#AQAP Announces Formation of New Armed Group in #Yemen

Well this is shitty. If AQAP begins to specifically target Houthis and Shia in Yemen via “Ansar al Shariah in the Central Regions”, particularly outside of Sa’ada we will probably see the beginning of civil war. Hitherto, there has been little sectarian violence in Yemen outside of the past Sa’ada conflicts and the current one still simmering that picked back up last year. The Salafists in Sa’ada were wise to reject AQAP’s support (at least publicly) when they offered it last year. It seems that AQAP is now paralleling / forcing the support to target the Houthis and Shia in Yemen. Being that AQAP does not really have much reach into Sa’ada and is mostly in the south en-mass and occasionally in Sana’a (all places where there is limited sectarian divide, we are likely going to see dramatic increased sectarian violence outside of Sa’ada which will pose grave dangers for the new post-NDC Yemen. This scenario is reminiscent of 2006 al-Askari Mosque bombing in Iraq that many argue was done by Al Qaeda and subsequently caused an all out civil war between Sunnis and Shia.