Yemen: Women are not the decision-makers but they bear the brunt
of the war The Yemeni authorities, facing growing internal and
external pressures, are abandoning human rights in the name of
security says a new Amnesty International report, Yemen:
Cracking down under pressure. The role of armed Islamist
militants in Yemen rose to prominence during the civil war in
1994, when they fought alongside the army of the former YAR
(North Yemen) to defeat the armed forces of the former PDRY
(South Yemen). The PDRY was a secular state, widely perceived to
be communist and backed by the USSR. The Islamist militants
siding with the YAR comprised Yemenis and other nationals,
mainly from Arab countries. Many had settled in Yemen, with the
encouragement of the government in the north, after taking part
in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during
the 1980s. Following the civil war, some militants, with the
acquiescence of the authorities, acted as a kind of religious
police, particularly in the south. Ther