Analysis

Analysis April 28, 2020 06:07 MIN STC Declaration of Self-Rule in Southern Yemen Airs Sour Relations with Riyadh By Maged Al-Madhaji In the early hours of April 26, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), citing a conspiracy against the southern cause, declared self-governance and a state of emergency across the entire former South Yemen, and called on the masses to rally around its political leadership. The first evidence of the STC implementing its self-rule declaration came at the Central Bank of Yemen headquarters in Aden, where its forces assumed security control of the bank’s outer entrances while the Saudi forces charged with guarding the facility stayed within the bank compound. Otherwise, the situation in the city stayed mostly the same. It appears the STC declared control over what was already under its authority. The statement from the secessionist group followed months of… Continue reading Analysis April 15, 2020 15:25 MIN What Happens After Hadi? By Maged Al-Madhaji, Gregory D. Johnsen, and Abdulghani Al-Iryani It is usually a losing game to predict how many days or years an Arab leader has left in power — even those entering their 80s or 90s. Nevertheless, locally, regionally, and internationally, officials and stakeholders involved in the Yemen file have been increasingly asking in apprehensive whispers: “What if President Hadi dies?” The health of 74-year-old Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi is already weak: He has traveled to the world-leading Cleveland Clinic, a cardiovascular treatment center in the United States, on a Saudi private plane five times in the last five years — and has only made six visits to Yemen during that time. The statesman has a known aversion to physical activity and it does not help that he… Continue reading Analysis April 10, 2020 07:42 MIN The Battle of Marib: Houthis Threaten Yemeni Government Stronghold By Maged Al-Madhaji Following the fall of Al-Hazm, the capital of Al-Jawf governorate, to the armed Houthi movement at the end of February, all eyes have turned to neighboring Marib. The wealthiest governorate in the north, Marib has oil and gas wells, the Safer oil refinery, and a major power station that had supplied most of Yemen with electricity before the war. Marib also hosts the largest group of northern rivals to the Houthis and the largest numbers of troops loyal to President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, which are units of the national army. It is the home of powerful Sunni Shafi’i tribes, including Abidah, Murad, Jadaan and others, and is also a center of power for the Yemeni Congregation for Reform (Islah),… Continue reading Analysis April 9, 2020 08:05 MIN The US in Yemen: Facilitating Disaster, Dodging Culpability By Ziad Al-Eryani, and Holly Topham In March 2015, then-US President Barack Obama signed off on measures to support the newly formed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Five years on, this ill-defined support remains as murky as ever, despite domestic pressure to review its scope and nature. What is clear, however, is that Washington is not in the driver’s seat when it comes to its policy concerning the war in Yemen – if it can even be conceived as having one. Outsourcing to its regional allies may have made sense five years ago; Yemen has never been a strategic priority for the US and has generally been consigned to Riyadh’s domain. For many in Washington policy circles, Yemen does not come into view except when certain strategic… Continue reading Analysis April 9, 2020 08:36 MIN Five Years of the UN Security Council Toeing the Saudi Line By Waleed Alhariri When the United Nations Security Council took a position on the Yemen war five years ago, it quite naturally supported the interests of some of its member states over the armed Houthi movement which had, after all, swept into Sana’a, chased out the internationally recognized government and marched on Aden. In early 2015, Saudi Arabia was confident it could quickly restore order, having – along with the United Arab Emirates – assembled an Arab military coalition to intervene and secured backing from the United States and Britain. The UN Security Council (UNSC) merely had to provide political and moral cover, which it did in April 2015 in the form of a strongly worded resolution that assumed all would go according… Continue reading Analysis April 8, 2020 05:23 MIN Yemen, Five Years On and Now a Stranger to My Country By Rim Mugahed My work developing hotel profiles for online bookings brings me in direct contact with hotel owners and managers. The work is good, not boring, and I am friendly with our partners. Still, each time a hotel asks to charge for internet access in its rooms, I feel a rage stirred by the reminder of hotels where I stayed in Casablanca when war in Yemen erupted. I received the news about Yemen’s war on the morning of March 26, 2015, while walking out of the elevator toward the hotel reception, where internet service was free. In another hotel lobby that day, I received news that my cousin had been found dead in his room in Aden, which was bracing for Houthi… Continue reading Analysis April 6, 2020 07:24 MIN Yemen’s Fate Hinges on the Economy By Anthony Biswell High-level policymakers working on Yemen often resemble firefighters: moving from crisis to crisis, rarely affording themselves time to take stock of the bigger picture. Five years on from the launch of Operation Decisive Storm stakeholders remain transfixed by short-term political and military developments in Yemen, such as the recent Houthi advances in Al-Jawf governorate or the stagnant political process. The catastrophic impact that the prolonged violence has had on Yemeni society is clear, in terms of the loss of life, displacement and mental turmoil; this in addition to the destruction of property and vital infrastructure, chief among which include a healthcare system that is now effectively paralyzed. While the focus on immediate crises is understandable, this approach can, however, distract… Continue reading Analysis April 3, 2020 07:59 MIN Sana’a From March 2015 to Today: A Study in Authoritarian Oppression Five years following the intervention of the Saudi-led coalition into the conflict in Yemen, the manifestations of destruction and war in the Yemeni capital Sana’a are evident. Intensive bombing by coalition aircraft in 2015, and to a lesser extent, lighter shelling during the subsequent war years damaged governmental and private structures. The Republican Palace, the president’s official residence, the army command headquarters and family homes of the late President Ali Abdullah Saleh and some regime officials are no longer aesthetic attractions or formal landmarks, only ruins. In December 2017, Baghdad Street and the vicinity of Saleh’s house in Al-Thania neighborhood became part of a tapestry showcasing the aftermath of the war between the Houthis and their former ally. Checkpoints still… Continue reading Analysis April 2, 2020 07:33 MIN Five Years of Failure: The Dismal Performance of the Hadi Government By Abdulghani Al-Iryani The most appropriate way to chronicle the performance of the internationally recognized Yemeni government since the outbreak of war in the country is by listing its failures. The five years since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen on behalf of the government of President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi has seen misstep after misstep. These failings have occurred on multiple fronts – militarily, politically and economically. Owing to these failures, the government – still operating largely in exile in Saudi Arabia – is no closer to returning to power in Sana’a than it was in 2015. Meanwhile, its vital claim of possessing domestic legitimacy is more tenuous than ever as the Houthi movement has entrenched its rule in the north and… Continue reading Analysis April 1, 2020 05:56 MIN Love Thy Neighbor: Saudi Arabia Needs Regional Help to End the Yemen War A lot can change in five years. At the outset of the war, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was ostensibly intact, even as the first Qatar rift in 2014 had shown cracks in its unity. As a result, when Saudi Arabia decided to intervene in Yemen, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Qatar followed suit. Meanwhile, Kuwait positioned itself as a mediator and Oman stayed on the sidelines. Now, five years on, with the exception of small Bahraini and Emirati contingents, the GCC has left the war in Yemen to Saudi Arabia. From the outset, Saudi Arabia could envision only a military victory in Yemen, persisting with this objective well beyond when most military analysts thought they could achieve… Continue reading Analysis March 26, 2020 07:09 MIN Taiz at the Intersection of the Yemen War By Maged Al-Madhaji The wider Yemen war is made up of various individual conflicts and collaborations among local and regional actors, and there is no place where these intricacies intersect more than Taiz. The city has traditionally been Yemen’s cultural capital, its residents highly educated and politically engaged, with the wider governorate including a strategic swath of land running up the Red Sea Coast from the Bab al-Mandeb Strait past the port city of Mokha. Taiz is seen as the gateway to southern Yemen which, throughout the ongoing war, has condemned the city to some of the most significant frontline battles between the internationally recognized Yemeni government, the Saudi- and Emirati-led coalition backing it, and the armed Houthi movement. While Taiz city and… Continue reading Analysis March 25, 2020 12:47 MIN Yemen and COVID-19: What Needs to be Done By Dr. Sameh Al-Awlaqi A Yemeni patient, recently returned from Egypt, presented to the emergency room of a hospital in Aden this month with flu-like symptoms — a fever and a cough. After taking his history and a few other details, he was provisionally diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19. All medical staff, as well as patients in the waiting area, immediately left the hospital in panic, leaving the patient perplexed and stigmatized. Scientists are still learning the epidemiology of COVID-19; many data, contradictory in some cases, have confused the public since the emergence of this outbreak. The pandemic has spread to almost every country on Earth in a matter of months; John Hopkins University is reporting more than 440,000 confirmed cases as… Continue reading