Yemen fight headed into a dangerous zone

Fighting between rebel and loyalist units of the Yemeni armed forces last week marked a dangerous development in the contest between President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his opponents. The clash took place on the road to the international airport where the 1st Armoured Division of the army, commanded by Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, has set up checkpoints and established camps.

On March 17 Gen Ahmar, the president’s half-brother and chief rival, declared his support for the uprising against Saleh and provided protection for mass protests in the capital, Sanaa. By positioning troops in this strategic area on the outskirts of the city, Gen Ahmar could be preparing to seize control of the airport and the state television building.

Gen Ahmar’s move to consolidate his hold on territory in and around the capital has added a new dimension to the multidimensional conflict in Yemen: a personal power struggle between a popular general and a faltering president.

Yemen’s protests were initially against poverty, unemployment, and corruption. Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. The oil, on which it depends for foreign revenues, is running out. Water is a major problem made worse by farmers who cultivate the slightly narcotic qat plant — which uses a lot of water but yields good earnings — rather than food crops.

Toppling

Once protesters encountered resistance from Saleh, who has been in power since 1978, they focused on toppling his regime. Although he promised to step down when his term ends in 2013 or at the end of the year if a transitional administration is in place, the protest movement demands his immediate removal.

Yemen’s revolt is part uprising inspired by the ouster of leaders in Tunisia and Egypt; part civil conflict pitting the government against, on one hand, protesters seeking democracy and, on the other, southern secessionists.

If the uprisings continue and there is no firm control from Sanaa, Yemen could split, reverting to the two states — North and South Yemen — that merged in 1990 under Saleh’s autocratic leadership. Feeling marginalised and excluded from government by northerners, south Yemenis fought a civil war with the central government in 1994 and have been agitating for separation for several years.

Once divided, Yemen could fracture into a number of semi-independent entities that could wage war on each other. Warfare could spring from tribal, religious and straightforward political differences. The population, 24 million strong, is 52 per cent Sunni and 46 per cent Shia. Sunnis are concentrated largely in the south and southeast while Shias (predominantly heterdox Zaidis) are present in the north and northwest. For the past five years Sanaa has been fighting Zaidi Houthi tribesmen on the Saudi border. Their rebellion was suppressed only after Saudi forces intervened.

To complicate the situation further, the government has also been battling al-Qaeda elements who have found refuge with dissident tribal shaikhs in inaccessible mountains. In this struggle Saleh, a former US antagonist, has received logistical and material aid from Washington, seen by many Yemenis as an arch enemy.

Due to Yemen’s strategic location, the destabilisation of the country, fracturing or collapse into failed statehood, could have serious consequences for the neighbourhood. Yemen borders on Saudi Arabia, the world’s major oil producer, Oman, and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, main waterways for trade between West Asia, the Gulf, Africa and India.

Full blown civil conflict and instability in Yemen could spill over into Saudi Arabia, which has a restive Shia population in its oil-rich Eastern Province and into Oman, already experiencing protests arising from the Arab spring of discontent.  Across the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait lies Djbouti and the unstable Horn of Africa.

Pirates from Somalia, a state that failed two decades ago, continually prey on shipping in these waters and in the Arabian Sea. Gun runners, people and drug smugglers also operate from these troubled shores while radical Muslim fundamentalists (Salafis) have taken control of most of Somalia and are extending their influence to surrounding African countries.

An extremely worried Gulf Cooperation Council, which is dominated by Saudi Arabia, has put forward a peace plan accepted by neither the rebels nor Saleh who changes his mind about whether or not to stand down depending on how the winds of war are blowing.