Helicopters belonging to Gulf Arab forces are seen at a military base in the front line conflict zone of Marib in central Yemen September 16, 2015. Armed with high-tech Western weaponry, Gulf Arab soldiers are fighting with new found determination against what they see as the expanding influence of Iran, their non-Arab and Shi’ite Muslim arch-foe, in a war that has ravaged Yemen for six months. The oil-producing province of Marib has become a key battlefield between Iranian-allied Houthi militia and a coalition of Yemenis and Emirati, Saudi and Bahraini troops. Marib forms a gateway to the Yemeni capital Sanaa 120 km (75 miles) to the west, which the Houthis seized last year.Mindful of similar sectarian-fueled conflicts fragmenting other Arab states such as Iraq and Syria, the Gulf Arab and Yemeni fighters see their common cause in Yemen helping to revive a sense of Arab solidarity.
