Yemen’s strategic because it’s one side of a major shipping route from the Suez Canal around the Horn of Africa.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/M…TE=DEFAULT
SANAA, Yemen (AP) — Yemen’s powerful Shiite rebels announced on Friday that they have taken over the country and dissolved parliament, a dramatic move that finalizes their months-long power grab.
The development also plunges the impoverished country deeper into turmoil and threatens to turn the crisis into a full-blown sectarian conflict, pitting the Iran-backed Houthi Shiites against Sunni tribesmen and secessionists in the south.