Arab armies in 'Small Wars' and the 'Arab Spring' (merged thread)

[CrowBat]

Sudan, continued....

More recently, another COIN campaign is going on in southern part of what is left of Sudan, and - I think it was in summer 2013 - there was a major battle with the Army of South Sudan, which even saw some clashes between (South Sudanese) T-72s and Sudanese T-80s.

Finally: Yemen... Yemen is a long story of almost continuous warfare ever since the Egyptian-supported cup against the Imam, in 1962-1967 (in what was subsequently 'North Yemen'), and insurgency in the then British-held Aden (subsequently 'South Yemen'), which lasted until 1970. With extensive Soviet support (and Egyptians out), North Yemen actually won the COIN campaign against remaining Royalists (primarily Zeidis), in period 1967-1969, forcing them to accept negotiations.

South Yemenis subsequently saw action in Dhofar War in Oman (where they were supporting Marxist insurgents but were defeated by - primarily - a large deployment of Iranian military), through early 1970s, and then during the Ogaden War (Ethiopia-Somalia War of 1977-1978), on Ethiopian side and with Cuban advice, with quite some distinction. After several coup attempts, some of which resulted in days-long street fighting, the two Yemens began uniting - primarily through fighting, which culminated in the war of 1994-1995 that saw intensive conventional warfare lasting nearly a year.

More recently, former dictator Salleh was quasi-fighting al-Qaida (actually, he rather cooperated with them than fought them), and since around 2006 became embroiled in several quasi-COIN campaigns against al-Houtis (Zaidi Sect, formerly 'originators' of North Yemen, meanwhile declared 'takfiris' by the Saudis, because of their supposed cooperation with Iran). All of these ended with major disasters (not only 'defeats'), as a number of Army brigades were completely destroyed, and the air force was losing one fighter-bomber after the other - until Saudis got involved.

Since Salleh is gone, the new government launched quite a successful - and US-supported - COIN campaign against al-Qaida there.