Saudi intervention in Yemen: stoking the fires

March 6, 2016 12:02 am0 CommentsViews: 3

Riyadhs support for militants fighting the Houthis has greatly benefited al-Qaida and the Islamic State in
Yemen. Reversing their advances is likely to prove difficult, writes Nasser Arrabyee

Putting its own troops first, yet to whose ultimate benefit? According to local witnesses in Taiz, Abyan and Aden,
Saudi Arabia has allegedly airdropped weapons and money to militants who at times fight alongside al-Qaida,
writes Arrabyee.

NO OTHER actors have benefited more from Saudi intervention in Yemen than extremist groups like al-Qaeda
and Islamic State. Part of Saudi Arabias strategy to avoid putting their own troops on the front lines is to airdrop weapons and money to local militants fighting the Houthis which comprise a range of actors including
tribal forces, Islah Party members, pro-Hadi popular resistance committees and some Southern separatist
wings.
According to local witnesses in Taiz, Abyan and Aden, Saudi Arabia has allegedly airdropped weapons and
money to militants who at times fight alongside al-Qaida, including Abyan fighters under the leadership of
Abdul Latif al-Sayed, a former al-Qaida leader fighting with the popular resistance committees loyal to Saudibacked president Abd Rabu Mansour Hadi.
Such support has benefited al-Qaida, which continues to fight Houthis in the central provinces of Aden, Abyan,
Shabwah, Mareb and Taiz. Saudi Arabia has also indirectly supported al Qaidas efforts by allowing them to
solidify territorial control in other areas. In Mukalla, al-Qaida looted military bases and banks in April 2015
and declared the city an Emirate. There, the group has been able to govern alongside a local tribal council
under the leadership of Khaled Batarfi and even launched a new local paper, Al-Masra. Mukalla is the fifth
largest city in Yemen, capital of the oil rich Hadramout province and has a strategic oil harbour that is now run
by al-Qaida, with all its revenues going to the militants.
Al-Qaida fragmenting
HOWEVER, rifts within al-Qaida have grown more pronounced since Nasir al-Wuhayshi, the groups top
leader in Yemen, was killed by a US drone strike in June 2015, leaving behind a power vacuum. Clashes
erupted during a meeting between followers of Jalal Beleidi, a prominent al-Qaida leader in Abyan and those
of Abdul Latif al-Sayed, a former al-Qaida leader who rebranded himself as a leader of the popular resistance
committees and whom Beleidi blamed for al-Qaidas expulsion from Abyan in 2012. Beleidis followers
ambushed Sayeds car, leading to violent clashes between the two factions in the streets of Zinjibar.
These divides within the group are compounded by disagreements between Emirati and Saudi officials over

which anti-Houthi militants are too extreme to support. Most anti-Houthi militants, politicians and activists are
from Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist groups, whom Saudi Arabias new leadership is content to support. Yet
these are explicit enemies of the UAE, which has for years sparred with domestic and international branches of
the Brotherhood and designated the Brotherhood, IS, Jabhat al-Nusra and the Houthis as terrorist groups in
November 2014.
In August 2015, for instance, Saudi airdrops to tribal leader Hamoud al-Mekhlafi a leader of anti-Houthi
popular resistance committees who fights alongside al-Qaida militants in Taiz caused the UAE to delay the
advance of its armoured tanks from Aden to Taiz in protest. Likewise, in Aden, the UAE has refused to support
any Muslim Brotherhood figures and even publicly accused the Islah Party of stealing the humanitarian aid the
UAE Red Crescent supplied to displaced people. The UAE is instead fighting these groups by supporting
southern separatists.
Playing into IS hands
THE internal conflict within al-Qaida (and between Saudi Arabia and the UAE) is of increasing benefit to
Islamic State. Frustrated young men who are inclined to join extremist groups become all the more so when
they see jihadist leaders in conflict with each other. Internal disputes make these youth spurn those involved as
not real jihadists.
Thus the dispute within al-Qaida is increasingly driving young men to IS which is more united, as it is a
new organisation. Furthermore, as a declared enemy of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Islamic State is
removed from their rift over al-Qaida and the Brotherhood. The new group with its new name has not yet
developed affiliations with regional or international parties conflicting over Yemen, giving them a greater
sense of legitimacy among some Yemenis.
Since the start of the war, Islamic State has successfully targeted about ten mosques in Sanaa and Saada,
killing hundreds of Zaidi and Shafii attendees. On 6 October 2015, IS appeared even more powerful when four
suicide bombers using stolen armed vehicles as car bombs attacked two joint Saudi/UAE military command
bases and killed fifteen people in the Qasr Hotel in Aden, hoping to target Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and
his ministers shortly after they returned from their exile in Riyadh.
More recently, IS has ramped up its attacks in Aden. On 6 December 2015, they assassinated Jaafar
Mohammed Saad, the governor of Aden; one day later they also assassinated Mohsen Alwan, chairman of the
Aden-based anti-terrorism court and two senior intelligence officers. This has helped them advance their vision
of the ?Aden-Abyan Province? that would serve as an IS capital in Yemen. More recently, on 28 January an IS
car bomb exploded near Hadis presidential palace in Aden, killing twelve.
For now, Islamic States influence remains mostly confined to Sanaa, Bayda and Aden, though they are gaining
support in other Houthi-controlled areas in the northwest. But reversing these advances will be particularly
difficult, as Islamic State and al-Qaida gain greater support among Salafist groups angered by their defeats at
the hands of the Houthis making the Saudi gambit particularly dangerous in the long term.