“The Official Yemeni Terrorism: Roots and Origins”
An article by Dhaif Alsoolani, the editor of Adengulf.net and YAATC representative in Yemen. On January 31, security authorities raided his home in Aden and arrested his younger brother, age 25, and two of his relatives, 19 and 15 years old. The prisoners were beaten with rifle butts at the PSO prison, (Alfateh). More here. In June 2009, another editor of the website was targeted, details here.
The Official Yemeni Terrorism: Roots and Origins
By Dhaif Hussein Al-Solani
During the times and eras, Yemen (Yemen Arab Republic) was and still a country full of weapons, with different kinds (sorts) and marks, and on all different occasions the Yemeni officials are proud of this state which specify their country to other neighboring and far Arab countries without any reasons to cause that type of pride. According to the last census by more than one local rightful and media organizations, there are more than 60 million pieces of Kalashnikov gun machines available for the Yemeni public, in addition to the other different medium-sized and heavy weaponry owned by the big tribes backed up personally by the Yemeni President such as the Hashed, Baked, Maareb, Hajjah, Al-Mahweet, Sa’adah, and Amran tribes.
The storage of such huge weapons has no logic meaning of being proud, moreover, it has made Yemen a hot center point for permanent fighting between the people in all situations over nonsense reasons for long different periods of the history. Many overseers agree that Yemen is the most known country in the world for the smuggling of weapons and mainly exporters, even to present today there are still countryside weapon markets surrounding and spreading to the capital city of Sana’a and other main cities and this is the best evidence of an environment with the color of blood and gun powder.
In most of the Yemen Arab Republic areas, the weapon itself, the culture of its ownership and the carrying of the weapon in all situations and occasions is a part of the everyday Yemeni persona; the Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh himself emphasized during an interview that there is a special importance in the weapon culture, moreover, it will not be paralleled with anything else except the Khat chewing culture as described in the same Yemeni dictionary, where these together conformed the belonging identity to the culture of ignorance, division, and hopelessness which made Yemen far from the areas of development and of its clear surrounding extremity on all different levels. Many Arab intelligents have called Yemen the country of ignorance with weapons.
There is no possibility to put an end to the weapon trade or even limitations to its widespread in any period of the history of consecutive Yemeni rulers, when the talks about the laws and regulations of organized weapon trade and issuing its licenses not its prohibition was present on the newspaper headlines and public meetings, it became apparent that this trade was extremely increasing, because the culture of weapons is strongly embedded in this social culture which made the environment of the state of prohibiting and organizing weapon carrying an impossible task for various reasons that cannot be accounted for. The main reason is the willing of the authority to plant this culture through its practices, from time to time, the number of weapon traders from the sheiks of the tribes and the Yemeni state power figures that belong to political and military officials has increased.
A lot of accurate information displays that there are a lot of weapon traders who depend on using actual documents, protocols and agreements of the Ministries of Defense and Interior of the Yemeni Government to import weapons from Eastern and other known weaponry exporting nations to buy and transport weapons to their personal trade stores using the official Yemeni Government means of transportation such as the state airports, sea ports, and other border points. This situation is widely recognized throughout the public in this country drowned with corruption, poverty, and diseases, which further open this situation to cause mayhem, riots, divisions and sectoral and tribal warfare as a matter which made the Yemeni environment rich to produce terrorism groups and militias which are exported to other regional and world areas….
During the periods of clashes which followed the coup d’etat against Imam Bader, the last Imam of the Zaidi Yemeni Mitoukali Kingdom, many of the fighting tribes from both sides at that time, seized a huge amount of stored weapons of light, mid-sized and heavy weaponry which were brought to Sana’a by the Egyptian forces. Also in the 1994 War-proclaimed by Ali Abdullah Saleh regime against the land of the Southern state, the tribe had its role and place in the accounts of the invasion and the movement for the head of Sana’a’s regime to occupy it. This made the tribe fortunate to get the support and armed with different kinds of weaponry . The matter which produced a strategic alliance for the war tribes along with the terrorism and extremism forces and Al-Zindani militias from one side and the Yemeni President’s regime and army from the other side, and after the arrival of these tribes and militias to the South during the war, they headed in vast groups to the weapons stores and the Southern army camps to block and seize it. It reached the point that even heavy weapons such as artilleries and some kind of rockets and heavy machineries and tanks were also seized. These weapons are still in the hands of these war tribes and Al-Zindani militias to this present day.
Along the history of the periods of the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen which were the periods that witnessed a huge unusual increase of weapons trade and embedding its culture and widely spreading this trade regionally; the weapon has been a big valuable card in his authority policies and practices to feed the tribal clashes and create conflicts between the tribes through providing weapons using different parties to control the situation deeply in the society to trick the tribes that each one of them is closer to the authorities, and this sheikh is the more favorable in getting grants and gifts from the President, thus permanently the authority made of weapons and its trade a material to spark the conflicts and to gain followers together at the same time. Since Ali Abdullah Saleh’s arrival to power, the ties and friendly relations between the ruler and the tribes became strong, the matter which enforced the authority to follow permanent agenda and polices from this kind.
Since Yemen has specified with the weapons and spread its weapons trade locally and to its regional surroundings (African Horn and Saudi Arabia), Saleh’s regime could and under his complete sponsorship of making weapons trade gangs a strong and real reason to feed the terrorism and extremism in Arab regions, such as to Saudi Arabia, where weapons and huge quantities of Yemeni explosive materials were transported to Al-Qaeida sleeping cells through organized mafia supporting terrorist cells activities throughout the Kingdom, the Saudi security forces exposed these realities through many reports and investigations following the aftermath of the terrorist acts and blasts which Saudi Arabia witnessed during the past several years specifically after the September 11th terrorist acts and mainly the terrorist acts against the American Embassy in Riyadh, and also the Somali local wars still depend on the different types of weapons provided by and through Yemen.
Also during the past years, Yemen witnessed many different numerous acts of kidnappings of tourists, diplomats, foreign doctors, and oil company engineers from the heart of the capitol city of Sana’a and from different areas of the country. The last recent event occurred when nine foreigners were kidnapped in Amran, and they are still missing.
As a real result of the spreading of the weapons and its trade, it was easy to notice the consecutive political assassinations which targeted the Southern political leaders during the time that followed the dead unification agreement and the last one which targeted and still the Southern peaceful movement activities, and because of this weapons trade the circle of clashes and wars between local tribes and various social groups, which have a strong sense of beliefs and tribal and sectoral values and belonging, greatly widened. The situation is the state of adversarial religious groups all over Yemeni areas (North), and some of these fighting occur inside the Government properties and institutions and the courts, and also inside Mosques between Imams, who belong to more than one extremist orientation and adversarial religious groups, to control the Mosques. This reached the point where in more than one event, the Mosques were blasted, which occurred under the planning, sponsorship and supervision of the authorities, even getting directly involved in a way or another. This occurs at a time in which the country is in great turmoil and an unstable condition on all levels.
While the Yemeni case is adversarial, unstable and full of oppositions that destroy the values of harmony and social stabilization, which was and still in permanent insecure situations and official negligence to absent the regime and the law and made the details of life permanently in this point of the world to a bloody and tragic platform. So we are, as organizations and activist figures fighting against terrorism, try to reject the culture of producing and exporting terrorism in all its materialistic and ideological tools. Based on the interests of the people and the nations, we believe of the necessity at this specific time that the government of the United States of America should review the security agreement in regard to these atrocious realities, in which the terrorism producing and supplying parties had been uncovered, and we are hoping that these ties of the United States of America with its allies to revise this real and serious partnership in fighting terrorism specifically with the regimes that had been proven that they stand as background supporters and sponsors of terrorism with all its policies, practices and possibilities in the region, foremost the regime of Sana’a.
During more than one debate interview and newspaper articles, the Southern President, Ali Salem Al-Beadh, emphasized his responsibilities about the insured information of the Yemeni regime and its head in their involvement of the producing of Al-Qaeda terrorism and he clearly and confidently points that Al-Qaeda launch its policies and plans from the Presidential palace from the Yemeni capital city Sana’a! We are here logically asking, as many others have done so before in their writings and initiatives, about terrorism and its background, its environment and supporters:
- Can a state that encourages the carrying of weapons fight terrorism?
- Can a state with open doors and windows for weapon trade and smuggling fight terrorism?
- Can a state with children carrying weapons fight terrorism?
-Is it possible for a regime allying with all extremist groups and teams all over the Yemeni regional territories can be confident to be a real partner on fighting terrorism?
- Is it believable and logical that we see those who supply the weapons trade gangs and mafia and allow them free movement importing all kinds of weaponry through the state’s official sea ports and border points, call themselves terrorism fighters?
- Is it possible to picture that the official Western administrations, in particular the American administration, have an absent knowledge of the details of these occurring realities…
- If we do not react quickly towards containing this problem in its reality and revising the vital partnership on fighting terrorism with serious and straightforward regional partners, otherwise, the talks on fighting terrorism and edifying young people, will remain empty of all meanings, with this, terrorism will remain official terrorism, permanent strong roots and an authentic culture.
representative of the Yemeni- American-anti-Terrorism center -in Yemen
