Yemen Fact Nugget of the Day Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

...there's a lot right smack dab at the end of today's NYT article.

Some of that intertwining has happened because President Saleh has been encouraging a radical Sunni Islamist group to help fight the Shiite Houthi rebellion in the north. Some analysts say they believe that movement is also feeding the support for Al Qaeda. Mr. Saleh has also used jihadis who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq against the Houthis, as he used some of them to fight in the south during the country’s 1994 civil war.

Mr. Faqih warned that Mr. Saleh must seek political ways to calm the rebellions or risk creating even more recruits for Al Qaeda. The war against the Houthis is pushing them toward some kind of alliance with Al Qaeda, despite religious differences, much as Shiite Iran backs the Sunni Hamas movement in Gaza, he said.

...so ALL of the major issues facing Yemen are more interconnected than I had previously thought.

Yemen Fact Nugget of the Day

A useful point to understand that I had heard alluded to on TV but finally found in print in the NYT today.

Al Qaeda has also declared support for the secessionist protests in the south and is thought to be strong in southern Abyan Province, which gives it access to the sea.

...so it looks like 2 of the 3 major issues facing Sanaa are more interconnected than I had previously understood.

First Af-Pak, now Yem-Som?

Just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way...

Strategic-thinking type folks began talking about the concurrent conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan as the "Af-Pak" problem last year because of their interconnected nature, the porous borders and the broad Pashtun belt that ignores them, and the ability of insurgent groups to freely cross those borders.

It looks like, given two recent news items, that it may be useful to start thinking about the conflicts in Yemen and Somalia in a similar manner.

Item 1:

Senior leaders of the Shabab rebels promised Friday to send their fighters beyond Somalia to Yemen and wherever jihad beckoned.

In a military ceremony here, where the rebels publicly showed off hundreds of new recruits, Sheik Muktar Robow, a senior rebel official, said the group would “send fighters to Yemen to assist our brothers.”

Of course, the Af-Pak parallel isn't perfect here by any means. First, Somalia and Yemen are separated by the Gulf of Aden, not the porous border along the Durand Line. How would Shabab get fighters there? The group doesn't have a navy and there is an international anti-piracy task force sitting off the coast of Somalia. Scooping up dumbass jihadists floating across the Gulf seems to a great task for those sailors to engage in.

Here, some folks would probably say, "they'll get the pirates to take them!"--the much feared but never realized piracy-terrorism nexus. The pirates may be a lot of things, but dumb doesn't seem to be one of them, especially given their current run of success. They have a good thing going right now, and getting wrapped up with Shabab would be a great way to turn up the heat on themselves way more than they would want.

Second, while Shabab controls swaths of the south in Somalia, it seems to have been pretty unsuccessful in dislodging forces of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and its protectors, the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM, from Mogadishu. Further, the rise of pro-government, moderate Islamic Sufi militias has slowed Shabab's roll to some extent as well. Why would you send valuable fighters across the sea when you haven't even established your caliphate in Somalia yet?

One other issue here, and this may have just been bad reporting by the Times, is that Shabab doesn't actually say in the article what they would be doing in Yemen. As Unleashing Chiang has pointed out before, there are a number of flashpoints in Yemen at the moment. One would assume that, given that Shabab is considered an "AQ affiliate," they would go there to assist AQAP, but maybe they mean the Houthis or the southerners. Or maybe Shabab doesn't really know what it's talking about and just wanted to gain some cache from the current media focus surrounding Yemen following the underwear bomber plot?

Which brings us to the second item in the Yem-Som saga:

Yemeni rebels have sent arms in the last few days to support Somalia's Islamist al Shabaab insurgents, the Somali defence minister said on Saturday...

"Yemeni rebels sent two boats loaded with military logistics, light weapons, Kalashnikovs and ammunition, and hand grenades -- which is fuelling the flames in a country already burning," Sheikh Yusuf Mohammad Siad told Reuters by phone.

The big problem with this article, and again, it could just be bad reporting by Reuters, is that it doesn't specify which "Yemeni rebels" we're talking about. I would assume AQAP, but there is more than one rebel group operating in Yemen. Further, who needs help here? Why is Shabab saying they're going to send help to Yemen when they, according to this article, seem to need help from Yemen. And, again, why would AQIP, who is currently under what seems to be fairly relentless attack from Sanaa (backed by the US) or the Houthis, who are at war with Sanaa backed by Riyadh, be worried about sending arms shipments to Somalia?

Yemen: More Questions Than Answers

So, how prescient was Unleashing Chiang? Just a day after this blog highlights the problems the US faces in dealing with Yemen, the Fruit of the Loom Bomber puts Yemen squarely in the national debate and Americans start to take notice.

So I've been reading the new spurt of articles out on Yemen and thinking more about how the US should approach Yemen in the past couple of days. Some thoughts and questions below.

1.) My last post stated that Islamic Jihad of Yemen was the main AQ-affiliate in Yemen, but I have since learned that IJoY has merged with the Saudi branch of AQ to form Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The group has its roots in a 2006 jailbreak of many AQ members from a jail in Sanaa.

2.) The northern Houthi rebellion is often described as a Shi'ite minority group fighting against a Sunni central government. This requires sort of a "yes, but..." President Saleh and many other leading figures are actually members of the Zaydi sect of Shi'ism--practiced by the Houthis--as well. According to the Jamestown Foundation, the Zaydi sect probably has more in common theologically with Yemeni Sunnis than with the Ayatollahs in Qom or Tehran.

3.) And what exactly is Tehran's role here? Both Sanaa and Riyadh claim that Tehran is giving support and assistance to the Houthis. This certainly doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility, given the Iranian regime's history of supporting Shi'ite groups working against Sunni regimes. But I haven't seen much actual evidence. There is, of course, clear evidence that Saudi Arabia is interfering on behalf of the Yemeni government.

Stratfor is more sure than I am. They even claim that the recent Iranian deployment of ships to the Gulf of Aden was actually in support of the Houthis and was not actually sent as a pirate deterrent, as was claimed:

While Somali pirates may be a security issue in the Gulf of Aden, this is not the only reason for the deployment. Iran is engaged in an escalating proxy battle with Saudi Arabia in the Saudi-Yemeni borderland, where Iran has been arming a Shiite Houthi rebellion to threaten Saudi Arabia’s underbelly. Iran appears to be using the naval assets to protect its supply lines to the Houthi rebels.

Though there is no shortage of weapons in Yemen, Iran has ensured that the Houthis remain well-stocked. STRATFOR sources have reported that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) are training Houthis on how to produce improvised explosive devices for use in their insurgent campaign against Saudi and Yemeni forces.

According to STRATFOR sources, the traditional supply route Iran uses to arm the Houthis starts at Asab Harbor on the Eritrean coast. IRGC officers buy and transport weapons in Somalia and Eritrea, and then load them onto ships at the harbor. The ships then cross the Red Sea northward to Salif on the Yemeni coast. From Salif, the supplies pass through Hajjah and Huth in northern Yemen before reaching Saada, where the Houthi rebels are concentrated.

This route, however, has become more problematic for the Iranians ever since Saudi naval forces deployed three warships along the Red Sea coast of northern Yemen on Nov. 12 to interdict the arms, though STRATFOR is still examining Saudi interdiction tactics and the quality of the intelligence used to identify arms shipments. This traditional route is still being used to transport light arms, but given the Saudi deployment, Iran has shifted to a longer route that also begins at Asab Harbor, but then snakes around the heel of the Arabian Peninsula in the Gulf of Aden before reaching Shaqra on the southern Yemeni coast. From Shaqra, the supplies go to Marib in central Yemen, on to Baraqish and finally reach the Saada Mountains. Throughout the supply chain, bribes are paid to various tribes to facilitate the arms shipments.

The IRGC also has been involved in ferrying Hezbollah fighters to Yemen to support the Houthi insurgency. A STRATFOR source claims that around 60 of Hezbollah’s fighters have died in the conflict thus far. Their corpses were sent by boat to Asab Harbor in Eritrea, from which the IRGC flies them to Damascus. From the Syrian capital, the bodies are transported by land to the fighters’ home villages for burial.

Is an Iranian-Eritrean-Houthi-Hizbollah axis forming (can there even be a 4-pronged axis?)? Who knows?

4.) How intertwined are the 3 different problems I addressed in my previous post in Yemen: Al Qaeda, the Houthi Rebellion, & the southern secessionist movement? I really have no clue. Some expert on the teevee said that there were "jihadists" leading the southern movement. I can't imagine, though, that AQ would be much interested in helping the Houthis given their tendency to mass murder Shi'ites whenever possible.

5.) Can the U.S. aid Sanaa in the fight against AQ without indirectly helping them against the Houthis or southerners? It certainly seems that military training, equipment, and aid is fungible and that all of these skills and resources can be redirected against the regime's other opponents. Are we okay with this? Is there any way to avoid this? Do the benefits of attacking AQ outweigh the costs of propping up the Saleh regime against its domestic opponents?

Learning from Our Mistakes: Navigating Yemen

I'm gonna stick around the same region as yesterday for today's international security post...

Lots of news coming out Yemen recently as the US seems to be becoming drawn into that country to an increasing extent.--which is often lumped in with Somalia as something of a "future Af/Pak" region. Recent news reports have indicated that President Obama has personally issued orders for US forces to assist Yemeni forces with strikes and raids against the AQ-affiliate there, Islamic Jihad of Yemen. And today, news came out that a Yemeni air strike against that group may have killed the radical Yemeni cleric that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hassan, was in contact with. In November, there were claims that the US signed a military agreement with Sanaa, but this wasn't confirmed by US government sources.

The beleaguered Saleh regime in Yemen may be in the most difficult position right now of any government in the world. It faces a 3-pronged attack:

1. The Houthi rebellion by members of the Zaidi sect of Shi'ism probably constitutes the biggest threat to the stability of the state right now. Recently, Saudi Arabia seems to have stepped in to support the Saleh regime against the Houthis, even by conducting air strikes across the border.

2. The periodic push for secession by southerners has re-ignited recently--South Yemen was formerly the only Marxist republic in the Middle East prior to reunification in 1990, followed by a brief civil war in '94. This has not devolved into armed conflict, but secessionist rallies have seen violence by state security forces.

3. The ongoing efforts of Islamic Jihad in Yemen.

Yesterday's post outlined 3 major lessons from US policy failures in East Africa:

the War on Terror mentality, the Bush Administration's "with us our against us" mentality, and the too-close relationship with Ethiopia

How can we apply these to the situation in Yemen in order to avoid creating the kinds of problems we have in East Africa? Some thoughts...

the War on Terror mentality, the Bush Administration's "with us our against us" mentality

With respect to this issue, I think it is best that the US needs to a) work with Sanaa only to the extent to which our interests coincide and b) realize that Yemen needs us way more than we need Yemen. As far as coinciding interests, of the three big threats to Sanaa, the only one that seems to be of any concern to the US is the third--the AQ-affiliate operating there. I don't see any compelling reason why we would need to help fight the Houthis or help Sanaa suppress the southern unrest. This would mean any assistance provided to the Yemeni forces should be clearly targeted toward the fight against Islamic Jihad in Yemen, if possible. Second, we have to realize that any one of these threats is a way bigger danger to the Saleh regime than to the US and our allies. To often we have let small client states hold our policies hostage because we inflate the dangers of these sort of things.

the too-close relationship with Ethiopia

I think either Sanaa or Riyadh could stand in for Ethiopia here. Just because Yemen is cooperating with us, as did Ethiopia, is no reason to unconditionally support all of their policies. The Saleh regime isn't particularly democratic or humane. We can leverage our assistance to try to improve this, but, again, there is no compelling reason to support the campaign against the Houthis or the southerners. And the Saudis may be important strategic allies, but our security and economic relationship doesn't mean we have to support their meddling in northern Yemen.