THE WoT IS JUST ABOUT SELF-DETERMINATION:

Yemen's Shi'ite Houthi fighters tightened their grip on the capital Sanaa on Monday after seizing much of the city in a lightning advance and signing an overnight deal to win a share of power, capping a decade-long guerrilla uprising.

The Zaydi Shi'ites, who make up 30 percent of Yemen's population of 25 million and ruled a kingdom there for 1,000 years, have complained of being marginalized since their last king in Sanaa was overthrown in a 1962 revolution. [...]

The Houthis have long been shunned by Yemen's political elite. They complained they were left out of a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal after "Arab Spring" protests forced veteran leader Ali Abdullah Saleh to quit in 2012 in favor of his then vice president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In addition to the insurgency by Houthis, Yemen has also been plagued by war against Sunni al Qaeda militants who are targeted by U.S. drone strikes, and by separatism in the formerly independent south.

Although a National Dialogue process which ended this year agreed to devolve more power to Yemen's regions, the Houthis disagreed with the geographic boundaries that were proposed.

Over the past few months, they successfully fought a series of battles in their northern stronghold against rival Sunni Muslim militias and allied troops loyal to the Sunni Islamist Islah Party, bringing them to the outskirts of Sanaa.

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