Yemeni Armed Forces
The Yemeni Armed Forces (Arabic: الْقُوَّاتُ الْمُسَلَّحَةُ الْيَّمَّنِيَّة, romanized: Al-Quwwat Al-Musallahah Al-Yamaniyah) are the military forces of the Republic of Yemen. They include the Yemeni Army (including the Republican Guard), Yemeni Navy (including the Marines) and the Yemeni Air Force (including the Air Defense Force). The capital of the country, Sana’a is where the military is headquartered. Per the constitution of Yemen, the President of Yemen serves as the commander-in-chief.
Yemeni Armed Forces
1920
1990
Rashad al-Alimi (PLC)- Mahdi al-Mashat (SPC)
- Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed (PLC)
- Abdel-Aziz bin Habtour (SPC)
- Mohsen Mohammed Al-Daeri (PLC)
- Mohamed al-Atifi (SPC)
Sagheer Hamoud Aziz (PLC)
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi (SPC)
18
12,002,529 [1], age 15–49
8,875,554[1], age 15–49
600,126[1]
66,700 [2]
0[1]
$1.4 billion (2019)[3]
8%
The supreme commander of the armed forces is disputed between Rashad al-Alimi, Chairman of the internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council, and Mahdi al-Mashat, the chairman of the Supreme Political Council.
The number of military personnel in Yemen is relatively high; in sum, Yemen has the second largest military force on the Arabian Peninsula after Saudi Arabia. In 2012, total active troops were estimated as follows: army, 66,700; navy, 7,000; and air force, 5,000. In September 2007, the government announced the reinstatement of compulsory military service. Yemen's defense budget, which in 2006 represented approximately 40 percent of the total government budget, is expected to remain high for the near term, as the military draft takes effect and internal security threats continue to escalate.
Since the Yemen civil war, the armed forces have been divided between loyalists of the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and pro-Yemeni government forces of president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.
History[edit]
Early beginnings[edit]
The origins of the modern-day Yemeni military can be traced back to the late 19th century when Turkish Ottomans began recruiting tribal levies to create four battalions of gendarmerie and three cavalry regiments. In 1906, the Italians recruited thousands of Yemenis and gave them military training in Italian Somaliland before sending them to Libya to fight the Senussi insurgency of 1911. Aware of the gains made by the Hashemites in the course of the Arab revolt, a combination of these forces - all of which held strong ties to various local tribes - rebelled against the Ottoman rule in Yemen during the First World War. Although nowhere near as famous as the uprising involving Thomas E. Lawrence - "Lawrence of Arabia" - the Yemen revolt led to the withdrawal of the Turkish military. After officially declaring independence from the Turkish Ottomans in 1918, Yemen was only internationally recognized in 1926. By that time, Imam Yahya and Hassan Ali Hussein kept a cadre of 300 Ottoman officers and soldiers to train his army, which - while remaining an outgrowth of the tribal levies that functioned as little more than a palace guard - was officially organized as follows:
Defense budget[edit]
Yemen's defense spending was historically one of the government's three largest expenditures. The defense budget increased from US$540 million in 2001 to an estimated US$2 billion–US$2.1 billion in 2006, to which it was probably $3.5 billion by 2012. According to the U.S. government, the 2006 budget represents about 6 percent of gross domestic product.[4]
Paramilitary forces[edit]
In 2009, Yemen's paramilitary force had about 71,000 troops. Approximately 50,000 constituted the Central Security Organization of the Ministry of Interior; they are equipped with a range of infantry weapons and armored personnel carriers.
20,000 were forces of armed tribal levies.
Yemen was building a small coast guard under the Ministry of Interior, training naval military technicians for posts in Aden and Mukalla.[20]