Trump, Be Warned, Yemenis, Like Vietnamese, Afghans Will Not Give Up

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 19^th 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 3^rd. 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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