Yes, in period 2012–2014, Hadi run a wide-ranging reorganization of Yemeni armed forces.

Now, how do I come to this conclusion: one way is to have first-hand sources.

Yes, in period 2012–2014, Hadi run a wide-ranging reorganization of Yemeni armed forces. Yes, much of this process was ‘motivated’ by his desire to remove Saleh-loyalists. And yes, one result of this reorganization was that the three missile brigades were separated from what used to be the ‘Republican Guards’, and reorganized into a separate branch, the ‘Missile Defence Force’.

Now, how do I come to this conclusion: one way is to have first-hand sources.

However, even without these, it is (relatively) easy to track relevant developments — if only is really curious to follow what’s going on there (i.e. it does take a little bit of a ‘nerd’ to do so).

This is so in part precisely because Hadi insisted on making it public whenever he replaced specific commanders. Back in 2012–2014 period, every single action related to re-organization, every single new appointment of commander, was enacted by a decree from Hadi, and this in turn was published by official Yemeni media — so also in the case of resulting ‘Missile Defence Force’.

Here just one example — http://sabanews.net/en/news360967.htm — citing — between others — appointment of Col Massoud Ahmed Hussein al-Ghabash as the new CO of the 8th Missile Brigade, based at Sabra Camp, Bilad ar-Rus, outside Sana’a.

Through carefully monitoring dozens and then hundreds of such reports, it became possible to assemble de-facto the entire ‘order of battle’ of the resulting Yemeni military.

And versa-vice: because Houthis were eager to report every single ‘defection’ of Yemeni military to their side, they ‘stimulated’ the reporting on this topic. Correspondingly, by careful monitoring of dozens and then hundreds of such reports from period September 2014 and April-May 2015, it became possible to establish precisely what unit sided with Houthis, which with Hadi, etc.

Eventually, through examination of reports from 1st-hand sources and whatever was published in Yemeni media, a very clear image emerged making it possible to say, very precisely, ‘so and so many brigades of this and that type’ sided with Houthis, so and so many with Hadi etc. Indeed, I woudl go as far as to observe that the number of ‘unknowns’ can be counted on fingers of one hand, and units in question are de-facto ‘unimportant’.