Yemen

The Romans called this fertile country “Arabia Felix,” Happy Arabia, so named to contrast it with the barren “Arabia Deserta” to the north, which is still a morally barren land, known as Saudi Arabia.

“The Yemen,” as it used to be known in my youth, was the home of the Sabaeans, the biblical Sheba; a crucial crossroads in the known world’s trade for centuries; a trading state that flourished for over a thousand years and included parts of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. In the 7th century Islam spread quickly and Yemeni troops were crucial in the early Islamic conquests.

The country was divided between the Ottoman and British empires in the early 20th century. The Zaidi (ie Shī’a) Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established after World War I in the former Ottoman part, North Yemen. It was the south that came under British “protection.”

In the 1960’s Yemen was still divided. The Mutawakkilite Kingdom of the Yemen, in the north, was ruled by an autocratic king, a royal dictator, Ahmad bin Yahya Hamidaddin, who had been on the throne since 1948. He died in 1962 and was briefly succeeded by his son Muhammad Al-Badr; but, as is so often the case, a group of republican Army officers staged a coup, starting the North Yemen Civil War.

In one of the first Saudi meddling forays into Yemen, the royalists were supported by that fellow dictatorial monarchy, mostly with weapons and financial aid, but also some troops; whilst the republicans were backed by Egypt. Egypt provided the republicans with weapons and financial assistance but also sent a large military force. Israel covertly supplied weapons to the royalists in order to keep the Egyptian military busy in Yemen and make Nasser less likely to initiate a conflict in Sinai. In 1968, after six years of civil war, Saudi interference failed, the republicans were the victors, and the north became the “Yemen Arab Republic.”

At that time South Yemen consisted of the British ‘Aden Protectorate’ and ‘Protectorate of South Arabia.’ The Aden Emergency, occurring concurrently with the revolution in the north led to the British departure from both protectorates, and in 1967, the south became an independent socialist cum communist state, officially known as the “People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen.” As with virtually any country that includes the word “Democratic” in its name, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen wasn’t; but it had backing from the Eastern Bloc. The Yemen Arab Republic in the north stood on its own, having few international backers at all.

Relations between the two new countries were never great, and they seriously came to blows in 1972. That war, in which the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen was actively supported by the still meddling Saudi Arabia, ended in negotiated truce brokered by the Arab League. It was during these negotiations that the idea of eventual unification was first mooted, though it was still a few years away. In 1978, Ali Abdallah Saleh was appointed President of the Yemen Arab Republic.

After several years of strife, both between north & south, and within the south; the two countries were unified as the “Republic of Yemen” in 1990. Saleh was named as President, and the then President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen,) Ali Salim al-Beidh, became Vice-President. Following unification Yemen slowly modernised and opened up to the world, but still retained much of its tribal character.

After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Saleh opposed military intervention from non-Arab states. As a member of the United Nations Security Council for 1990 and 1991, Yemen abstained on a number of UNSC resolutions concerning Iraq and Kuwait and voted against the “use of force resolution.” That angered the U.S. and others, including Saudi Arabia, and as a result the Saudis expelled 800,000 Yemenis in 1990 and 1991. That opposition was never forgotten, and Saleh never forgiven, by either the United States or any of the neighbouring dictatorships.

Despite unification there were still tremendous difficulties between north and south, which resulted in yet another civil war in May, June and July 1994. The armies of the north & south had never been fully integrated and although the army of the South was once more actively supported by Saudi Arabia, as ever with arms, funds & troops, Saleh’s army of North was victorious; their interference failing yet again, another bitter pill was prescribed for the House of Saud to swallow.

In 1999, the Republic of Yemen held a Presidential election, and Saleh became Yemen’s first directly elected president, winning 96.2% of the vote. It’s worth noting that, despite the expected allegations of vote rigging, it was an actual election; something unheard of in Saudi Arabia or any of the other Gulf States.

In 2000, al-Qaeda-in-Yemen attacked the USS Cole in Aden, killing 17 US naval personnel. The al-Qaeda-Yemeni connection goes back to the foundation of the organisation. Yemen has always had powerful Islamist and jihadist movements. In the 1980s thousands of Yemeni Sunnis joined the Afghan jihad against occupying Soviet forces and most returned home emboldened and militarised. Unlike most of their Middle Eastern counterparts, but just as in Saudi Arabia, Yemeni returnees were welcomed home with open arms by the Saleh regime.

In the early 1990s when bin Laden, whose father was born in Yemen, set up al-Qaeda in Sudan and then in Afghanistan, he heavily and personally recruited Yemenis whom he trusted.

By 2000, al-Qaeda had been operating in Yemen, mainly targeting the Zaidi Shīʿites in the north, for some time, with overt Saudi support; this support began to dwindle that year, when they began operating in Saudi Arabia as well.

The Shī’a insurgency in Yemen began in June 2004, when dissident cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, head of the Zaidi Shīʿites, launched an uprising against Saleh’s government. The rebels stated that they were “defending their community against discrimination” and government aggression.

The government claimed that the Houthis were seeking to overthrow it and to implement Shīʿite religious law. So while Saleh had his hands full with the Houthis in the north, against whom he had the ubiquitous Saudi assistance; he faced attacks by al-Qaeda, operating under the cover of a Socialist secessionist movement, in the south. It was alleged that the Houthis were being supported by Iran; though this was strongly denied by both the Houthis & Iran. Perhaps it is worth mentioning at this point, that Zaidis, though Shī’a, are of the “Fivers” sect, not “Twelvers,” which is the Shī’a sect of Iran.

In the 2006 presidential election, held on 20th September, Saleh won with 77.2% of the vote. His main rival, Faisal bin Shamlan, received 21.8%. So, once more Yemen had a democratically elected President and Saleh was sworn in for another term on 27th September.

An al-Qaeda suicide bomber killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis in the province of Marib in July 2007. Al-Qaeda carried out a series of bomb attacks on police, official, diplomatic, foreign business and tourism targets in 2008. Car bombings outside the U.S. embassy in Sana’a killed 18 people, including six suicide bombers in September 2008.

In January 2009, the Saudi and Yemeni al-Qaeda branches merged to form Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP is based in Yemen, and many of its members were Saudi nationals who had been released from Guantanamo Bay. Saudi Arabia worked hard to get their nationals repatriated from Guantanamo, and then expelled most of them into Yemen. Also in 2009, Saleh released 176 al-Qaeda suspects on condition of good behaviour, but that condition was ignored and their terrorist activities continued.

The Yemeni army launched a fresh offensive against the Shī’a insurgents in 2009, assisted by Saudi forces. A new ceasefire was agreed upon in February 2010. The Shī’a rebels accused Saudi Arabia of providing support to al-Qaeda and other Salafi groups to suppress Zaidism in Yemen.

At the same time, US Special Forces and the CIA were carrying out operations, including air & drone strikes, against al-Qaeda.

In 2011, the ridiculously misnamed “Arab Spring” arrived in Yemen. Mass protests, stirred-up by various Islamist groups, just like those witnessed across the Middle East, eventually forced Saleh to step down. In a deal arranged by the Saudis, under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the powers of the presidency were transferred to Vice President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who was formally elected president on 21st February 2012, in a one-man election (!). Under this deal Saleh got immunity from prosecution, and his son, General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh kept a strong hold on a large part of the army.

So, now we had Western governments, all still starry-eyed about the wonders of the miraculous “Arab Spring;” and cynical Arab dictatorships, recognising an unelected Saudi puppet, Hadi, as President, following the enforced removal of the twice elected President Saleh; a sure-fire recipe for peace and tranquillity.

In February 2012, AQAP claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on the presidential palace which killed 26 Republican Guards on the day that President Hadi was sworn in. AQAP was also behind another suicide bombing which killed 96 soldiers in Sana’a three months later. These al-Qaeda attacks weren’t aimed at the Hadi regime, but at the army, which to a great degree, retained its loyalty to ex-President Saleh.

In September 2012, a car bomb attack in Sana’a killed 11 people, a day after a local al-Qaeda leader was reported killed in the south. In 2012, there was a “small contingent of U.S. special-operations troops” and an “unofficially acknowledged” CIA presence in Yemen, in response to increasing terror attacks by AQAP on Yemeni citizens.

Hadi’s central government in Sana’a remained weak, staving off challenges from southern separatists, in cahoots with AQAP, as well as the Shī’a Houthi rebels. The Shī’a insurgency had intensified after Hadi took power, escalating in September 2014 as anti-government Houthi forces led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi arrived in the capital and forced Hadi to agree to a “unity government.” Under increasing Houthi pressure, that government resigned en masse in January; Hadi fled, first to his home-town of Aden & then to Riyadh. At this time all US personnel also left the country.

It was at then that Ali ex-President Abdallah Saleh, once such a fierce opponent of the Houthis, switched to their side, bringing with him a large part of the Yemeni army. This swung things firmly in the Houthis favour, and it began to appear that Saudi interference was about to meet failure once again.

However, on 26th March 2015, Saudi Arabia announced “Operation al-Hazm,” an action against the Houthi rebels and Yemeni troops loyal to Saleh; to be carried out by a Sunni coalition, supposedly consisting of UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, and Pakistan. Immediately, indiscriminate airstrikes hit various targets in Yemen. The Saudis amassed large numbers of troops on the Saudi-Yemeni border and they stated their intention to lead a military coalition against the Houthis, whom they still claimed were being aided by Iran. The United States announced that it was assisting with intelligence, targeting, and logistics. Saudi Arabia and Egypt would not rule out ground operations. The US Navy also stated that they would be blockading the Yemeni coast, to ensure that there were no arms shipments arriving in country.

Currently, in Yemen, Houthis are fighting against the Daʿesh, al-Qaeda, and Saudi Arabia. In April 2015, al-Qaeda’s ranks were swollen by a jailbreak of dozens of convicted al-Qaeda fighters. Soon they were rallying the Sunni tribes to join forces in their fight against the Zaidi Shī’a Houthis.

The US supports the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen against the Houthis, but many in US SOCOM reportedly favour the Houthis, as they have been an effective force opposing al-Qaeda and recently Daʿesh. The Guardian recently reported; “The only groups to benefit from the war dragging on are the jihadis of Islamic State (Isis) [Daʿesh] and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the latter’s most powerful franchise, who are likely to gain influence amid the chaos. Isis [Daʿesh] has claimed recent, bloody suicide bombings in Houthi mosques and Sana’a when it once had no known presence in the country, while AQAP has continued to seize territory in eastern Yemen unhindered by American drone strikes.” Of course Saudi Arabia was well aware that their blatant bullying bombing of the Shīʿite Houthis would help the Sunni-Salafist AQ & Daʿesh; they are Sunni-Salafist themselves.

It is now known that despite GCC and US claims that they were blockading the Yemeni coast, to prevent weapons arriving in the country, it was sometime in May 2015, that GCC forces, including numerous UAE tanks, arrived in country. These have been instrumental in driving the Houthi forces back; thus once more actively assisting al-Qaeda and Daʿesh.

In August it was reported that Pro-government forces in Yemen, largely consisting of Sunni Coalition troops and armour, have retaken al-Anad airbase from the Houthis. It is the country’s largest airbase, situated just north of Aden, from which the US (CIA) used to operate their drones against al-Qaeda.

The situation now is that coalition aircraft; mainly Saudi, are carrying out indiscriminate airstrikes; bombing whatever they feel like, hospitals, schools & residential neighbourhoods, in Yemen; killing civilians in their thousands, with complete impunity and with US & UK(?) connivance. Despite a supposed “blockade” by the US Navy, the Sunni Coalition’s ground forces, predominantly UAE armour, have landed in Aden and begun a ground offensive, basically an invasion, in a neighbouring independent state. After decades of Saudi interference in Yemen, all this is being done to “Reduce Iranian Influence”?

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