On 7 September 2015 the word spread that Qatar has sent to Yemen around 1000 troops with more than 200 armored vehicles and 30 Apache combat helicopters. The troops will reportedly join the Sunni coalition forces fighting against the Houthis in the Marib province. More Qatari forces are expected in the near future.
Saudi Arabia and UAE are already engaged in the war in Yemen with both their air power and ground troops. Now they have been joined by Qatar, who until now refrained from direct military participation while diplomatically supporting the Saudi and Emirati campaign.
While Qatar used to play its own game in the Middle East, being more aligned to Turkey than to its fellow Gulf monarchies, around December 2014 Qatar somewhat changed its foreign strategy. Now it obviously is making more efforts to coordinate its own actions with Saudi Arabia than it used to. Qatar’s direct engagement in the Yemen War, which pits the Gulf Arabian monarchies’ interests against those of Iran, is another indication of this change.
As to the military situation itself, after making considerable territorial gains against Houthis in August 2015, the Sunni coalition forces are now engaged in positional fighting with Houthis, mainly in the areas of Taiz and Marib.
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Regularly updated interactive map of war in Yemen. Press View Larger Map for better view:
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The permanent page of this interactive map is here:
https://stratreview.wordpress.com/yemen-war-map/