Yemen's Road to War: Yemeni Struggle in the Middle East

About the Author

Saddam Abdulkarim Obaid is a Ph.D. Candidate and Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) in strategic and international relations at National Defence University of Malaysia (UPNM), Kuala Lumpur. His research interests mainly focus on conflict, peace, and defense analysis. He received the B.Sc. in Information Technology (IT) from Yemenia University, Sana’a. He received his master’s degree in Strategic and Defense Studies from the University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia. He has published many commentary policies concerning issues of peace and conflict resolutions.

Dedication

My utmost gratitude is to my family for their continuous love and support. A special thanks to my parents, my brother Soliman, and my wife for supporting me spiritually throughout my life. All words cannot express how my gratitude to have you.

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Saddam Abdulkarim Obaid 2023

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Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Obaid, Saddam Abdulkarim

Yemen’s Road to War

ISBN 9781649799418 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781649799425 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023908525

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

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Acknowledgment

My sincere appreciation and respect to Dr. Muhammad Danial Azman, senior lecturer at University Malaya, for his guidance, encouragement, and kind support.

My utmost gratitude is to Dr. Nor Aishah Binti Hanifa, senior lecturer at the National Defence University of Malaysia (UPNM). I would like to thank you for guiding me to the right way; a great deal that I will remember my life. All the guidance, encouragement, and kind support. Thank you very much!

I am glad also extend my thanks to Dr. Hakim Alhusaini, Mr. Khaldoon Abdulla, Mr. Baderedin Seyam, and Mr. Mustafa Wehbi for guiding and giving me valuable tips, which have helped in accomplishing this book. To everyone whom I could have forgotten unintentionally, thank you so much for your kind cooperation.

This work is a Master’s thesis at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia, under the title The sectarian conflict in Yemen since 2014: The Role of Domestic and Foreign Actors.

Abstract

Yemen has been suffering from various internal and external conflicts for decades. Most of these conflicts were in the second half of the twentieth century. This study examines the conflicts in the modern history of Yemen. It attempts to investigate how the sectarian elements (divide between Sunni – Shiaah) exacerbate the conflict in Yemen and find out the role and impacts of the regional powerhouse states in this conflict. This study tries to understand the roots of the sectarian conflict in Yemen, to explore the domestic sectarian (the divide between Sunni – Shiaah) and non-sectarian elements (the divide between Tribes – GPC) in the current Yemeni conflict, tries to find out and examine the external actors and their role in the current conflict in Yemen, and to explore the impact of this conflict on the Yemeni security. This study employed a qualitative research approach in order to find answers for the above inquiries by data triangulation through reviewing secondary literature – books, book chapters, journal articles, reports, newspaper articles and government statements. Also, it uses the semi-structured interviews through Email and WhatsApp application with politicians and some of the leading figures who belong to the conflicting sects in Yemen and the heads of political research centers. This study found that most of the sectarian conflicts in the history of Yemen occurred because the warring parties sought to apply their sectarian religious teaching. Accordingly, the current conflict in Yemen has emerged between two main sects: Zaydi sect, a Shiaah elements believing in the divine right to rule, and Sunni elements and the Yemeni government, so the current conflict is a sectarian conflict in nature. It is also found that the domestic Sunni sectarian elements participating in the current war are Salafism include the Traditional, New, and Extreme Salafism, and Muslim Brotherhood Organization. As for domestic Shiaah elements, they include Ansar Allah Movement (Houthis) and Al-Haqq Party. Most of the sectarian elements have been engaged in the current war because of religious sectarian opinions. This study also found out that the domestic non-sectarian elements participating in the current war are tribes and GPC. Tribes and GPC are divided into two parts, supporting and opposing to Shiaah elements. It has been found that Saudi Arabia and Iran have participated in exacerbating the current conflict by using the sectarian dimension as a normal result of the new cold war between the two states. They also support the sectarian elements politically, militarily, financially. They also help them in the media. Finally, this study found that the current sectarian war has caused the weakening of Yemen’s national identity and Yemeni social fabric by rising calls for the sectarian, clan, and regional identities rather than the national identity.

Keywords: Yemen; Saudi Arabia; Iran; Sectarian war; Houthi.

Abstrak

Republik Yaman telah mengalami pelbagai konflik di dalam dan luar negara selama beberapa dekad. Kebanyakan konflik ini berlaku pada separuh kedua abad kedua puluh. Kajian ini memeriksa konflik dalam sejarah moden Yaman. Ia cuba menyiasat bagaimana unsur-unsur sektarian (dibahagikan antara Sunni – Shiaah) telah memburukkan lagi konflik di Yaman, dan mengetahui peranan dan impak dari negara-negara berkuasa serantau dalam konflik ini. Kajian ini cuba memahami akar umbi konflik sektarian di Yaman dan juga bertujuan menerokai unsur-unsur sektarian domestik (yang terbahagi antara Sunni – Shiaah) dan bukan sektarian (yang terbahagi antara Suku Kaum – GPC) dalam konflik semasa. Di samping itu, kajian ini cuba menyiasat dan meneliti pelakon luar dan peranan mereka dalam konflik semasa di Yaman. Tambahan pula, kajian ini cuba menerokai impak konflik ini terhadap keselamatan Yaman. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan penyelidikan kualitatif untuk mencari jawapan kepada pertanyaan di atas dengan menggunakan triangulasi data melalui kajian semula kesusasteraan sekunder – buku, bab buku, artikel jurnal, laporan, artikel akhbar dan penyata kerajaan. Ia juga menggunakan wawancara berstruktur separuh melalui E-mel dan aplikasi WhatsApp dengan ahli-ahli politik dan beberapa tokoh terkemuka yang tergolong dalam mazhab yang bertentangan di Yaman dan ketua-ketua pusat penyelidikan politik. Kajian ini juga mendapati bahawa kebanyakan konflik sektarian dalam sejarah Yaman berlaku kerana parti yang berperang berusaha menubuhkan ajaran agama mereka. Oleh itu, konflik semasa di Yaman telah muncul di antara dua mazhab utama. Mazhab pertama ialah unsur-unsur Zaydi yang secara umum adalah sebahagian daripada mazhab Shiaah. Mereka percaya bahawa mereka mempunyai hak ilahi untuk memerintah Yaman dan semua kaum Yaman harus menyokong mereka, dan ajaran mazhab Zaydi mempunyai motif yang hebat untuk perang semasa. Parti kedua termasuk unsur-unsur Sunni dan kerajaan Yaman yang percaya bahawa mazhab Zaydi seperti Houthi adalah pejuang proksi Iran dan harus dikalahkan. Oleh itu, konflik semasa adalah bersifat konflik sektarian. Ia juga mendapati bahawa unsur-unsur sektarian domestik yang terlibat dalam perang semasa adalah Salafisme termasuk Salafisme Tradisional, Salafisme Baru, Salafisme Melampau, dan Pertubuhan Persaudaraan Muslim sebagai unsur-unsur Sunni. Unsur-unsur Shiaah pula termasuk gerakan Ansar Allah (Houthi) dan Parti Al-Haqq. Kajian ini juga mendapati bahawa unsur-unsur bukan sektarian dalam negeri yang mengambil bahagian dalam perang semasa adalah suku kaum dan GPC. Suku kaum dan GPC itu pula dibahagikan kepada dua bahagian. Telah didapati bahawa Arab Saudi dan Iran telah mengambil bahagian untuk memburukkan lagi konflik semasa dengan menggunakan dimensi sektarian sebagai akibat biasa perang dingin baru antara kedua-dua negara. Mereka juga menyokong unsur-unsur sektarian dari segi politik, ketenteraan dan kewangan. Mereka juga menerima bantuan media. Akhirnya, kajian ini mendapati bahawa perang sektarian kini telah melemahkan identiti negara Yaman dan ikatan sosial Yaman melalui panggilan yang semakin meningkat untuk identiti mazhab, puak dan serantau dan bukan identiti negara.

Kata kunci: Yaman; Arab Saudi; Iran; Perang sektarian; Houthi.

List of Symbols and Glossary

List of Abbreviations

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Introduction

The Middle East has been suffering from various internal and external conflicts for decades, and it had the most conflict-ridden record in the second half of the twentieth century. Moreover, these are not merely a military dimension, but rather a social, ideological and political one. This has driven away most of the international relations scholars who had considered the Middle East as a complex area and an environment that is difficult to analyze (Halliday, 2005).

The designation of the Middle East by this name is somewhat new. It was named so in the early twentieth century. There are three main factors which contributed to the formation of the Middle East; namely the impact of the global economy, social unrest and armed military conflicts in the Middle East region. Several factors have influenced the current shape of the Middle East, such as external pressures, western military constraints and the expansion of the capital market. The state was formed in the Middle East through several stages from the First World War and the fall of the Ottoman Empire up to the present. The state in its current form in the Middle East was only a result of modernity and its influence on the region. The first independent states from the Ottoman Empire were Northern Yemen and Saudi Arabia. However, many of these states lacked political legitimacy, and the regimes in these countries tried to compensate for this deficiency in several ways. Some claim that their legitimacy as rulers is as they are related in race to the Prophet Muhammad, namely, Jordan, Northern Yemen and Morocco, other adopt the religious label as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques such as Saudi Arabia and the Ottoman sultans and some have raised the flag of Arab nationalism such as Egypt in the era of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Syria in the era Hafez Al-Assad or Libya in the era of Gaddafi. However, modern-day disturbances have contributed to the change of some regimes, among them Yemen in 1962 against the rule of Imams in northern Yemen (Halliday, 2005; Owen, 2014)

Yemen has been suffering like most of the other states in the Middle East from various internal and external conflicts for decades, and most of which are sectarian in nature. But the most prominent of these recent conflicts is the takeover of states by Houthi rebels or the so called Ansar Allah, a group of people belonging to the Zaydi sec. They have a military control over the Yemeni capital Sana’a and the headquarters of the government and they expanded to other places in Yemen.

Table ‎1.1: Statistics of the violence victims in Yemen.

As in all the countries in the Middle East, the Cold War had a great impact on the South of Yemen, especially on its own ideological tendencies. The states in the Middle East were divided into two parts during the Cold War. The first part includes Southern Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Egypt which adopted the socialist ideology while the second part includes Iran, Saudi Arabia and Jordan which rejected this ideology and they supported the United States. This has caused a great political divide between the two parts. After that, the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR, North Yemen) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, South Yemen) were particularly affected after the end of the Cold War. It has led to the unification of the north with the south of