A rebel group at the center of recent fighting in the Middle Eastern nation of Yemen will be helping to form a new government there.
The Shiite Muslim rebels called the Houthis are party to a peace agreement signed this weekend that calls for them, along with separatist factions, to nominate a new prime minister, the Associated Press and the BBC are reporting.
The rebels said Sunday they had taken over key buildings in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
“After being on the brink of civil war, Yemenis negotiated an agreement for peaceful change, the only such in the region,” United Nations special envoy Jamal Benomar said in a statement. He said Yemen “serves as a model for comprehensive national dialogue, based on transparency, inclusivity and active and meaningful participation of all political and social constituencies.”
Yemen is a tiny country at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, but it *plays a central role in America’s war on terrorism. President Obama has planned to send terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen to rehabilitate them, and the administration has held up Yemen as an example of how to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
