ISIS attacks both the Houthi rebels and the forces of the Saudi led coalition in Yemen. Reuters.

Smoke rising from the al-Qasr Hotel in Yemen. Reuters.

In a coordinated attack, ISIS has struck a Houthi rebel mosque and has conducted several attacks on members of the Saudi led coalition. Reuters. In the rebel held city of Sana, 7 people were killed in bombing at a mosque, where Houthi rebels were gathered. In the capital of Aden, four bombings killed 15 people, 11 of them Yemeni and 4 of them from the UAE. Yemen's government has just returned from exile and placed their temporary headquarters at the al-Qasr Hotel. The vice president was present at the hotel when ISIS attacked but he and his cabinet escaped after two car bombs targeted the hotel. Two military sites were attacked by ISIS as well. The bombers used captured Yemeni military vehicles to disguise their attacks. This is the first time ISIS has attacked the government of Yemen directly. They have extensively targeted the Houthi rebels.

My Comment:

Everyone knew this is coming. The war between Yemen and the Houthi rebels has created an opening for ISIS to operate. I must have said that in every post I have made about the Yemeni conflict but it is true. ISIS thrives on chaos and that is what Yemen has turned into. And al-Qaeda is right in there with them, as the article also described a battle between them and the government as well. The worry is, of course, that the violence will allow ISIS and AQAP to take territory. So far that has been true for AQAP but ISIS hasn't done so yet. 

And the worst part of it is that neither the Houthi rebels or the Saudi led coalition are strong enough to fight ISIS or AQAP. Both sides are focused on destroying the other. It seems like the coalition is the one winning right now, given their recent victories in Aden, but the Houthis are still too strong to be wiped out. As it stands right now, neither side can afford to focus on fighting ISIS or AQAP. This will allow both groups to expand.

Until now ISIS has focused on the Houthi rebels. There are some obvious reasons for this. The Houthis are Shiite Muslims, who are hated by ISIS and considered infidels. ISIS has always targeted Shiite groups. Not only do they hate Shiites, one of their main goals is to increase tensions between Sunni and Shia. By committing atrocities against the Shiites, they are encouraging attacks by the Shiites against the Sunnis in revenge. This has been a very successful strategy for ISIS in the past. Indeed, the violence in Iraq after the invasion really kicked off when ISIS's forefathers, al-Qaeda in Iraq, bombing various Shiite mosques. 

But now ISIS is targeting the Yemeni government. Why? Well for several reasons. First, they probably just didn't have an opportunity until now. ISIS is growing in strength in Yemen and until now they probably weren't able to strike at Aden. Plus, there weren't all that many good government targets in Yemen until now. Before Yemeni forces took back Aden, the only targets available were Yemeni troops and their Saudi coalition allies. Those are hard targets to hit, and don't have the upside that this hotel attack had.

So what did ISIS gain from this attack? Well it showed that the government was capable of being hit. ISIS almost killed the vice president and many members of the cabinet. That should give any government official pause. And if the attack had been more successful? Well it would have been a huge blow to Yemen and the Saudi alliance. Having a vice president go down to a terrorist attack would have been a huge deal.

Crippling the Yemeni government would play into ISIS's plans for Yemen. There would be more chaos and there is no guarantee that whoever replaced the vice president would be competent. It would also slow down the recovery from the Houthi attack that took Aden. And it would spread fear throughout Yemen. This attack did that anyways, but the effects would have been amplified.

My question now is what will Yemen and the Saudi led coalition do about it? I said before that they were too busy fighting against the Houthis to fight ISIS and AQAP. I think that is still true, but one wonders how much longer then can ignore ISIS and AQAP. If they don't step up their security operations against them, these kinds of attacks are going to continue. And maybe next time ISIS will actually manage to kill their target...