The Battle for the Arab Spring

by Lin Noueihed

  A Failing State

  The tribal power struggle in the north had distracted and divided the strength of government military forces, weakening the state's already precarious control over many other areas of the country. While the Ahmars and the Salehs fought each other in the suburbs of Sana'a, the breakdown in law and order elsewhere persuaded a number of other powerful groups that now was the time to play their hand. ‘Sana'a is weaker, and there is a sense that the rest of the country is not looking towards the capital but rather towards self-government,’ was how Ali Saif Hassan, a Yemeni political analyst and activist, saw it in September.16 Many signs suggested that the Arab Spring could trigger the disintegration of the country.

  Among those with a hand to play were Islamic militant groups, operating in what were now increasingly lawless and opaque southern regions. The size, influence and capabilities of these groups remained unclear, but some AQAP-linked individuals could certainly boast an impressive portfolio of both successful and failed exploits. They included the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, which killed seventeen US sailors, and a 2002 assault on the French oil tanker Limburg. In 2006, some twenty-three Al-Qaeda-linked militants, several of whom were involved in planning the USS Cole bombing, tunnelled out of a prison in Sana'a.

  In September 2008, AQAP had claimed responsibility for a bomb at the US embassy in Sana'a that killed sixteen people, all Yemenis, and had also organized several fatal attacks on European tourists inside Yemen. The group admitted to planning the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day in 2009, attempting to kill the British ambassador in Sana'a in April 2010, and planting a series of explosive devices on cargo planes destined for the United States in October of the same year. It had also dispatched a suicide bomber to Riyadh in August 2009 in a failed attempt to assassinate Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's counter-terrorism chief and the son of the man who would become the kingdom's crown prince in October 2011.17

  To Western eyes, one of the most high-profile and dangerous of the Islamic extremists in Yemen was Anwar al-Awlaki, a cleric who had lived much of his life in the United States, held American citizenship and spoke fluent English. Among those who claimed to have been inspired by Awlaki were Nidal Hussein, the US army officer who shot dead thirteen people at the Fort Hood base in Texas in November 2009, and Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani who planned a failed car-bomb attack in Times Square in May 2010. Awlaki had earned the dubious honour of being the first US citizen ever to be placed on the CIA's hit list, and his killing by a US drone in September 2011 certainly mattered more to Washington than it did to most Yemenis.

  It had long suited Saleh to tar as many people as possible, especially in the south, with the brush of Islamic militancy. While that label probably applied to a relatively small hardcore group, the breakdown of centralized military power over 2011 appeared to have emboldened them. Most accounts from the confused frontlines reported widespread clashes between Islamic fighters and government forces.

  In April a senior member of AQAP, Adel al-Abab, had given an interview in which he claimed that the group, which he said was also known as Ansar al-Sharia, or Partisans of Islamic Law, had made gains in many provinces throughout the south, and was urging fighters to take the battle to the Houthis in the north.18 In May, reports claimed that Islamic fighters had taken over the southern town of Zinjibar, defeating central government forces and disrupting the whole region. Many Zinjibar residents fled, some painting a grim picture of the town they had left behind, characterized by ‘destroyed homes and shuttered shops, with dogs eating corpses on the streets’.19 By June, according to the UN, the conflict across the southern Abyan governorate had created 20,000 new Yemeni refugees as confused and sporadic fighting persisted.20 And in September, AQAP claimed a suicide bombing that had the previous month destroyed a building held by Houthis in al-Matamma, a town in the northern province of al-Jawf, killing at least fourteen people.

  There were also accusations that Saleh had deliberately ceded some towns and cities to reinforce the perception – to the outside world, at least – that without him, Yemen would become another Somalia. This was a tried and tested strategy, and one holding mainly financial incentives. Security cooperation and financial support from Washington had intensified sharply in the aftermath of 9/11 during the hunt for suspected Al-Qaeda militants based in Yemen. Those interests were aligned closely with the Al Saud in Riyadh, who were equally concerned about threats to their own power. In 2010, US secretary of state Robert Gates had approved an increase of official US military aid to Yemen from $67 million to $150 million, in addition to an unknown sum for covert assistance. In the same year, King Abdullah paid Saleh a grant of $700 million, despite opposition from some of the Saudi monarch's siblings. In the context of dwindling oil revenues, these handouts had become a vital source of income for the Yemeni president. To keep receiving them, he had to convince his foreign allies that AQAP did indeed pose a serious threat.

  The lack of central control had also allowed the southern movement to gain traction. Ever since reunification, many in the south bitterly resented what they felt was a deliberate marginalization by the north. In the mid-2000s, a range of groups including civil society organizations and professional associations formed an umbrella entity called Al-Hirak Al-Jnoubi, or the Southern Movement. They had different ideas about what exactly the south should be, and how to achieve their various aspirations, but their broad general demands included greater local autonomy, a more equal distribution of state resources and better access to benefits and jobs. Saleh's regime had responded with a mix of repression and dialogue that ultimately proved fruitless and, if anything, convinced southerners that working within the framework of national unity could not produce the results they wanted.

  ‘The civil war was the referendum,’ had been Saleh's response to those calling for a public poll on southern independence. Clashes, arrests and pro-secession protests had intensified in 2009 and 2010 but the movement lacked unity and, critically, any real support from the outside world.21 But Saleh still took it seriously enough to ask Saudi Arabia and Oman to extradite exiled senior leaders of the PDRY, including a former president, for allegedly stirring up sentiment that undermined Yemen's stability.

  While the first few months of 2011 had seen some degree of cooperation between Hirak activists and the broader protest movement in the north, the southern interest groups had reverted back to their own specific demands over the summer and autumn. Many had lost faith that the protest movement in the north was genuinely supportive of southern independence, or even a federalist system, while disagreements with the official political parties over how the southern issue would be handled and prioritized in any post-Saleh era had also caused disillusionment. With events in Sana'a descending into a power struggle between rival northern tribes, southern activists became increasingly convinced that their fate would not necessarily be tied to what happened in the capital.

  By the early summer, South Yemeni flags had already begun to fly above buildings in Aden as secessionists became bolder. In Sana'a, a group calling itself the ‘Sons of the Southern Provinces in Sana'a’ met in April, attracting more than 600 people to discuss plans for separatism or federalism.22 Senior figures from the old PDRY, now exiled abroad, also became increasingly active as they saw a chance to press home their cause. They included the former president Ali Salim al-Beedh, who had been a proponent of unification in 1990 but was later exiled by Saleh after the failed secession attempt in 1994. Al-Beedh had since become one of the most vocal supporters of full independence for the south, but his views were not shared by other influential figures in the movement. In May, a group of southern supporters had met in Cairo and concluded that the best solution would be a two-state federal system, each with its own parliament and autonomy over internal affairs. That idea was backed by Ali Naser Mohammed and Haydar al-Attas, both former senior politicians from the PDRY, who argued that it was a more realistic goal than total autonomy.

  But th
e absence of a clear, united stand by Hirak and the various strands it represents has doubtless limited its ability. The group has no strong organization or central leadership hierarchy, and many of its best-known figures have exhibited conflicting loyalties and shifting allegiances. The amount of leverage that its former leaders have on the ground was unclear in 2011, while the southern movement in general was an assortment of various groups often with different objectives. While the biggest divide lay between separatists and federalists, many south Yemenis simply want general improvements in their living standards rather than greater political representation. The support for different groups within Hirak varies from place to place around the south, and in many it appears to overlap with local tribal loyalties that take precedence above all else.

  Those preferring separatism to federalism faced an uphill struggle for several reasons. First, the military forces they could muster would not be powerful enough to win any all-out civil war unless the army fell apart into different tribal and regional groups. Second, the largest political parties in the north, including Islah, did not support southern independence and would have little interest in devolving any more power to the south than they had to, even though some influential figures in the north do recognize that the current system is unsustainable. Third, there is little obvious foreign backing for the southern independence bid. Saudi support for Saleh had remained robust throughout the year, although Riyadh's hosting of several exiled PDRY leaders does suggest some hedging of bets. Neither the UK – the south's former colonial power – nor the United States had openly indicated any support for separation by the end of 2011.

  Another thorny issue in the southern question is Yemen's energy resources, which despite being rapidly depleted are nonetheless the financial underpinning of the state. They pose a geographic conundrum, with some oilfields straddling the pre-1990 borders between north and south and the majority of them located in southern areas themselves. The Yemen LNG project, a natural gas scheme that is the single largest investment in the country, draws on the Block 18 field in the province of Maarib, which also straddles the old borders, but the pipeline travels through south Yemen and its export terminal is on the Arabian Sea. Oil and gas revenues had been the source of several disputes during the 1990 unification process and would likely play the same role in any future debates over federalism or separatism.

  Natural resources also played their part in another symptom of disintegrating state control in 2011. A council in the south-eastern Hadhramawt province, which covers more than a third of Yemen's entire territory, issued a statement in June demanding autonomy for the province as part of a wider federal system. They argued that Hadhramawt, which shares long borders with Oman and Saudi Arabia, should be allowed to maintain its own army and be granted the power to decide how the bulk of local revenues were spent. Hadhramawt is particularly important because of its oilfields, its long coastline and its powerful expatriate community, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where a number of billionaire merchant families – including the Bin Ladens – trace their origins to the Yemeni province. Some Yemenis fear that Riyadh has its own intentions in Hadhramawt, even seeking to annex the governorate or support its independence as a separatist state. Whatever the reality, the statement was another sign of how different regions were exploiting the weakness of Sana'a to assert their own identity and autonomy.

  And this was not only happening in the south. In Sa'ada, which had attracted less international attention in the drama of 2011, the Houthis had been gaining even greater control over their territory and were also pushing outwards into other areas. ‘The Houthis were the untold story of the uprising,’ according to Dr April Alley, who researched several reports on Yemen in 2011 for the International Crisis Group. ‘They have come out of the turmoil as the most internally cohesive group.‘23

  In March 2011, the province had appointed a new governor, Fares Manna, one of Yemen's most prominent arms dealers, while confused, sporadic fighting continued throughout the summer and autumn with attacks by Islamic militants and clashes between the Houthis and tribes loyal to the Islah party and extremist Salafist fighters. As the year closed, these battles seemed to epitomize what had happened in Yemen during the course of the year.

  Unhappy Arabia

  On 21 October, the UN Security Council issued a resolution urging Saleh to accept the terms of the GCC proposal, under which he would step down. Saleh ‘welcomed’ the resolution and reiterated his commitment to stepping down, but said he would only hand over power to ‘safe hands’. After delaying for weeks while the violence continued on the ground, he flew to Riyadh in mid-November and, much to the surprise of many Yemenis and international observers, inked the deal.

  Under its terms, Saleh and his family were granted immunity from any future prosecution. He would retain the title of president, but power would immediately pass to Saleh's deputy, Abed Rabah Mansoor al-Hadi, who would form a new government and hold presidential elections within three months. Compared to the demise of Tunisia's Ben Ali, Libya's Gaddafi or Egypt's Mubarak, Saleh had secured by far the most favourable exit strategy of any Arab leader forced to relinquish power in 2011.

  Youth groups rejected the deal, claiming that their revolution had been hijacked by the other political parties, especially Islah, that would use Saleh's departure to cement their own power. Many also thought that Saleh, while alive and well and in the country, would continue to be president in practice if not in name. A day after the power transfer deal was signed, five protesters in Sana'a were shot dead by what were thought to be gunmen loyal to Saleh's family, while the brutal repression of demonstrators continued in Ta'iz.

  It summed up the impact of the Arab Spring in Yemen, a country already in the grip of wrenching conflicts that shifted shapes several times throughout 2011. The successful removal of Egyptian and Tunisian leaders in January had inspired hundreds of thousands of mainly young, politically literate protesters to march against Saleh's regime in the hope of washing away a rotten political system and building a genuinely democratic new state. And for a time in March and April, Saleh faced a surprisingly united front of disparate interest groups that stuck together in the belief that they could find a solution that benefited all concerned. But that apparent unity did not last long.

  Like the initial protesters in Tunisia or Egypt, who could articulate and galvanize negative sentiment but could not match the Islamists when it came to winning votes, so Yemen's peaceful demonstrators saw their hopes dashed. By breaking the fear barrier and drawing the elite military units into destructive infighting, they had opened up a window of opportunity that many other groups could exploit. Southern activists, who initially agreed to merge their demands with those of protesters in the north, concluded that their goals were best pursued alone, even though they also lacked a single voice. Quasi-autonomous tribes in the provinces saw that a distracted central government created an opportunity to establish an even greater control over their territories. Islamic militants saw a chance to make their own gains across and beyond the south, while Washington exploited the chaos to intensify its aerial strikes on suspected Al-Qaeda operatives that it felt posed an international threat.

  And even if Saleh's exit deal went through, it seemed the reins of power might simply be passed between different elites rather than to the people, as what began as peaceful protests had been transformed into a battle between two powerful, well-armed and highly antagonistic clans.

  European or other Arab powers that had helped remove Gaddafi or promised billions for democratic transitions in Tunisia or Egypt continued to view Yemen through the prism of their own issues, seeking to address the symptoms of the country's problems rather than a lasting solution to its causes. This is perhaps odd, given that Yemen occupies an important strategic location, sitting on one side of the Bab al-Mandab, or ‘Gate of Grief’, a narrow channel that links the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea, the Suez Canal and ultimately the Mediterranean beyond. This is one of the world's most important shi
pping lanes, handling about 4 per cent of global oil production every year, and a vital trade route for the Mediterranean. It is also an obvious target for piracy and terrorism, particularly if cooperation between Yemen's Islamic fighters and those in nearby Somalia creates an arc of instability around the entrance to the Red Sea.

  But Yemen was not Egypt, where Washington could pressure the army to force out Mubarak in the confidence that the country's military would be able to maintain some degree of continuity and stability after his departure. Power was in tribal rather than institutional hands. And Saleh was well aware that the turmoil in other Arab countries would distract the limited means and attention of the international community away from his own crisis.

  If it continues in the same direction, Yemen faces possible disintegration and an essentially non-existent central state. The country could split into north and south once more. Many southern independence groups are unwilling to accept anything less than full independence, and negotiating federalism will be a hugely complicated task given the political and economic issues that are involved. There is no obvious external mediator for Yemen's many conflicts. It took ten months of pressure to persuade Saleh to hand over power, a feat which may prove far easier than negotiating an end to the array of armed conflicts in Yemen, some of which are based on intractable grounds such as sectarianism.

  But the biggest losers will be the silent majority of Yemenis who are far more concerned about finding the money for their next meal, or defending their land, than about reforming central political structures. Already living under an impoverished, weak state that was unable to even provide basic infrastructure, many might ask what had changed by the end of 2011. The sad answer is that everyday life had simply become even more difficult.