The war on the Yemen-Saudi border
Along the jagged, oatmeal-colored mountains of northern Yemen, civil war has transformed the windswept landscape into a canvas of human misery, bolstering al-Qaeda's efforts to create a haven in the Middle East's poorest nation.The Obama administration is only making matters worse by shipping hardened al Qaeda operatives back to Yemen from Gitmo.It is a war largely hidden from the rest of the world the past five years, and it pits the Hawthi rebels, who are Shiites, against Yemen's government. In recent days, however, it has also drawn in Saudi Arabia. Yemen and Saudi Arabia, both ruled by Sunnis, accuse Shiite Iran of backing the rebels, raising the specter of a proxy war that could elevate sectarian tensions in this oil-rich region.
The fighting could have serious implications for the U.S. anti-terrorism effort in a failing nation where al-Qaeda is gaining strength, Western diplomats and Yemeni analysts say. The war is drawing attention and scarce resources away from efforts to combat poverty, a secessionist movement in the south and piracy along the nation's shores. A prolonged conflict, they say, could further weaken Yemen's government and deepen societal fissures, allowing al-Qaeda militants to thrive.
"The longer the war in the north continues and the longer the problems in the south continue without resolution, the more we pave the road for al-Qaeda," said Yahya Abu Asbu, a Foreign Ministry official and deputy secretary general of the Yemeni Socialist Party. "Yemen will become more dangerous than Somalia."
Ruling party officials concede that the war is siphoning resources from other pressing problems, but they say their priority is to crush the rebellion.
"You cannot say the Hawthis are less dangerous than al-Qaeda," said Yasser Ahmed Bin Salim al-Awadi, who heads the government's ruling bloc in parliament. "Al-Qaeda is not doing something like what the Hawthis are doing now."
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The Hawthis, who believe in the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, ruled northern Yemen as a religious imamate for nearly a millennium before being overthrown in a 1962 coup. Ever since, Yemen's rulers have been wary of them and other Zaydi clans. The Zaydis make up more than a quarter of Yemen's population and constitute a majority in the north.
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Many Yemenis say al-Qaeda is already taking advantage of the government's focus on the north. An al-Qaeda ambush this month in the east that killed five security officials raised questions over whether the thinly stretched government can control the entire country. "In this environment, security is weak and the government is busy with wars. This is the environment al-Qaeda wants."
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The rebels made a huge mistake by attacking the Saudi outpost. The Saudis are keen on protecting their sovereignty and will act aggressively to defend it. The Saudis are also now patrolling the Yemen coast to prevent Iran from resupplying the rebels.
CNN has more on the fighting and the displacement of people.
Nice post, Merv. Very well-written. Did you know that your first name is also a city in Turkmenistan with a significant Baloch population? And have you noted the attacks on Iranian authority in the Baloch homeland, which straddles the three-corner Afghan - Pakistani - Iranian borderland dominated by the city of Zahedan? There is considerable debate on the source of this deadly attack, and others like it, in that region, which is geographically smaller but otherwise similar to the Kurdish region, also spanning a set of mutually conflicted countries. Pakistan has tended to find Indian agents behind every bush in Baluchistan, an area made even more interesting by Chinese naval infrastructure at Gwadar on the Persian Gulf coast, just east of Iran, serving the needs of Chinese escort vessels for oil tankers.
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