Yemenis hold an anti-government demonstration in Sana'a, the capital, on February 11, 2014. (Mohammed Hamoud/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)[/caption]Yemen is an immensely complex place, physically, ethnically, religiously and politically. And yet the violence there is usually simplified to “Shi’a rebels” in the North and “Al-Qaeda” in the South. The many other likely perpetrators are usually ignored, as are the various possible reasons for acts of violence.
War, wrote Carl von Clausewitz, is politics by other means. While the Prussian solider and military theorist was describing general or inter-state war, the concept applies to civil war as well, and even to terrorism. By examining the act—with knowledge of the situation—it is frequently possible to work out the politics of the deed, and thus often the perpetrator.
The Houthis—the infamous “Shi’a rebels”—are indeed Shi’ite (although not the same branch as those found in Iraq and Iran), but so are many members of the government and population of Yemen. Much of the latter—whether nominally Sunni or Shi’ite—are also in revolt, for religious confession is a very minor element of a Yemeni’s identity: far stronger is tribe or town. A careful analyst might thus surmise that there is more to the issue than is encapsulated in a newspaper editor’s simplistic, sectarian headline.
The Houthi movement indeed reflects an aspect of Zaydi revivalism, with its doctrine of the duty to resist an unjust ruler. But equally there is a Salafist aspect—the doctrine of obedience to the temporal ruler—as propagated by Ali Abdullah Saleh, and in particular his henchman, Ali Mohsen. Similarly, there is nationalism: the Houthis cast Dammaj (a Salafist madrasa near Saada) as a foreign-sponsored institution. Like many border people, the Houthis are suspicious and mistrustful of their large, powerful neighbor, Saudi Arabia.
There are even more aspects to this tale, as seen recently in Amran, where the Houthis and their men overran lands—and even homes—held by a scion of the influential Al-Ahmar family, semi-hereditary sheikhs of the Hashid tribal confederation. This is styled as a “Shi’a rebel” versus “tribal forces” fight, and news reports often mention that the Al-Islah Party that has close links to the Ahmar family and the Hashid is the party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Yemen. Yet many Hashid tribesmen are also Zaydi Shi’ites, for Islah encompasses far more than just the Muslim Brotherhood.
Indeed, while the military defeat may be explained in part by the loss of Hashid combat power from the fighting against the Yemeni Armed Forces during 2011, some Hashid tribesmen did not even oppose—and some even sided with—the “Shi’a rebels.” This is for two reasons. First, the Houthis state that their aim is changing the corrupt clique that has bled Yemen dry, not the overthrow of the system. The second reason relates to the remoteness of the “city sheikhs”—politicians who have lived in the capital too long, accruing benefits from the government that did not filter down to their constituents. This dislocation and disenchantment is hardly an unusual symptom globally.
As well as “party politics,” there is also an element of rivalry between a famous tribal house—the Al-Ahmars—and a renowned Hashemite one, the Houthis. Nationalism comes into the conflict here, too, with widespread allegations that the Al-Ahmars have some Saudi support.
Further South, the attribution is also loose. Close quarter assassinations are common in different times and places: some say Judas Iscariot was a member of the terrorist wing of the anti-Roman Zealot party, and carried out such murders; while in Medellin in Colombia, motorcyclists must wear a helmet with their faces visible, so common are drive-by assassinations by killers on motorcycles. In Sana’a and the South, the spate of such murders could be committed by many groups, but it is almost always the Al-Qaeda brand that gets the blame. This is useful to many—the cash-strapped Yemeni government, journalists wanting a sensational story, and even the US security forces in an era of budget sequestration. The recent bus bomb immediately attracted speculation that there was a suicide bomb involved. Yet the presence of a speed bump suggests a roadside bomb, and an ambush by people with military training.
Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh would benefit greatly not only from the appearance of chaos, but also from the reduction of apolitical or opposition-aligned officers. Similar reasons could be ascribed to extremist members of Al-Hirak secessionists in the South, some of whom may even have carried out similar attacks against the British in Aden as youths.
Other attacks also seem rather more personal than political, and more temporal than jihadist, despite careless attributions. In Al-Dhala, the 33rd Armored Brigade has recently been attacked by “gunmen,” who they said were Hirakis. Yet this brigade was responsible for shelling a local funeral tent, killing 19 people, and wounding twice as many. It is far more likely this was a revenge attack than an act of terrorism.
Similarly, the attacks on oil pipelines to Balhaf on the south coast have been attributed to “Al-Qaeda.” More probable is that the perpetrators are from Hadharim, angered at the death of one of their senior sheikhs, who was shot by the Yemeni Army in a disagreement at a vehicle checkpoint in December 2013.
While there are attacks that defy classification—the recent murder of an Intelligence Colonel is similar to attacks on anti-Syrian Lebanese figures—the majority can be clearly analyzed in the context of the evolving politics and insecurity wracking Yemen. Children apply this analysis when playing the board game Clue, but it alludes to many when applied to real life in the Middle East.
