Another "Cakewalk"

[prole]

 

Which new "libertarian"-leaning congress-people can Democrats "find common ground with" for getting balls-deep in this looming clusterfuck?

 

Yemen’s hidden war

Yemen has become a refuge for al-Qaida fighters from Saudi Arabia. At the same time, secessionist opposition is growing in the south, united with the north in 1990, and insurrection threatens the Saada region in the northwest. Iran and Saudi Arabia are variously accused of meddling

by Pierre Bernin

 

Hidden away from outside eyes, the Saada region in northwest Yemen, not far from the border with Saudi Arabia, has been the scene of violent struggle since June 2004. This pits the Saada provincial authorities against a rebel group, the Huthis, first led by the former MP Hussein al-Huthi, then after his death in September 2004 by his young brother Abdulmalik al-Huthi, who became the group’s commander in 2006. Despite a ceasefire announced in July 2008 (1), hostilities resumed this mid-August. Little is yet known about the spread of the conflict, its brutality, its tens of thousands of casualties and displaced people – and the risk of chain reaction in parts where the country’s principal tribes live.

 

The rebellion led by the Huthis claims to represent Zaydi Islam – a branch of Shia Islam found on Yemen’s high plateaus, which is quite distinct from the Shia Twelvers who dominate Iran (2). Zaydis form about a third of the population, and are rightly seen as moderates in their laws and beliefs. Their history is intertwined with that of Yemen and they share many religious practices with Sunnis from the majority Shafi school (3). The government accuses the rebels of seeking to restore the former Zaydi Imamate, which ruled the country until 1962, the year of the republican revolution and the start of a long civil war. Saudi Arabia sided with the royalists while Nasser’s Egypt sent troops to fight on the republican side. The Imams were sayyids, claiming descent from the Prophet Mohammed, the same line claimed by the al-Huthi brothers.

 

The authorities maintain that the Huthis are supported by Iran and, like Hizbullah in Lebanon, are being used to create a Shia arc around the Middle East. They hope to enlist the support of the Saudis, who are worried about the growing influence of Iran. Such claims are rejected by Huthi leaders who affirm their loyalty to the republic and say their sole aim is to preserve a religious Zaydi identity, which is under threat because they are taken for Wahhabis or Salafists, the most fundamental Sunni sects. (Even though the Huthis, who respect the Sunni schools of Islam, disapprove of the Wahhabis who declare all Shias to be non-believers and heretics.)

 

The Saada region, cradle of Zaydism, was also one of the last bastions of royalists during the 1960s civil war. For this reason it has been starved of development aid by successive republican governments. The Huthis emerged from a Zaydi revival movement begun in the 1980s around different colleges, publishing houses and places of worship throughout Saada but also in Sanaa, the capital.

 

Although most of the country’s political elite, including its president Ali Abdullah Saleh, are of Zaydi origin, this revivalist movement remains very much a minority affair. While the Huthis insist on their unique identity within Islamic law and religious practice, most people (including those of Zaydi origin) have accepted a process of religious assimilation via the educational system and the republican state. It follows that the Sunni/Shia opposition has lost its relevance and is now on the margin of politics.

 

But converging identity has not prevented growing stigmatisation of Zaydis by the Salafist faction, which is a power behind the scenes. In the context of the Saada conflict this causes frequent tensions, with the struggle threatening to turn into holy war. At the end of August, news sources reported fighting between Huthis and students at the Salafist college of Dar al-Hadith (founded at the start of the 1980s by Muqbil al-Wadii), which left several casualties (4). The Huthis refuted these reports on their website. Two foreign students, one of them French, died in a similar incident in March 2007.

Threat of holy war

 

The government describes the clash as ideological, with a fundamentalist religious group opposing the republic. The Huthis – two of whom were elected to parliament – see it as resistance to the repression of a religious minority. The Yemeni authorities point to a major reconstruction programme launched after the July 2008 ceasefire, while the rebels say that the fighting and provocation never stopped. But beyond claim and counterclaim, a variety of factors explain why the conflict has become bogged down.

 

Despite negotiations and ceasefires, principally those agreed in Qatar in 2007 and 2008, hostilities dating back to 2004 combine economic with internal power struggles. Control of illegal trade with Saudi Arabia and, along the Red Sea coast, of oil and arms destined for the Horn of Africa, is a major issue. Military equipment is siphoned off by some officers – partly for export but also, paradoxically, sold back to rebels via intermediaries.

 

The issue of a successor to Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, has brought the struggle to the heart of the regime. This involves the president’s son, Ahmed Ali Saleh (who heads both the special forces and the republican guard) and certain army officers. The Saada region became the centre of a proxy war where rival clans fought over economic resources as well as proving their prowess in the field. By May 2008 the combat zone had reached Bani Hushaysh, about 25km north of Sanaa, and special forces were involved for the first time since 2004. Their successes contrasted with army reverses in Saada province.

Ancient rivalries

 

Stalemate also reflects the growing role of tribal leaders. With the involvement of militias, fighting either for the government or for the Huthis, and the government’s attempt in June 2008 to create a “people’s army” using tribes in Saada province and from the Hajja region, the conflict has become mired in violence and vengeance grounded in tribal loyalties. At the start of 2009, when the authorities put resources into reconstruction, some tribal groups, which a few months earlier had been allied to the army, put pressure on the government by blocking roads and taking hostages. This “tribalisation” of the struggle – an important development – suggests that analysis based on the Huthis’ political ambitions and a Sunni/Shia clash encouraged by people close to the seat of power needs rethinking.

 

The Saada struggle is superimposed on ancient rivalries between the two principal tribal groupings of the northern high plateaus: while the Hashid are fighting alongside government forces, many Bakil tribes help the rebels (5). The scenario is more complex than that, but it explains why fighting is spreading beyond Saada province, especially to Harf Sufyan in the south (Amran province), not far from the fiefdom of al-Usaymat, one of the principal Hashid tribes. A fear is that tribal unrest could extend to other regions of north Yemen, particularly the provinces of al-Jawf, Amran and Hajja.

 

The involvement of regional players has not helped. A 2007-8 mediation exercise by Qatar and an accord signed at Doha achieved nothing. When fighting resumed, Doha cancelled its promise to finance reconstruction and development in the Saada region. The role of Saudi Arabia seems less ambiguous, some even accusing it of torpedoing the Qatar negotiations to limit the influence of that small emirate in its traditional backyard. Although the Al Saud monarchy officially treats the Saada war as an internal Yemeni matter, certain Saudis are bankrolling both the Yemeni forces and the tribal militias, encouraging the spread of fighting.

 

Outside the region, the United States and the EU have focused too much on terrorism and failed to pursue a peaceful solution, thereby giving Sanaa the green light. Saleh’s government has been criticised by its allies, particularly in Washington, for non-involvement in the “war on terror”; it claims that the rebels are terrorists and have links with al-Qaida. This hardly seems credible given the Huthis’ Zaydi (Shia) identity and their repudiation of Salafist doctrine.

 

It is an exceptionally brutal and destabilising struggle, which has further weakened central power in the northern regions. The war economy, along with chronic unrest and repression, has opened the door to violent groups, some of which are indeed close to al-Qaida. Although full details aren’t yet known, this June’s kidnapping of foreign NGO workers in a Saada hospital and the subsequent execution of three of them shows just how bad things are. The government first claimed the Huthis were to blame (6), but the involvement of violent Sunni groups seems more likely.

 

Early this year Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the Yemeni often named as Osama bin Laden’s former secretary, announced the amalgamation of the Saudi and Yemen branches of al-Qaida. Since the start of 2007, attacks attributed to al-Qaida sympathisers – the most serious being that on the US embassy in September 2008 – have increased at Sanaa and in the western regions of former South Yemen, while the northern provinces seemed to be spared. Yet the 1990 unification has, since 2007, provoked major tensions in the provinces of former South Yemen where people believe they are victims of discrimination. This struggle becomes more and more openly secessionist as the repression grows (7).

 

Saleh’s regime has defied the odds for a long time, maintaining a certain stability in Yemen. But multiple crises, together with the succession issue, threaten this precarious equilibrium (8) and could end up undermining the state, with unforeseeable consequences for the region as a whole.--from and with footnotes here.

 

 

[Phil K]

Let's go kick some towel-heads asses! I'm signing up...... right after Nitrox.

[tvashtarkatena]

FW's also fulled prepped with ammo and canned food for the coming librul-spawned pogrom. He could re-channel that unrealized fantasy to help our national security situ out.

 

Chicken hawks, as a species, have super tiny balls, though, so don't hold your breath.

Edited November 4, 2010 by tvashtarkatena