saada province. The Houthis have stronger fighting capacity and more radical political ideas than other rebel forces. During the Civil War between the North and the South, the process of the North using force to unify the South touched the Houthis and accelerated their armed process. The killing of its leader, Hussein Houthi, in 2004 was a great stimulus to the houthis' fighting spirit.
△ Yemeni sect distribution, green for Shiites, yellow for Sunni Source: Public Domain
After the outbreak of the Yemen crisis in 2011, Saleh took the initiative to step down in the "peaceful transition" and avoided a Syrian-style civil war, which the West called the "Yemeni model". But this did not fundamentally solve the crisis, but triggered the already complex factional struggle, which led to the emergence of the Houthis. The Houthis are firmly entrenched in Sana'a, Yemen's capital, and during their strongest period, they once occupied half of yemen's provinces and became the de facto controller of Yemen. After Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen in 2015, the Houthis frequently fired missiles into their territory as a threat, and according to a statement issued by the Houthis in March 2017, they fired 108 missiles at Saudi Arabia in two years, even more frequently than North Korea's test firing.
At a time of political turmoil in Yemen, extremist groups have also taken advantage of the opportunity. After 9/11, Yemen became one of the key breeding areas for terrorism and extremists. When Saleh stepped down in 2011, Yemen was plunged into a power vacuum, with Sunni extremist Islamist forces such as al-Qaeda's Arabian Peninsula branch (AQAP) and Islamic State (ISIS) waiting for an opportunity to storm cities and territories. While transmitting extremist ideologies to the masses, extremist organizations systematically recruit and train fighters, further expanding their scale and combat effectiveness. In 2012 alone, more than 40 Yemeni security officials were assassinated by al-Qaeda. ISIS was even more arrogant, attacking the Houthis base camp in Saada province in 2015, killing at least 137 people; in 2016, it directly targeted the Yemeni government and its allies, repeatedly attacked government checkpoints, and even attacked the Saudi-led Arab coalition station, far larger and more intense than the "base".
△ On February 14, 2016, the Saudi-led coalition continued to conduct air strikes on the Yemeni capital Sana'a Source: Visual China
<h1>An alliance of villains who are also friends and enemies</h1>
One interesting detail in Operation Red Sea is that the leader of the "Xhaka Organization", known as the "Sheikh" (note: the Arabic honorific title for the elderly, has religious implications), goes to meet the "rebels" under the personal escort of a group of bodyguards wearing strange masks. "Sheikh" received the call, and the voice of the mysterious "sir" came: "The rebels will eat us." And the representative of the "rebels" said: "This battle is not for you." This is like revealing that the "rebels" and "Xhaka" are not in the same group, and for some kind of interest they are allied together, and they can stage "black eating black" at any time when necessary.
After the reunification of North and South Yemen in 1990, in order to counter the original South Yemeni forces and consolidate his position, Saleh adopted a policy of co-opting the "Believing Youth", the predecessor of the Houthis who were also from the north, and even elected Hussein Houthi to the Parliament in 1993, which directly led to the rise of the Houthis. In 2004, the Houthis announced the establishment of an Islamic government in Yemen's Saada province, touching saleh's bottom line. Saleh attacked the Houthis six times with Saudi support, but failed to annihilate them in one fell swoop, fueling his radical claims and eventually being forced to reconcile and agree to the imposition of Sharia law in Saada province.
△ On December 5, 2017, Houthi supporters held a rally to celebrate the killing of Yemen's former President Saleh Source: Visual China
In 2011, the wave of the "Arab Spring" swept through Yemen, and although Saleh was in the opposition, his influence in the Yemeni military and political circles was still large. Since taking over as two-year transitional president, Hadi has quickly used the Southern elite to crowd out the forces of Saleh supporters in the North, depriving leaders, including Saleh's eldest son, of military power. Enemies of the enemy are friends, and the Houthis and Saleh have once again formed an alliance against their common political enemy, the Hadi government.
But this alliance of interest nature is not strong. In 2017, with the intervention of external forces such as Saudi Arabia, Saleh openly broke with the Houthis. Tensions between the two sides continued to intensify, and on December 4, Yemen staged a scene in which a former president was assassinated by a former ally. The Middle Eastern strongman, who had been in power for 33 years and claimed to be "dancing on the head of a snake", was eventually killed at the hands of the giant python he had raised.
<h1>"Proxy war" under the geopolitical game</h1>
I don't know whether the producers intentionally or unintentionally, but the color of the "rebel" flag and the tulip-like logo on it appear in the film are exactly the same as the Iranian flag. Even more ironically, the "sheikh" in black robes, black hair, glasses and a white beard looks quite similar to Iran's supreme leader, Khamenei, at first glance.
△ The "Zaka Organization" flag (top left) and the Iranian flag in the film, the leader of the "Zaka Organization" (top right) and the Iranian supreme leader Khamenei Source: Author
In fact, Iran is indeed the "big brother" behind the Houthis. The Houthis see Iran as a political emulator and seek to establish a theocratic Shiite regime in Yemen. Although the Former's Shia branch, the Zaid, was not the same as the latter's official twelve-imam faith, it was supported. However, this support is relatively limited, unlike the large-scale investment in the Syrian battlefield, after the outbreak of the Yemen crisis in 2011, Iran did not directly intervene in the military, but concentrated on providing weapons, military training and other logistical support for the Houthis.
In contrast, Saudi intervention in the situation in Yemen is open and direct. On the one hand, the Houthis' heyday sphere of influence has reached the Saudi backyard, and the southwestern region of Saudi Arabia, which borders Yemen, has encountered unprecedented security threats; on the other hand, the background of the Houthi Shiites and pro-Iranian political views are impacting Saudi Arabia's status as a Sunni ally.
△ Car bombs used by the extremists of Operation Red Sea
In March 2015, after Yemeni President Hadi fled to Riyadh for refuge, Saudi Arabia, with the acquiescence of the United States, launched a military operation code-named "Decisive Storm" to lead the 10-nation Arab coalition directly to Yemen, and the Chinese evacuation was taking place in the context of this. In the second round of peace talks in Geneva in December 2015, when the Houthi representatives asked the representatives of the Hadi government when to stop the air raids, the Hadi side responded that "the decision is not in our hands", and the Houthis did not shy away from fighting back: "Why do we want to negotiate with you?" We should negotiate with the Saudis. ”
The UAE, as another force in the GCC, is also wrangling the tide. While working with the Saudi-backed Hadi government against the Houthis, the UAE supports Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Bahakh and the Southern Movement. At present, the UAE and its allies not only occupy ports such as Aden and Maha, but also firmly control the Bab el-Babel Strait, the entrance to the Red Sea, and as its power in Yemen continues to consolidate, the contradictions in the anti-Houthi camp are also intensifying.
△ Marib, Yemen, a soldier reaches out of a car that has been shot through glass by a bullet and poses a V Source: Angus McDowall/CFP
Since 2011, the crisis in Yemen has entered its seventh year, with forces on all sides pulling back and fighting, and the situation of dividing the north and south and factions is intensifying. By May 2017, a new civil war had killed more than 10,000 people, half of them civilians and displaced 7 million. According to data released by the World Health Organization (WHO), 2,192 people have lost their lives due to cholera in Yemen, and more than 900,000 suspected cases have been reported.
At the end of "Operation Red Sea", the flames on the screen are extinguished, the background returns to the blue sea again, and the Linyi sails into the calm sea. Yemen, on the other hand, has never been peaceful, and the smoke and flames of war are still relentless.
The world says
Yu Xiaoxuan
Responsible Editor | Zhang Mengyuan
Operations Editor | Mei Qiongyu
Layout editing | Xu Jingyi
The copyright of the article belongs to the original author and is not allowed to be commercialized
If you need to reprint, please send a private message
Weibo @World Says Globusnews