Its a nice article in that it addresses the Sa’ada issue and some of its complexities, but this could use a little clarification:
Jamestown
Al-Houthi led a rebellion of Zaidi Muslims—an off-shoot of Shiism. The Zaidis, who comprise as much as 40% of Yemen and form a majority in the northwest, do not recognize the primacy of the government. This, therefore, was not solely a political uprising; it had a religious message that resonated with a significant number of Yemenis.
A large number of Zaidis were among the revolutionaries in the 1962 revolution overthrowing the Imamate. Houthis perhaps reject the primacy of government. A discussion of the religious aspect of the conflict is lacking without bringing in the issue of the Salafi tribesmen, jihaddis and the fatwa publicized by the defense ministry.
Another one
Equilibri.net (01 August 2007)
The Zaydist rebellion
In less than a month the truce between the government of Sana‘a and the group of Zaydists barricaded in the mountainous region of Sa‘ada, North of the country was broken. The agreement, reached under mediation from Qatar, required rebels to deliver weapons and prisoners under their possession in exchange for impunity, and, for the leader of the group, a golden exile in Doha. Abd al-Malik al-Houthi’s men have nonetheless failed to respect the agreements, putting the government at fault for proceeding with attacks on their settlements. In practical terms, it is increasingly difficult for the two sides to arrive at a common agreement, given that either side has been seeking to annihilate the other.
In Yemmen, 15% of the country’s 20 million people belongs to Zaydism, one of the three main branches of shiite Islam and almost exclusively present in the country. The region of Sa‘ada is the stronghold of Zaydists, who have been in power uninterruptedly for almost a thousand years up until 1962, when a coup d’etat saw the country pass into the hands of a military government. In the current context, rebels are fighting for their region’s independence and for the recognition of their own rights, mainly in response to ardent discrimination but also with the further aim of rendering the government inactive. On the other hand, government forces have been trying to eliminate pockets of shiite resistance, seen as the only obstacle to a neo-Salafist takeover in Yemmen. Authorities have been noticed for their strong Islamic conservatism, harking back to Wahhabist and Salafist tendencies, openly hostile to shiites. At the same time, and in an apparent contradiction, the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh is also one of the closest allies of the US government, especially in light of the latter’s anti-terrorism campaign following 9/11. The two countries’ strategic alliance is lambasted by the rebels, who criticise the government for submission vis-à-vis conflicts with the West. As a matter of fact, the offensive carried out by Sana‘a, in repressing the Zaydist minority, seems to be a rather factious affair and has left the impression of hiding specific, elitist interests under the umbrella of the “war on terror”. In such a conflict of interests, the United States has turned a blind eye to ideological extremism practised by authorities in the Yemmeni government against shiites, whilst accusing Iran of orchestrating attempts to destabilise Yemmen. As such, the country runs the risk of falling into the hands of a rather authoritarian and fundamentalist regime with a Salafist veneer, while ironically becoming one of the main targets of the war on terror and a fertile ground for jihad.
Nepotism, clientelism and internal jihad
At the helm of the Yemmeni government stands President Saleh, admitted into power in 1978 and re-elected in 2004 with nearly 97% of suffrage. Nepotism characterises umpteen relations at state level, to such an extent that army forces are almost completely composed of relatives and contacts close to the head of state. Furthermore, Yemmen is a region where tribal power is still predominantly robust, and no different from Arab tradition, whereby many influential and important tribe leaders are instituted into power, following a logic of clientelism that resemble the feudal system. Some of the most important positions in the military, legal, and secret services are dominated by a conservative mentality. In an internal war that has continued for three years now, the assault to the settlements of al-Houthi’s troops has been led by General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, a figure supposedly linked to the President’s family and accused of recruiting men into Bin Laden’s network in the 1980’s, when Bin Laden himself took refuge and organised actions in Yemen.
Saleh has likewise resorted to using well-trained, expert members of global jihad (with combat experience in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, as well as currently in Iraq), such as he did in 1994, when militants were flung up against southern socialist independence fighters, labelled apostates. In an act that closely resembles a fatwa (a religious edict), the Minister of Defence issued a call authorising the use of violence against shiites in his own personal webpage. The country’s dilemmas seem to have brought it to an internal state of jihad, along the same lines of other occurrences in the Middle East. Rebels have taken refuge in the mountains, where they fight against government forces in guerrillas, whilst the government has decided to cut all means of communication in the region, including the blocking of mobile phone services. Yet, such a conflict is not only increasing the chances of an ensuing humanitarian crisis – the isolation and collapse of the Sa‘ada region’s main economic activities, such as local trade and agriculture, suggest just that – but also preventing the region from being receptive of any aid that may come to be necessary. At the same time, the government has left itself out of the region, making it more difficult to monitor and intercept communication between al-Houthi’s bases. Among a host of other problems faced by the administration is the diffusion of weapons among the population. Since the end of the civil war in 1994, it is estimated that 60 million firearms (most of which AK-47 assault rifles), are in the hands of tribes acting parallel to state power.
Operations in the Middle East
Accusations of Sana‘a’s government against Teheran, for harbouring Zaydist warriors in the North of the country, are not entirely unconvincing. As a matter of fact, one can observe a renewed conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia over hegemony in the Muslim world. The battle has been fought on a number of fronts, with different alliances and tactics, and Yemmen serving as a potential piece of the puzzle in the internal conflict between Muslims. A deep schism is evident between sunnis and shiites in Iraq, the same way that the relevance of outside influences in the country is no less negligible nor responsible for surveilling the country’s segregation. Countless times have the United States labelled Iran as the principal commandant and supporter of shiite militias wreaking havoc in what is already a martyred territory in Iraq, performing vindictive acts of violence against the sunni portion of the population, more so than against foreign troops. In that respect, Teheran’s objectives for the region are clear: to expand their sphere of influence rather than fight foreign “invaders”, such as the sunni insurgency has been more dedicated to doing.
In Lebanon, Iran has a weighted influence in the power of Hezbollah and has been successful at keeping the country under its reach for years. In a recent resurgement of sunni fundamentalism, inspired on al-Qaeda, such as Fatah al-Islam, shiite militantism has not gone unabated. A number of intelligence sources confirm that groups such as Fatah-al-Islam have been created and established in Lebanon with the support of Riyad. Still in Yemmen, as conflicts re-emerge between the government and the shiite minority, a new terrorist attack in the touristic site of al-Marib has been attributed to the work of al-Qaeda. Again, it is difficult to make out a possible sunni response to shiite ambitions. Al-Qaeda, or rather the group of movements that consider themselves as such, seems to have shifted increasingly towards the West, in the Maghreb region, where a real terrorist threat is more likely to take hold (and has already done so a number of times, as is evident in recent attcks in Algeria, arrests in Tunis, and disorder caused by a number of suicide bombs in Morocco). It seems as though such movements have moved further and further away from the influence of Teheran and the shiites. In addition, Saudi Arabia’s shiite minority, located atop oil-fields in one of the country’s wealthies regions, pose a threat to the central government. There is, furthermore, a host of predominantly shiite countries like Bahrain, where 75% of the population is shiite, and, in a more strategic position, Syria, Teheran’s ally par excellence. Conflicts in Yemmen are hence intricately intertwined with transversal alliances across the region.
Conclusions
Yemmen is a new territory ravaged by internal conflict between a shiite minority and oppressive government forces. The government accuses rebels of wanting to give birth to a theocratic state along the lines of Iran and has obtained full support from Washington and Riyad in trying to obliterate al-Houthi’s rebel militias. By pledging their support, the US risks supporting a much more dangerous kind of fundamentalism than that of Zaydists (which, among the traditional variants of shiism, is in theory the most moderate and least inclined towards political and religious extremism). One possible scenario is for the country to arrive at a similar situation to Lebanon’s, where anti-shiite forces may lose control and end up putting the country on the road to fundamentalism, inspired by Salafist ideals.
