ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

On April 14, the Houthis media wing released a video showing the group’s snipers targeting more than 18 Saudi-Backed fighters in the first quarter of April. Most of these operations took place in the southern part of the Saudi provinces of Jizan, Najran and Asir. The rest took place in different parts of Yemen. Two years ago, Houthi snipers began increasing their activity throughout Yemen, especially along the border with Saudi Arabia. They are armed with  a variety of locally modified heavy sniper rifles and Western-made sniper rifles , which were captured from the Saudi military. The Houthis rely on their snipers’ units to infect heavy losses on Saudi-led coalition forces. This simple tactic allows the Yemeni rebel group to slowly drain the coalition and its local proxies.

Wrriten by  Dennis M. Nilsen, PhD  exclusively for  SouthFront When the Islamic Revolution occurred in February 1979 with the return to Iran of the Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, a political earthquake in the Middle East very visibly began.  Until this year, the Iranians had only experienced the rule of an emperor,  shah  (شاه) in Persian, and with the advent of the guardianship of the jurist ( velayat-e faqih ) established by Khomeini, the 2,500-year imperial tradition of Persian came to an end. The Revolution was the culmination of opposition to the progressive modernization and centralization of the country under the last  shah , Muhammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979).  The  shah  succeeded his father Reza Shah in 1941 and ruled uninterruptedly until 1953, when after a brief exile, he was brought back by means of a coup planned and orchestrated by the British and Americans, a coup known as Operation Ajax by the West and the 28 Mordad coup d’état by the Iranians.  Following hi