Analysis

Analysis March 9, 2023 04:29 MIN January-February 2023 Abubakr Al-Saqqaf: Legacy of an Unarmed Warrior By Tawfeek Al-Ganad Under Moscow’s snow, a Yemeni flame of enlightenment was extinguished. There lies buried Abubakar Al-Saqqaf, Yemen’s most prominent theorist of liberties, human rights, and a civil state, who passed away on December 13, 2022, at the age of 88. Together with his Russian wife Lina, Al-Saqqaf left Yemen in April 2015 on board a Russian evacuation flight, leaving behind a career spanning 40 years as a Professor of Philosophy at Sana’a University. A staunch critic of government policies, Al-Saqqaf was targeted, kidnapped, and assaulted more than once under Ali Abdullah Saleh’s regime. Al-Saqqaf was born in Ethiopia in 1935 to a Yemeni father and an Ethiopian mother. At the age of 10, he returned to his father’s hometown of Al-Wahat… Continue reading Analysis March 2, 2023 19:29 MIN Bridging the Divide: Mitigating the Impacts of the CBY Schism on Yemen’s Banking Sector By Wadhah Al-Awlaqi The September 2016 rupture of the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) into rival branches associated with the main warring parties has severely undermined the country’s banking sector. The most fundamental issues affecting Yemeni banks are the differing currency systems that have emerged between areas controlled by the internationally recognized government and Houthi authorities, and the associated competing centers of financial sector regulation, which have adopted increasingly coercive measures in their attempts to assert exclusive authority. The banking sector liquidity crisis, which emerged prior to the central bank schism, has only been compounded and complicated since. This policy brief was produced as part of the Yemen International Forum (YIF) 2022 and will offer an overview of the evolving challenges facing the… Continue reading Analysis February 28, 2023 34:17 MIN Leadership from Iran: How Al-Qaeda in Yemen Fell Under the Sway of Saif al-Adel By Hussam Radman, and Assim al-Sabri When Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by a US drone strike in Afghanistan last July it had only limited impact for the group’s Middle East branches in North Africa, Yemen, and Somalia. This was in part a result of the internal cohesion created by organizational policies introduced since 2011 that gave regional branches significant autonomy. But it also spoke to Al-Zawahiri’s reduced importance as a leader in recent years as he took on more of a symbolic role as the successor to Osama bin Laden who had obtained the allegiance of Al-Qaeda’s central Shura council. One of the key reasons why leadership on all the key fronts – security, organizational, and financial – shifted away from Al-Zawahiri was the… Continue reading Analysis February 21, 2023 06:00 MIN A Looming Battle over Wadi Hadramawt By Maged Al-Madhaji As the fragile undeclared truce continues between the internationally recognized government and the Houthi movement in Yemen, another cycle of political and military tension is escalating in southern Yemen. In Wadi Hadramawt, polarization over the future of the Seyoun-based 1st Military Region threatens a new round of fighting between groups within Yemen’s anti-Houthi camp. Tensions over Wadi Hadramawt stem from bitter divisions that Yemeni parties have been unable to overcome over the course of the war; in fact, the conflict has served to deepen preexisting rifts. A North-South divide continues to exist in many minds, which has led to demands among some southern groups, most prominently the Southern Transitional Council (STC), to roll back unification and restore the state of… Continue reading Analysis December 16, 2022 04:39 MIN November 2022 How the Protests in Iran Will Affect Yemen By Thomas Juneau The Islamic Republic of Iran has been rocked by major street protests since September. As these show no sign of slowing down, there are growing questions about the future of the regime. Four broad scenarios appear possible: the regime succeeds in quelling the demonstrations and the country returns to the pre-September status quo; the regime quells the protests but emerges as much more vulnerable than before; an internal coup d’état; or the fall of the regime. The situation is fluid and could change fast; if anything, analysts have a poor history in forecasting the survival of authoritarian regimes, which suggests that predictions should be made with a dose of humility. That said, it seems that the most likely scenario in… Continue reading Analysis December 16, 2022 07:13 MIN November 2022 Local Deadlock and Regional Understandings: Analyzing the Houthi-Saudi and Islah-UAE Talks By Hussam Radman Early 2022 saw rekindled hopes for progress toward resolving the war in Yemen with the UN-sponsored truce between the internationally recognized government and the Houthi movement, and the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). Both moves were considered potential precursors to formal talks between the warring parties, with the PLC specifically viewed as an example of power-sharing that could be expanded as a part of a comprehensive settlement of the conflict. But the situation threatened to return to square one in the second half of 2022, as the internal contradictions within the PLC burst the fore following the August fighting in Shabwa between Southern Transitional Council (STC)- and Islah-affiliated forces. The fallout from the battle has led to increased… Continue reading Analysis November 14, 2022 03:59 MIN October 2022 Failed Truce Reflects Houthi Willingness to Leverage Gov’t Divisions, Global Needs By Omar Munassar The UN-brokered truce in Yemen that collapsed October 2, despite efforts to prolong it, disappointed Yemenis and those in the international community who had hoped it could be the groundwork for a lasting peace agreement ending more than seven years of war. During the preceding six months, the truce lessened some of the conflict's devastating effects. Economically, it allowed for restrictions to be lifted on foreign fuel shipments entering the Hudaydah port as well as on commercial flights from and to Sana’a International Airport. Politically, it quieted frontlines, especially in flashpoint regions like Marib, and increased popular optimism for lasting peace. Aside from that, it shielded Saudi Arabia from energy security threats that had been prevalent for years due to… Continue reading Analysis November 14, 2022 04:35 MIN October 2022 The Mandatory Celebration of Hardship By Maysaa Shuja Al-Deen In the past, the Yemeni state celebrated only holidays that held national significance. These included the anniversaries of several major political moments in Yemen’s history: September 26, marking the ousting of the Imamate and the establishment of a republican regime in the north; October 14, commemorating the start of the uprising against British colonial rule in the south; November 30, marking the south’s declaration of independence from the United Kingdom; and May 22, commemorating the unification of north and south and the birth of the Republic of Yemen. Other public holidays included religious occasions such as Mawlid al-Nabi (the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday), the beginning of the Islamic new year, and the two Eid festivals, Eid al-Adha during Hajj and Eid… Continue reading Analysis November 14, 2022 04:14 MIN October 2022 The Saudi Overture to the Houthis By Abdulghani Al-Iryani In the second week of October, the Saudi government made a bold proposal to the Houthis. They invited the nominal leader of the de facto authorities in Sana’a, Mahdi al-Mashat, President of the Supreme Political Council and Supreme Commander of the armed forces, to visit Riyadh, meet Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, and discuss a peace deal. This was the breakthrough that the Houthis have been working for since they overthrew the internationally recognized government in 2014. Direct talks with the Saudis would confer a degree of international legitimacy to the Houthi government, but they also represent a recognition of the legitimacy that the Houthi authorities themselves have established in eight years of consolidating their rule over most of Yemen’s… Continue reading Analysis October 13, 2022 04:07 MIN September 2022 STC Talks with Baoum Could Shift Alliances in Southern Yemen By Hussam Radman Hassan Baoum’s calls for independence, first for Yemen and later for southern Yemen, date to the early 1960s, at times landing him in jail or exile. His 2017 demand that Arab coalition countries fighting the armed Houthi movement end their “foreign occupation” of the south was perceived as so extreme by the coalition-backed Yemeni government that it prolonged his exile and ensured his southern separatist group remained frozen out of the country’s power structures. Despite this, Baoum’s political and popular presence has not faded, and the replacement of President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi with a presidential council in April hastened a thaw that is altering southern political dynamics. Baoum, who has lived in Muscat since 2015, is expected to return… Continue reading Analysis September 20, 2022 04:50 MIN Weak and Divided, the General People’s Congress Turns 40 By Tawfeek Al-Ganad The General People’s Congress (GPC) is going through an unprecedented period of weakness as it recently marked the 40th anniversary of its founding on August 24. The party was born from the national dialogue conducted in the early 1980s following a brutal civil war, and every Yemeni president since has been a high-ranking member of the party. Former President Ali Abdullah Saleh was the chairman of the GPC and ruled under its name until he stepped down following massive protests in 2011. His vice president and second in command in the GPC, Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi, became president in February 2012. After Hadi was removed from power in April of this year, another high-ranking member of the GPC and a… Continue reading Analysis August 18, 2022 07:33 MIN Defeat in Shabwa Forces Islah to Reckon With New Political Reality By Maged Al-Madhaji Long-running tensions in Shabwa devolved into heavy fighting in the governorate capital Ataq on August 8, pitting Islah-affiliated security forces against UAE-backed units. Back-and-forth fighting over three days ended on August 10 with the Giants Brigades and Shabwa Defense forces, supported by UAE drone strikes, securing control of the city and Islah-affiliated commanders fleeing the governorate. The battle in Shabwa and its ramifications represent the most complex challenge the government’s Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) has faced since its establishment four months ago. This was not the first round of hostilities in the strategic governorate – a battle between Islah and Southern Transitional Council (STC)-affiliated forces in August 2019 was resolved in favor of the former. However, the fresh infighting was… Continue reading