Trump, Be Warned, Yemenis, Like Vietnamese, Afghans Will Not Give Up
Saeed
Naqvi
President Trump, who promised to end wars and never start one, has travelled 8,000 miles to bomb Yemen. If he continues, Yemen will be his Vietnam and Afghanistan. In many ways they are similar countries, populated by dogged fighters. Since the President and his team know not a jot about its history, sociology, topography, herewith, a brief note from my travels.
At a height of 8,500 ft, the old city of Sanaa, capital of Yemen, has a magical air of leisure, its maze of lanes, lined with multistoried mud and brick mansions, decorated with exquisite mosaic.
But the peace of Sanaa disguises the storm clouds of conflict, every bit as
complex and dramatic as Afghanistan. The reason why Yemen conflicts do not
dominate our TV screens is easily explained. The theatres of conflict in
Saa’da, for instance bordering Saudi Arabia, are bare, steep and craggy
mountains, suited more for rock climbers than TV crews.
That Wahabi rulers from adjoining Saudi Arabia in the 19th century
destroyed Najaf, the Shrine of Ali, and Karbala, gives clues of the theological
Saudi-Yemeni conflict which remains unresolved to this day.
How did a system of Imams find root in Yemen? Prophet Mohammad’s son-in-law,
Hazrat Ali is the first Imam for the Shias. Sunnis revere him as the fourth
caliph. Somewhere there lies the roots of Shia-Sunni tussle. Ali was sent to
Sanaa by the Prophet as Qazi or Judge.
Ali’s oldest son, Hasan, is the second Imam. Younger son, Hussain, the martyr of Karbala is the 3rd. Hussain’s son, Zain-ul-Abedin was the only surviving male relative of Hussain at Karbala because he was ailing and could not go into battle.
He recovered and became the fourth Imam. His two sons Baqar Ibne Ali and Zaid Ibne Ali differed in their response to the Battle of Kabala. Baqar’s was the more Gandhian approach. He believed that martyrdom of Imam Hussain and his family at Karbala had already spurred a massive revival of Islam. Zaid thought the Omayyad had to be defeated. Zaid’s follower set up their Imamate in Yemen, much the more civilized part of the Arab peninsula.
Post Ottomans, Yemen remained two countries, north Yemen with a population of 20 million, with its capital at Sanaa. South Yemen, with a population of four million had its capital at Aden strategically local at the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.
The British therefore held onto it tenaciously until Arab socialism swept the Arab world under Nasser. The socialist ferver ousted the British in 1967. In the context of the cold war, raging then, Southern Yemen came under Soviet influence.
Here let me insert another detail even on the pain of complicating the
narrative. When the last Imam Yahya, was under pressure from the Ottomans he
bargained with the Saudis, his northern neighbour for peace. Under this
bargain, two districts of Nigran and Jizan were given to the Saudis on a sort
of renewable lease.
According to Dr. Nasr al-Naqeeb, a well known Sanaa intellectual, the two
districts are “oil rich”. Otherwise why would the Saudis accept two Shia
dominated Yemeni towns next door to the militant Shias called the Houthis. Houthis
derives from name of their leader Malik as Houthi.
Now, let us pick up the narrative chronologically from 1980s after the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan. The US, Saudis and Zia-ul-Haq started manufacturing
extreme Islamists in countless Madarsas in Pakistan for which that country is
paying the price to this day.
For Prince Naif bin Abdel Aziz, Saudi Interior Minister, the Pakistani Madarsas
were not enough. Thoroughbred Arabs had to be trained in militant Islamism too.
Just as the Afghan Mujahideen would expel the Soviets from Afghanistan, their
counterparts would strive to unsettle pro Soviet Nasserism in Aden.
What better place to open training camps than in neighbouring Yemen,
particularly since South Yemen was close to the very Soviets the militants were
being trained to oust out of Afghanistan. Yemen President Saleh’s half brother
Ali Mohsin al Ahmar took local charge of all the training camps. Look at the
concept: bases for Islamic extremism would check wherever the Soviets reared
their heads. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the picture has changed
radically. It is this Arab component which is at the heart of what is called Al
Qaeda as different from the Pushtoon dominated Taleban.
In 1990, therefore the South lost its principal Soviet support with the fall of
the Soviet Union. The South could no longer resist unification. Saddam Hussain
played a leading role in unification of Yemen in 1990.
Since Saleh, Yemani strongman in Sanaa at the time was beholden to Saddam
Hussain, he opposed the wars on Iraq bringing him on a side opposed to the
Saudis.
Taking advantage in a chill in Riadh-Sanaa relations, the Shia’s (Houthis)
bordering Saudi Arabia stepped up their “Shiaism” on both sides of the border. This
offended the Saudis. The decade old Saudi-Yemen war destroyed Yemen but never defeated
the Houthis. This despite air and intelligence support from the US and UK. Take
note, President Trump.
There were once reports, put out by US intelligence, that 400 Hezbollah
fighters were, at one stage, present to fight alongside the Shias. These
fighters have since been withdrawn. In any case, there have been atleast five
full fledged wars against Sanaa since 2002.
International pressure caused the two sides to sign a six-point peace
agreement. One of the points was that the Shias “will refrain from attacking
Saudi territories”. This led to a kind of peace which I witnessed.
In the old town of Sanaa people sat around in circles chewing Qat, a bunch of
leaves, a sort poor-man’s non-addictive cockaine (imagine paan with an
intoxicating edge), spending their days in this legally sanctioned national
habit, very easily oblivious of the storms which in their collective memories
have hovered over them for as long as they can remember. The threat of raining “hellfire”
is one such President Trump.
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