SPEAKING
FREELY Yemen on brink of sectarian
war By Mohamed Al-Azaki
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
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SAADA, Yemen - He
heard the military helicopters coming, Dr Ali
al-Wadiee told Seattle Times in al-Ruzamat, a
small village amid the volcanic mountains of
Yemen's remote north, near the border with Saudi
Arabia.
"There were several loud
explosions," he said, but the doctor
didn't know how many
helicopters dropped their payloads in al-Naqa'ah
on the Yemeni side of the border.
In Saada
province, 240 kilometers north of the capital
Sana'a, nearly 700 people have been killed as
fighting reignited in late January between the
Yemeni army and a Zaidi Shi'ite insurgent group
called Al Shabab Al Moumin (the Youthful
Believers) - formed by now-deceased tribal chief
Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi - after the rebels
threatened to kill members of a small Jewish
community in Saada if they did not leave the
country within 10 days.
Wadiee was present
in a small government medical center with four
health workers when more than 100 dead were
received in a period of three days. "About 90 of
the dead were in the Yemeni army, and the others
were in the Shi'ite insurgents," he said.
At the outskirts of al-Ruzamat, more than
10km south of al-Naqa'ah, a metal sign hanging
from a shiny new chain reads: "Warning: Access to
this area is forbidden for security reasons - the
Yemeni army."
The current conflict
represents the third government crackdown since
2004 in Saada province, where the anti-government
Shi'ite insurgency started out as a small domestic
protest against Yemeni policy. Rebel clerics have
denounced the government's ties with the United
States and demanded an end to its gradual shift to
Western-style social and democratic reforms.
While government forces seem to have
emerged victorious from the latest fighting - they
recently crushed the main rebel strongholds in the
Razih and al-Shagaf areas of al-Naqa'ah -
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the new leader of this
Shi'ite insurgency, threatens to widen the circle
of armed confrontations to areas outside Saada.
Houthi said his group - hundreds of armed
rebels remain unaccounted for - will continue
fighting the government if it doesn't cut its
alliances with the US and Israel.
The
government has received strong US military support
to curb terrorism in the region. Al-Thawra, a
government-funded newspaper in Sana'a, reported
last September 26 that US Ambassador Thomas C
Krajeski had declared Washington's support for the
Yemeni government in its confrontation with
Houthi's insurgency.
The Hezbollah-style
rebel group was formed three years ago by Shi'ite
cleric Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, who was
killed in September 2004 while fighting under the
slogan: "God the Greatest ... Death to America and
Israel ...Victory for Islam and Muslims."
The government is determined to crush the
uprising. But many observers worry that it may not
be wholly able to overcome Houthi's group, which
aims to install an Iranian-style Islamic
theocracy.
"They refused all offers by the
government to disarm and form a political party to
live in peace," said Abdullah al-Faqih, a
professor at Sana'a University. "I think the
rebels have this time lost all grounds for
negotiations with the government."
To
isolate the rebels, explained Faqih, Yemeni
authorities have blocked communications, including
mobile-phone services, in the restive northern
province. "But this has not necessarily helped the
government as much as it is impossible for the
rebels to overthrow the government and install
their Islamic law," he said.
Observers are
also concerned that hundreds of anti-Western
insurgents could strike out at foreigners and
Western interests in the country. This month the
Interior Ministry temporarily tightened security
around foreign embassies against possible
terrorist attacks.
"Here in Yemen, tribe,
religion and weapons are the most dangerous things
in the hands of tribesmen against the government,"
said Abdul-Elah Haidar, a researcher on terrorism
affairs at the Saba News Agency and regular
columnist for London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi. "And
when a group combines the three, it can easily
become a substantial political force."
This escalation of violence has been a
frightening setback for the Yemeni government,
which had rigidly controlled the threats from
al-Qaeda and was beginning to benefit from the
cautious return of tourists and foreign investors.
Lacking large oil reserves or any modern
manufacturing facilities, Yemen is particularly
vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The bombing
attacks that targeted US- and Canadian-owned oil
facilities in the eastern provinces of Marib and
Hadarmout last September 15, the October 2000
bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, and the October
2002 bombing of the French supertanker Limberg
have cost the government millions of dollars as
insurance premiums for ship owners have soared,
causing many of them to refuse to dock at Yemen's
ports.
This guerrilla style of war and
terrorist attacks has frightened off thousands of
mainly European tourists who come to admire the
country's unique ancient mud-brick cities and
amazing landscape.
Most Yemenis believe
that Iran backs the Shi'ite Muslim rebels in the
north of the Sunni-dominated country, pointing out
that the minority Zaidi sect makes up about a
fifth of Yemen's population.
President Ali
Abdullah Saleh said in January that some countries
were supplying Houthi's group with weapons and
financial support, but he did not name them.
Tariq al-Shami, spokesman for Saleh's
ruling party, the General People's Congress (GPC),
said Iranian security officials had told Yemen
that some Iranian religious institutions were
supporting the rebels, but they added that
Houthi's group was not backed by Tehran. "There
are Iranian religious institutions which are
providing support to the Shi'ite insurgency in
Yemen," Shami recently posited on the GPC's
website.
Last March, Yemen freed more than
600 Shi'ite rebels as part of an amnesty to end
two years of clashes that had killed several
hundred soldiers and rebels. But "the Houthis have
used a period of truce with the state to buy heavy
weapons using foreign support money", Shami said.
The clashes in Saada are causing negative
consequences at the national level. "Many houses
have already been destroyed, students no longer go
to school, agricultural farms have been damaged
and work has come to a standstill," said Khalid
al-Anesi, who runs a non-governmental organization
for defending rights and freedoms.
Military sources say Houthi's three-year
fight against the government has cost the country
an estimated US$800 million, with extensive damage
to property.
The government, however,
faces other unresolved problems in that many
extreme religious groups refuse to operate within
a democratic system that they see as invalid,
explained Haidar: "Al-Houthi's group was trying to
copy Iraq's sectarian strife in Yemen."
Sunni Muslims are a majority in Yemen, a
nation of 19 million. It is the ancestral homeland
of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. However,
Houthi and his supporters are not linked to
al-Qaeda.
Mohamed Al-Azaki is an
independent Yemeni journalist and researcher on
Islamic militants at the Saba Center for Political
and Strategic Studies based in Sana'a.
(Copyright 2007 Mohamed Al-Azaki.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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