By William Tucker
Chief Correspondent for In Homeland Security
Shortly after the Yemeni civil way concluded in 1994, the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh forcibly retired the Southern Yemeni army leading to a lasting resentment towards Sana’a in general and Saleh in particular. When Saleh left the presidency after his lengthy rule, the calls for the southern army to be reinstated became louder and the al-Qaeda led mayhem only added to the urgency. In a decree issued today, Yemen’s President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi reinstated 600 officers and another 200 officers in the interior ministry. Truth be told this could be an opening to restoring a significant segment of the former military as they would need the officers to reorganize some sort of command structure before bringing in the rest. That remains to be seen, however as it is also possible that Hadi may just want to reinstate officers to function in a more domestic political fashion for reasons of stability. Either way, tensions between Yemen’s north and south have been tense for a myriad of reasons, but this gesture by Hadi could go a long way in mending the situation.
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