Few in Yemen can remember the last external war their country’s national army fought. For the record, the last time Yemeni troops aimed their artillery at non-Yemenis was the 1934 war with Saudi Arabia. Since then, the army’s weaponry has been turned inwards, supporting successive regimes in the suppression of opposition movements across the country. The military, along with the tribes and religious leaders, make up the troika of power in Yemen, and therefore part of the axis of corruption and misery Yemenis have lived with for a very long time. Even after this past year of revolution and all the blood spilled, the majority of Yemen’s military to this day remains under the control of the son of Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, as well as his nephews, half-brother(s) and other close ties. Statistics on the Yemeni military are rare and hard to find, yet there is some
