From FPRI:
Footnotes
The Newsletter of FPRI’s Wachman Center
March 22, 2012
Available on the web and in pdf format at:
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1702.201203.swift.crisis-yemen.html
THE CRISIS IN YEMEN:
AL-QAEDA, SALEH, AND GOVERNMENTAL INSTABILITY
by Christopher Swift
Christopher Swift is a fellow at the University of Virginia
Law School’s Center for National Security Law. This essay
is based on her talk to FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers
on “Teaching the Middle East: Between Authoritarianism
and Reform,” held October 15-16, 2011. Videofiles from the
conference can be accessed here:
http://www.fpri.org/education/1110middleeast/
Western policymakers greeted the Arab Spring with a
uncertain mixture of idealism and pragmatism. As
populist uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt gained strength,
U.S. officials abandoned authoritarian leaders and
endorsed calls for democratic reform. When civil disorder
in Libya collapsed into civil war, NATO intervened to
support rebel forces. Regional unrest also implicated other
equities, however. Framed by Saudi fears over Iranian
infiltration, the West demurred as Bahrain’s leadership
suppressed Shi’a protesters. Wary of al-Qaeda’s growing
influence in Yemen, Washington publicly endorsed efforts
to broker President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation while
privately collaborating with the Yemeni security services.
This tension between promoting change and preserving
stability raises critical questions about the relationship
between power and principle in international affairs. How,
for example, should the United States define its interests?
When should security concerns trump our desire to
support democratic change? Most significantly, what kind
of policies are most likely to promote a more stable, secure,
and peaceful Middle East? Each of these questions
illuminates the moral and strategic dilemmas leaders face
when formulating U.S. foreign policy. They also reveal the
role that our own perspectives and presumptions play in
the policy formulation process.
Some of these presumptions offer insight. Since the start of
the Arab Spring, observers have focused on broad trends
informing regional unrest. Examples include bulging youth
populations, high structural unemployment, and rising
commodity prices. Also vital is the role of new media,
particularly social media, in disseminating information
and coordinating political dissent. Regional trends cannot
tell us the whole story, however. Although Egyptians and
Libyans were inspired by their Tunisian neighbors and
used similar slogans and technologies, the challenges and
conditions in each of these countries proved vastly
different.
This essay examines the challenges and conditions in
contemporary Yemen. Part one addresses demographic
factors, including the growth of the Yemeni population,
the collapse of the Yemeni economy, and the looming
prospect of ecological crisis. Part two considers political
trends, focusing on Yemen’s unification, political
centralization, and the sources of contemporary
opposition. Part three evaluates threats to Yemen’s
political and territorial security, including the Houthi
insurrection, the southern secessionist movement, and al-
Qaeda’s attempts to re-colonize the Arabian Peninsula.
The essay concludes by emphasizing the need to ground
our analysis and our policy in a rich understanding of local
realities.
DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world.
Thirty-four percent of the population is unemployed. [1]
Forty-five percent live below the United Nations‘ poverty
line. [2] Fifty percent are illiterate. [3] Seventy-three
percent still live in rural tribal areas. [4] With per capita
gross domestic product (GDP) at only $2,500, Yemeni
living standards have more in common with sub-Saharan
Africa than with the rest of the Middle East. [5] This
endemic poverty is exacerbated by one of the highest birth
rates in the world. Three quarters of Yemen’s population
is below age thirty and forty-six percent is below age
fifteen. [6] This unwieldy age structure seems likely to
grow rapidly. With net population growth at 3.4 percent
annually, Yemen it set to double its current population of
24 million by 2035. [7]
Yemen’s endemic poverty and population boom are even
more troubling when one considers the state of the Yemeni
economy. Already beset with high structural
unemployment and low literacy, Yemen has recently
endured annual inflation rates as high as nineteen
percent. [8] High inflation comes on the heels of a fifty
percent drop in known oil and gas reserves during the last
three years. [9] With as much as seventy percent of
government revenues derived from the energy sector, [10]
Yemen’s government is losing its capacity to implement
fundamental economic reforms at a time when
unemployment, poverty, and youth populations are all on
the rise.
Each of these challenges is compounded by a looming
ecological crisis. Long renown for its arid climate and
mountainour terrain, Yemen’s renewable water resources
amount to only 220 cubic meters per capita per year. This
figure is far below the Middle East average of 1,000 cubic
meters per capita, and represents less than three percent
of the global average of roughly 8,000 cubic meters. [11]
As a result, only 2.9 percent of Yemeni territory is
currently suitable for agriculture. [12] Urban life is
under similarly severe strain, with water tables in Sana’a,
the capital city, falling an average of six to eight meters
every year. [13]
Despite these scarcities, Yemenis continue to allocate a
substantial share of their limited land and water to the
cultivation of qat, a narcotic plant chewed by users
throughout East Africa and parts of the Middle East.
According to some observers, this resource-intensive crop
consumes as much as 37 percent of Yemen’s irrigation
water. [14] Others estimate that qat production accounts
for as much as 10 percent of Yemen’s annual GDP. [15]
On one level, this phenomenon suggests deep desire among
ordinary Yemenis to insulate themselves from the harsh
realities of daily life. Yet it also contributes to these
realities, reducing economic productivity whilst displacing
crops that could be profitably exported.
These realities inform political instability in three ways.
First, demographic pressures are producing a population
that is younger, poorer, larger, and less able to address its
basic economic needs. Second, persistent economic
malaise is frustrating efforts to maintain public services,
improve existing infrastructure, and invest in long-term
economic growth. Finally, resource constraints exacerbate
each of these structural challenges whilst simultaneously
undermining the complex system of tribal and political
patronage established during President Saleh’s 33-year
reign. With a growing number of parties competing for a
shrinking pool of assets, the incentives for dissension and
armed insurrection show few signs of subsiding.
POLITICAL UNREST
Yemen is no stranger to political unrest. Although the 1990
merger between the Republic of Yemen (ROY) and the
People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) was
initially amicable, efforts to integrate the North and South
swiftly turned contentious. Incompatible economic
systems, separate standing armies, and disputes over oil
concessions each contributed to a growing schism between
President Saleh’s Arab Nationalist General People’s
Congress Party (GPC) and the South’s Yemeni Socialist
Party (YSP). Just four years after unification, YSP
officials broke with President Saleh’s regime and re-
asserted the South’s independence.
The 1994 Yemeni civil war produced a series of
unconventional political and ideological alignments. Wary
of President Saleh’s support for Saddam Hussein during
the 1991 Persian Gulf War, conservative Saudi Arabia
reversed its historic support for the North and intervened
on behalf of the secular socialist South. President Saleh’s
regime responded by characterizing the civil war as a
struggle between Islam and atheistic socialism—a measure
aimed at animating Yemeni Islamists and recruiting
recently-returned veterans from the Soviet-Afghan war.
The result was a confluence of Arab nationalist, Islamist,
and socialist actors, each with different ideologies,
different objectives, and different perspectives on the
conflict in which they were engaged.
The North’s decisive military victory did little to
consolidate these political factions. Regional and
ideological tensions with the South ossified, with the YSP
and other small leftist parties forming a permanent yet
largely powerless minority in the Yemeni Parliament.
Saleh’s efforts to build a centralized Arab Nationalist state
also drew the ire of Islamists and tribal leaders, who
together comprised the Yemeni Congregation for Reform
(al-Islah). By 2005, YSP’s and al-Islah’s parliamentary
factions had joined forces under the umbrella of the
banner of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) in an effort to
curb the GPC’s dominance and implement long-delayed
reforms.
Fragmentation within the JMP has frustrated many of
these efforts. The coalition’s leftists were divided among
the YSP, which was dominant in the South, a Nasserite
party, and two competing Ba’athist groups. Al-Islah had
its own internal coordination problems, often divided
between tribal leaders with an interest in preserving
decentralized authority structures and urbanized Islamists
seeking reform from the top down. Even the Islamists
operated in coalition, with their numbers divided between
Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood, with its modernist
inclinations, and Salafis led by prominent Sunni religious
scholar Abdul Majeed al-Zindani.
This ideological diversity explains the resilience of the 2011
Yemeni uprising. Inspired by protests across the Arab
world and supported by thousands of student activists, the
JMP’s constituents formed the National Council for the
Forces of the Peaceful Revolution (National Council) and
demanded President Saleh’s ouster. They even
incorporated defecting Yemeni Army units. Chief among
them was the First Armored Division, which intervened to
protect Yemeni protesters from government forces in
Sana’a. [16] Resilience is not the same as effectiveness,
however. Beset with incompatible ideologies and factional
divisions, the National Council proved far more effective at
catalyzing public anger than channeling it into concrete
political action.
President Saleh’s recent departure underscores this
distinction between social mobilization and political
transformation. Though forced to resign in November
2011 under the terms of an agreement brokered by the
Gulf Coordination Council (GCC), the former President
transferred power to his Vice President, Abd al-Rab
Mansur al-Hadi. In February 2012, Vice President Hadi
ascended to the presidency following an election in which
he was the only candidate. With the GPC still holding an
overwhelming majority in the Yemeni Parliament, and
with Saleh’s extended family members occupying key posts
in government ministries and the national security
apparatus, there are few signs of significant structural
change.
It is still not clear whether the GCC plan will produce a
more stable equilibrium. Despite acknowledging the
transition process, the YSP and other opposition groups
have relatively little to gain from the status quo. The same
is arguably true for Yemen’s tribal leaders, who remain
wary of efforts to centralize power and dilute their
traditional authority. Engaging these potential spoilers
will be vital to both President Hadi’s success and Yemen’s
security. With the next round of elections nearly two years
away, the failure to find a working consensus may create
openings for militants that stand to profit from a
chronically unstable state.
SECURITY DILEMMAS
This militancy manifests in three distinct and ultimately
incompatible movements. Chief among them is the
recurring Houthi rebellion. Centered around the northern
province of Sa’ada, this struggle pits Yemen’s Sunni-
majority regime against members of the Zaidi Shi’a
minority. Though currently subject to a cease-fire, the
dynamics driving this conflict—including religious
differences, political disenfranchisement, and the Houthis’
fear of cultural assimilation—remain largely unresolved.
With four wars and four truces since 2004, the prospect of
renewed conflict in Yemen’s north could destabilize the
Saudi-Yemeni border at a time when the central
government is preoccupied with other challenges.
The rebels are acutely aware of this dynamic. Capitalizing
on popular protests in Sana’a, Houthi leaders used the
2011 Yemeni uprising to forge new ties with opposition
groups and expand their zone of influence. Neither
development is likely to be viewed favorably, be it in
Sana’a or Riyadh. The prospect of renewed rebellion is not
the only concern, however. In reasserting themselves, the
Houthis have increasingly clashed with ultra-conservative
Salafi militants operating in the same border region. Some
observers link these Salafis to Sunni tribal factions aligned
with al-Islah. [17] Others, however, see evidence of a
proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. [18] With
regional tensions between Tehran and Riyadh on the rise,
what was once a relatively straightforward regional
insurrection could devolve into more opaque and
fundamentally irreconcilable patterns of sectarian
violence.
Developments in southern Yemen are equally inauspicious.
Starting in 2007, the so-called Southern Movement
organized mass demonstrations and other forms of civil
disobedience to protest Sana’a’s policies towards the six
southern provinces comprising the former PDRY. Among
their grievances was the central government’s alleged
misappropriation of the South’s oil wealth. Equally
important, however, were allegations of official
discrimination against southerners with respect to
government employment, pensions, and other public
benefits. With energy reserves falling and government
revenues dwindling, resource constraints rekindled many
of the resentments left unresolved following the 1994
Yemeni civil war.
The situation turned violent in 2008, with government
forces killing and wounding scores of activists in a big to
quash the protests. In 2009, armed factions associated with
the Southern Movement began to respond in kind, with
sporadic gun battles erupting in Aden and other southern
cities. As YSP cadres called for independence, southern
tribal leaders like Tariq al-Fadhli broke their longstanding
alliances with Saleh’s regime and backed the secessionist
movement. By January 2010, local polling indicated that
some seventy percent of Yemenis living in the former
PDRY favored independence.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula also joined the fray.
Calling for the establishment of an Islamic emirate in
southern Yemen, AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi invited
the YSP and other leftists to abandon secular revolution
and follow the path of jihad. [19] Wuhayshi’s proposal
was largely rhetorical. Far from joining the Southern
Movement, AQAP used civil disorder in southern cities to
expand its recruiting and operational reach. In June 2010,
for example, AQAP cadres attacked the regional
headquarters of Yemen’s Political Security Organization
(PSO) in Aden, killing ten officers in an operation to free
imprisoned militants. [20] Two months later, AQAP
mounted an assassination campaign against 54 designated
officials from the PSO, the Yemeni armed forces, and
other security services. [21]
During the last two years, AQAP has gradually widened
the scope of its operations while deepening its ties to
indigenous tribal groups. This represents a departure from
the usual al-Qaeda model, which seeks to colonize and
radicalize foreign (and often non-Arab) Muslim
populations. In Yemen, however, many of these militants
are speaking their native language and fighting on native
soil. Some are even sheltering among their own
tribesmen—a fact that dramatically improves their
capacity to appreciate and mobilize indigenous
resentments. The result has been a paradigm shift in al-
Qaeda’s typical model. Rather than colonizing foreign
lands, AQAP is re-integrating itself into the various
elements of Yemeni society from which its members were
derived.
This integration is producing a more sophisticated and
sustainable insurgency. Active across large swaths of
Yemen’s Abyan and Shabwa Governates, AQAP has
grounded the precepts of global jihad in the practical
realities of local insurrection. In some regions, this means
holding and even governing certain communities. The May
2011 capture of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan, is a case in
point. By emerging from the tribal regions and asserting
control over urban space, AQAP demonstrated a capacity
to displace existing institutions. It also revealed a capacity
for sustained urban warfare, with militants holding the
city until mid-September despite a counteroffensive from
the Yemeni Army and local tribal militias. [22] Hostilies
in Zinjiban peaked again in Feburary 2012, with AQAP’s
local front group, Ansar al-Shari’ah, threatening a torrent
of violence if Yemeni forces did not withdraw. [23]
AQAP’s tactics also embrace territorial exclusion. One
notable example is the January 2012 capture of Radda in
Bayda Governate. Located near a major road linking
Sana’a with eight of Yemen’s twenty governates, the move
suggested an effort to isolate Yemen’s transitional
government from the southern and western regions where
its writ is already weak. [24] There is some evidence
that the raid was intended more as a signal, however. After
freeing prisoners, flying their flag above the local citadel,
and tagging buildings with jihadi graffiti, AQAP entered
into talks with government-appointed negotiators and
withdrew its forces just one week later.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
The incident in Radda encapsulates many of the factors
undermining Yemen’s domestic security. Distracted by the
uprising in Sana’a and their own power transition,
Yemen’s central government was unable to deter the
militants or prevent the town’s temporary loss. AQAP, by
comparison, was unable to consolidate its gain. Rather
than entering into a prolonged urban battle, as in Zinjibar,
the insurgents chose to negotiate, withdraw, and preserve
their forces for future action. The resulting ambiguity is
destabilizing in its own right. Although Radda did not
experience a change in control, it confirmed the growing
absence of it.
This absence of control is a product of several converging
factors. Years of unresolved internal conflicts have
gradually eroded the central government’s authority,
legitimacy and, capacity to act. The same is true for
months of anti-government protests informed by lingering
resentments and inspired by the Arab Spring. Equally
important, however, are decades of demographic pressure.
Even without persistent political turmoil and overlapping
insurgencies, Yemen’s exploding population, dwindling
resources, and persistent economic malaise would each be
fundamentally destabilizing in their own right.
A reflexive emphasis on terrorism diminishes these
dynamics. By focusing exclusively on AQAP’s tactics and
rhetoric, we risk ignoring the indigenous dynamics that
shape its operations and potentially constrain its options. A
superficial emphasis on the Arab Spring raises similar
concerns. While mass uprisings in cities such as Sana’a
and Aden demand our attention, the historical and tribal
resentments driving popular resistance in Yemen may
have few meaningful equivalents in more centralized
countries like Egypt or more secular societies like Tunisia.
This is why an emphasis on local conditions is so crucial.
Without a firm grounding in the circumstances shaping
everyday life, we lose sight of the nuances that distinguish
one set of threats and priorities from the next.
An emphasis on local nuance is particularly vital in
Yemen, where a centralized Arab nationalist state exists in
an increasingly tenuous equilibrium with a decentralized
tribal society. To the extent that state governance is absent
or ineffective, traditional structures will invariably fill the
void. And the more these traditional structures perceive
greater payoffs from defection, be it to political movements
like the National Council or militant movements like
AQAP, the less influence President Hadi’s regime will
ultimately wield.
This involuntary erosion of state power is consistent with
al-Qaeda’s longstanding desire for a stable base of
operations within the Sunni Arab heartland. So long as
Yemen’s internal divisions persist, they create the kind of
ungoverned space where transnational terrorist syndicates
and their indigenous allies flourish. Dysfunctional
institutions will also hasten ecological and economic
collapse. Absent some measure of stability, the
international community is unlikely to make the kind of
sustained investments that could mitigate Yemen’s
looming demographic crises.
These dynamics transcend the false dichotomy between
promoting change and preserving stability. Yemen is
already in the midst of dramatic change—change that has
more to do with local conditions than regional trends. It is
also suffering from chronic instability—instability that
persistently undermines efforts to preserve the status quo.
Against this backdrop, the central challenge in Yemen is
finding a functional equilibrium before factionalism and
parochialism inspire a race to the bottom. With an
estimated 9.9 million small arms circulating within a
population of only 24 million, the failure to appreciate
Yemenis’ local grievances could inadvertently precipitate a
regional crisis.
----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] Mahmoud Assamiee, “Yemen asks for USD 44 billion from
Friends of Yemen,” Yemen Times (Sana’a), Apr. 6, 2010.
[2] “Yemen: Country Profile,” Al-Jazeera (Doha), Mar. 3, 2010,
available at
http://www.englished.aljazeera.net.focus.2008/09/2009919223525
6194.html.
[3] “FM meets foreign journalists,” Saba (Sana’a), Apr. 10,
2010.
[4] “World Bank launches report on poverty in rural areas of
Yemen,” Saba (Sana’a), Jan. 16, 2010, available at
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news203250.htm.
[5] “Yemen: Country Profile,” Al-Jazeera.
[6] Elizabeth Leahy Madsen, The Effects of a Very Young Age
Structure in Yemen: Country Case Study (Washington: Population
Action International, Dec. 2011), 2.
[7] Ibid.
[8] World Economic Outlook. Tensions from the Two-Speed
Recovery: Unemployment, Commodities, and Capital Flows
(Washington: International Monetary Fund, April 2011), 193.
[9] Ali Saeed, “Yemen introduces 20 investment opportunities in
oil and minerals,” Yemen Times (Sana’a), Oct. 21, 2010.
[10] John Collins Rudolf, “In Yemen, Water Grows Scarcer,” New
York Times, Oct. 25, 2010.
[11] Andrew England, “Arid cities face future without water,”
Financial Times, Sept. 7. 2010.
[12] Country Profile: Yemen (Washington: Library of Congress,
Aug. 2008), 5.
[13] Qahtan Al-Asbahi, Water Resources Information in Yemen
(Sana’a: National Water Resources Authority, 2007).
[14] Gerhard Lichtenthaler, “Water Conflict and Cooperation
in Yemen,” Middle East Report no. 254 (Spring 2010).
[15] Doing Business in Yemen 2012 (Washington: World Bank, Nov.
21, 2011).
[16] Tom Finn, “Yemen army split casts shadow over elections,”
Reuters, Feb. 20, 2012, available at
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/20/us-yemen-election-
idUSTRE81J0MF20120220.
[17] Kareem Fahim, “Yemeni Uprising Opens a Door to Besieged
Rebels in the North,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 2011.
[18] Hakim Almasmari, “Saudi-Iranian War fought in Sa’ada,”
Yemen Post (Sana’a), Apr. 10, 2010.
[19] “The Southern Issue: Secession or Unity. Is there another
Option?” Sada al-Malahim (Sabwa), May 13, 2010.
[20] “Yemen Gunmen in Deadly Raid on Aden Security Services
HQ,” BBC News, Jun. 19, 2010.
[21] Ghamda al-Yusifi, “Report on al-Qaida Threat to Assassinate
54 Yemeni Security Officials,” Elaph.com (Dubai), September 20,
2010.
[22] “Yemen army recaptures provincial capital of Abyan,” CNN,
Sept. 10, 2011.
[23] Mohammed Mukhashaf, “Al-Qaeda-linked group gives Yemen
Government ultimatum,” Daily Star (Lebanon), Fe. 29, 2012.
[24] Ahmed al-Haj, “Al-Qaeda in Yemen Captures Town South of
Capital,” Associated Press, Jan. 16, 2012.
[25] “Yemen: Small arms sales heading underground,” IRIN, Feb.
14, 2010.
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
Footnotes
The Newsletter of FPRI’s Wachman Center
March 22, 2012
Available on the web and in pdf format at:
http://www.fpri.org/footnotes/1702.201203.swift.crisis-yemen.html
THE CRISIS IN YEMEN:
AL-QAEDA, SALEH, AND GOVERNMENTAL INSTABILITY
by Christopher Swift
Christopher Swift is a fellow at the University of Virginia
Law School’s Center for National Security Law. This essay
is based on her talk to FPRI’s History Institute for Teachers
on “Teaching the Middle East: Between Authoritarianism
and Reform,” held October 15-16, 2011. Videofiles from the
conference can be accessed here:
http://www.fpri.org/education/1110middleeast/
Western policymakers greeted the Arab Spring with a
uncertain mixture of idealism and pragmatism. As
populist uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt gained strength,
U.S. officials abandoned authoritarian leaders and
endorsed calls for democratic reform. When civil disorder
in Libya collapsed into civil war, NATO intervened to
support rebel forces. Regional unrest also implicated other
equities, however. Framed by Saudi fears over Iranian
infiltration, the West demurred as Bahrain’s leadership
suppressed Shi’a protesters. Wary of al-Qaeda’s growing
influence in Yemen, Washington publicly endorsed efforts
to broker President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation while
privately collaborating with the Yemeni security services.
This tension between promoting change and preserving
stability raises critical questions about the relationship
between power and principle in international affairs. How,
for example, should the United States define its interests?
When should security concerns trump our desire to
support democratic change? Most significantly, what kind
of policies are most likely to promote a more stable, secure,
and peaceful Middle East? Each of these questions
illuminates the moral and strategic dilemmas leaders face
when formulating U.S. foreign policy. They also reveal the
role that our own perspectives and presumptions play in
the policy formulation process.
Some of these presumptions offer insight. Since the start of
the Arab Spring, observers have focused on broad trends
informing regional unrest. Examples include bulging youth
populations, high structural unemployment, and rising
commodity prices. Also vital is the role of new media,
particularly social media, in disseminating information
and coordinating political dissent. Regional trends cannot
tell us the whole story, however. Although Egyptians and
Libyans were inspired by their Tunisian neighbors and
used similar slogans and technologies, the challenges and
conditions in each of these countries proved vastly
different.
This essay examines the challenges and conditions in
contemporary Yemen. Part one addresses demographic
factors, including the growth of the Yemeni population,
the collapse of the Yemeni economy, and the looming
prospect of ecological crisis. Part two considers political
trends, focusing on Yemen’s unification, political
centralization, and the sources of contemporary
opposition. Part three evaluates threats to Yemen’s
political and territorial security, including the Houthi
insurrection, the southern secessionist movement, and al-
Qaeda’s attempts to re-colonize the Arabian Peninsula.
The essay concludes by emphasizing the need to ground
our analysis and our policy in a rich understanding of local
realities.
DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS
Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world.
Thirty-four percent of the population is unemployed. [1]
Forty-five percent live below the United Nations‘ poverty
line. [2] Fifty percent are illiterate. [3] Seventy-three
percent still live in rural tribal areas. [4] With per capita
gross domestic product (GDP) at only $2,500, Yemeni
living standards have more in common with sub-Saharan
Africa than with the rest of the Middle East. [5] This
endemic poverty is exacerbated by one of the highest birth
rates in the world. Three quarters of Yemen’s population
is below age thirty and forty-six percent is below age
fifteen. [6] This unwieldy age structure seems likely to
grow rapidly. With net population growth at 3.4 percent
annually, Yemen it set to double its current population of
24 million by 2035. [7]
Yemen’s endemic poverty and population boom are even
more troubling when one considers the state of the Yemeni
economy. Already beset with high structural
unemployment and low literacy, Yemen has recently
endured annual inflation rates as high as nineteen
percent. [8] High inflation comes on the heels of a fifty
percent drop in known oil and gas reserves during the last
three years. [9] With as much as seventy percent of
government revenues derived from the energy sector, [10]
Yemen’s government is losing its capacity to implement
fundamental economic reforms at a time when
unemployment, poverty, and youth populations are all on
the rise.
Each of these challenges is compounded by a looming
ecological crisis. Long renown for its arid climate and
mountainour terrain, Yemen’s renewable water resources
amount to only 220 cubic meters per capita per year. This
figure is far below the Middle East average of 1,000 cubic
meters per capita, and represents less than three percent
of the global average of roughly 8,000 cubic meters. [11]
As a result, only 2.9 percent of Yemeni territory is
currently suitable for agriculture. [12] Urban life is
under similarly severe strain, with water tables in Sana’a,
the capital city, falling an average of six to eight meters
every year. [13]
Despite these scarcities, Yemenis continue to allocate a
substantial share of their limited land and water to the
cultivation of qat, a narcotic plant chewed by users
throughout East Africa and parts of the Middle East.
According to some observers, this resource-intensive crop
consumes as much as 37 percent of Yemen’s irrigation
water. [14] Others estimate that qat production accounts
for as much as 10 percent of Yemen’s annual GDP. [15]
On one level, this phenomenon suggests deep desire among
ordinary Yemenis to insulate themselves from the harsh
realities of daily life. Yet it also contributes to these
realities, reducing economic productivity whilst displacing
crops that could be profitably exported.
These realities inform political instability in three ways.
First, demographic pressures are producing a population
that is younger, poorer, larger, and less able to address its
basic economic needs. Second, persistent economic
malaise is frustrating efforts to maintain public services,
improve existing infrastructure, and invest in long-term
economic growth. Finally, resource constraints exacerbate
each of these structural challenges whilst simultaneously
undermining the complex system of tribal and political
patronage established during President Saleh’s 33-year
reign. With a growing number of parties competing for a
shrinking pool of assets, the incentives for dissension and
armed insurrection show few signs of subsiding.
POLITICAL UNREST
Yemen is no stranger to political unrest. Although the 1990
merger between the Republic of Yemen (ROY) and the
People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) was
initially amicable, efforts to integrate the North and South
swiftly turned contentious. Incompatible economic
systems, separate standing armies, and disputes over oil
concessions each contributed to a growing schism between
President Saleh’s Arab Nationalist General People’s
Congress Party (GPC) and the South’s Yemeni Socialist
Party (YSP). Just four years after unification, YSP
officials broke with President Saleh’s regime and re-
asserted the South’s independence.
The 1994 Yemeni civil war produced a series of
unconventional political and ideological alignments. Wary
of President Saleh’s support for Saddam Hussein during
the 1991 Persian Gulf War, conservative Saudi Arabia
reversed its historic support for the North and intervened
on behalf of the secular socialist South. President Saleh’s
regime responded by characterizing the civil war as a
struggle between Islam and atheistic socialism—a measure
aimed at animating Yemeni Islamists and recruiting
recently-returned veterans from the Soviet-Afghan war.
The result was a confluence of Arab nationalist, Islamist,
and socialist actors, each with different ideologies,
different objectives, and different perspectives on the
conflict in which they were engaged.
The North’s decisive military victory did little to
consolidate these political factions. Regional and
ideological tensions with the South ossified, with the YSP
and other small leftist parties forming a permanent yet
largely powerless minority in the Yemeni Parliament.
Saleh’s efforts to build a centralized Arab Nationalist state
also drew the ire of Islamists and tribal leaders, who
together comprised the Yemeni Congregation for Reform
(al-Islah). By 2005, YSP’s and al-Islah’s parliamentary
factions had joined forces under the umbrella of the
banner of the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP) in an effort to
curb the GPC’s dominance and implement long-delayed
reforms.
Fragmentation within the JMP has frustrated many of
these efforts. The coalition’s leftists were divided among
the YSP, which was dominant in the South, a Nasserite
party, and two competing Ba’athist groups. Al-Islah had
its own internal coordination problems, often divided
between tribal leaders with an interest in preserving
decentralized authority structures and urbanized Islamists
seeking reform from the top down. Even the Islamists
operated in coalition, with their numbers divided between
Yemen’s Muslim Brotherhood, with its modernist
inclinations, and Salafis led by prominent Sunni religious
scholar Abdul Majeed al-Zindani.
This ideological diversity explains the resilience of the 2011
Yemeni uprising. Inspired by protests across the Arab
world and supported by thousands of student activists, the
JMP’s constituents formed the National Council for the
Forces of the Peaceful Revolution (National Council) and
demanded President Saleh’s ouster. They even
incorporated defecting Yemeni Army units. Chief among
them was the First Armored Division, which intervened to
protect Yemeni protesters from government forces in
Sana’a. [16] Resilience is not the same as effectiveness,
however. Beset with incompatible ideologies and factional
divisions, the National Council proved far more effective at
catalyzing public anger than channeling it into concrete
political action.
President Saleh’s recent departure underscores this
distinction between social mobilization and political
transformation. Though forced to resign in November
2011 under the terms of an agreement brokered by the
Gulf Coordination Council (GCC), the former President
transferred power to his Vice President, Abd al-Rab
Mansur al-Hadi. In February 2012, Vice President Hadi
ascended to the presidency following an election in which
he was the only candidate. With the GPC still holding an
overwhelming majority in the Yemeni Parliament, and
with Saleh’s extended family members occupying key posts
in government ministries and the national security
apparatus, there are few signs of significant structural
change.
It is still not clear whether the GCC plan will produce a
more stable equilibrium. Despite acknowledging the
transition process, the YSP and other opposition groups
have relatively little to gain from the status quo. The same
is arguably true for Yemen’s tribal leaders, who remain
wary of efforts to centralize power and dilute their
traditional authority. Engaging these potential spoilers
will be vital to both President Hadi’s success and Yemen’s
security. With the next round of elections nearly two years
away, the failure to find a working consensus may create
openings for militants that stand to profit from a
chronically unstable state.
SECURITY DILEMMAS
This militancy manifests in three distinct and ultimately
incompatible movements. Chief among them is the
recurring Houthi rebellion. Centered around the northern
province of Sa’ada, this struggle pits Yemen’s Sunni-
majority regime against members of the Zaidi Shi’a
minority. Though currently subject to a cease-fire, the
dynamics driving this conflict—including religious
differences, political disenfranchisement, and the Houthis’
fear of cultural assimilation—remain largely unresolved.
With four wars and four truces since 2004, the prospect of
renewed conflict in Yemen’s north could destabilize the
Saudi-Yemeni border at a time when the central
government is preoccupied with other challenges.
The rebels are acutely aware of this dynamic. Capitalizing
on popular protests in Sana’a, Houthi leaders used the
2011 Yemeni uprising to forge new ties with opposition
groups and expand their zone of influence. Neither
development is likely to be viewed favorably, be it in
Sana’a or Riyadh. The prospect of renewed rebellion is not
the only concern, however. In reasserting themselves, the
Houthis have increasingly clashed with ultra-conservative
Salafi militants operating in the same border region. Some
observers link these Salafis to Sunni tribal factions aligned
with al-Islah. [17] Others, however, see evidence of a
proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. [18] With
regional tensions between Tehran and Riyadh on the rise,
what was once a relatively straightforward regional
insurrection could devolve into more opaque and
fundamentally irreconcilable patterns of sectarian
violence.
Developments in southern Yemen are equally inauspicious.
Starting in 2007, the so-called Southern Movement
organized mass demonstrations and other forms of civil
disobedience to protest Sana’a’s policies towards the six
southern provinces comprising the former PDRY. Among
their grievances was the central government’s alleged
misappropriation of the South’s oil wealth. Equally
important, however, were allegations of official
discrimination against southerners with respect to
government employment, pensions, and other public
benefits. With energy reserves falling and government
revenues dwindling, resource constraints rekindled many
of the resentments left unresolved following the 1994
Yemeni civil war.
The situation turned violent in 2008, with government
forces killing and wounding scores of activists in a big to
quash the protests. In 2009, armed factions associated with
the Southern Movement began to respond in kind, with
sporadic gun battles erupting in Aden and other southern
cities. As YSP cadres called for independence, southern
tribal leaders like Tariq al-Fadhli broke their longstanding
alliances with Saleh’s regime and backed the secessionist
movement. By January 2010, local polling indicated that
some seventy percent of Yemenis living in the former
PDRY favored independence.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Penninsula also joined the fray.
Calling for the establishment of an Islamic emirate in
southern Yemen, AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi invited
the YSP and other leftists to abandon secular revolution
and follow the path of jihad. [19] Wuhayshi’s proposal
was largely rhetorical. Far from joining the Southern
Movement, AQAP used civil disorder in southern cities to
expand its recruiting and operational reach. In June 2010,
for example, AQAP cadres attacked the regional
headquarters of Yemen’s Political Security Organization
(PSO) in Aden, killing ten officers in an operation to free
imprisoned militants. [20] Two months later, AQAP
mounted an assassination campaign against 54 designated
officials from the PSO, the Yemeni armed forces, and
other security services. [21]
During the last two years, AQAP has gradually widened
the scope of its operations while deepening its ties to
indigenous tribal groups. This represents a departure from
the usual al-Qaeda model, which seeks to colonize and
radicalize foreign (and often non-Arab) Muslim
populations. In Yemen, however, many of these militants
are speaking their native language and fighting on native
soil. Some are even sheltering among their own
tribesmen—a fact that dramatically improves their
capacity to appreciate and mobilize indigenous
resentments. The result has been a paradigm shift in al-
Qaeda’s typical model. Rather than colonizing foreign
lands, AQAP is re-integrating itself into the various
elements of Yemeni society from which its members were
derived.
This integration is producing a more sophisticated and
sustainable insurgency. Active across large swaths of
Yemen’s Abyan and Shabwa Governates, AQAP has
grounded the precepts of global jihad in the practical
realities of local insurrection. In some regions, this means
holding and even governing certain communities. The May
2011 capture of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan, is a case in
point. By emerging from the tribal regions and asserting
control over urban space, AQAP demonstrated a capacity
to displace existing institutions. It also revealed a capacity
for sustained urban warfare, with militants holding the
city until mid-September despite a counteroffensive from
the Yemeni Army and local tribal militias. [22] Hostilies
in Zinjiban peaked again in Feburary 2012, with AQAP’s
local front group, Ansar al-Shari’ah, threatening a torrent
of violence if Yemeni forces did not withdraw. [23]
AQAP’s tactics also embrace territorial exclusion. One
notable example is the January 2012 capture of Radda in
Bayda Governate. Located near a major road linking
Sana’a with eight of Yemen’s twenty governates, the move
suggested an effort to isolate Yemen’s transitional
government from the southern and western regions where
its writ is already weak. [24] There is some evidence
that the raid was intended more as a signal, however. After
freeing prisoners, flying their flag above the local citadel,
and tagging buildings with jihadi graffiti, AQAP entered
into talks with government-appointed negotiators and
withdrew its forces just one week later.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
The incident in Radda encapsulates many of the factors
undermining Yemen’s domestic security. Distracted by the
uprising in Sana’a and their own power transition,
Yemen’s central government was unable to deter the
militants or prevent the town’s temporary loss. AQAP, by
comparison, was unable to consolidate its gain. Rather
than entering into a prolonged urban battle, as in Zinjibar,
the insurgents chose to negotiate, withdraw, and preserve
their forces for future action. The resulting ambiguity is
destabilizing in its own right. Although Radda did not
experience a change in control, it confirmed the growing
absence of it.
This absence of control is a product of several converging
factors. Years of unresolved internal conflicts have
gradually eroded the central government’s authority,
legitimacy and, capacity to act. The same is true for
months of anti-government protests informed by lingering
resentments and inspired by the Arab Spring. Equally
important, however, are decades of demographic pressure.
Even without persistent political turmoil and overlapping
insurgencies, Yemen’s exploding population, dwindling
resources, and persistent economic malaise would each be
fundamentally destabilizing in their own right.
A reflexive emphasis on terrorism diminishes these
dynamics. By focusing exclusively on AQAP’s tactics and
rhetoric, we risk ignoring the indigenous dynamics that
shape its operations and potentially constrain its options. A
superficial emphasis on the Arab Spring raises similar
concerns. While mass uprisings in cities such as Sana’a
and Aden demand our attention, the historical and tribal
resentments driving popular resistance in Yemen may
have few meaningful equivalents in more centralized
countries like Egypt or more secular societies like Tunisia.
This is why an emphasis on local conditions is so crucial.
Without a firm grounding in the circumstances shaping
everyday life, we lose sight of the nuances that distinguish
one set of threats and priorities from the next.
An emphasis on local nuance is particularly vital in
Yemen, where a centralized Arab nationalist state exists in
an increasingly tenuous equilibrium with a decentralized
tribal society. To the extent that state governance is absent
or ineffective, traditional structures will invariably fill the
void. And the more these traditional structures perceive
greater payoffs from defection, be it to political movements
like the National Council or militant movements like
AQAP, the less influence President Hadi’s regime will
ultimately wield.
This involuntary erosion of state power is consistent with
al-Qaeda’s longstanding desire for a stable base of
operations within the Sunni Arab heartland. So long as
Yemen’s internal divisions persist, they create the kind of
ungoverned space where transnational terrorist syndicates
and their indigenous allies flourish. Dysfunctional
institutions will also hasten ecological and economic
collapse. Absent some measure of stability, the
international community is unlikely to make the kind of
sustained investments that could mitigate Yemen’s
looming demographic crises.
These dynamics transcend the false dichotomy between
promoting change and preserving stability. Yemen is
already in the midst of dramatic change—change that has
more to do with local conditions than regional trends. It is
also suffering from chronic instability—instability that
persistently undermines efforts to preserve the status quo.
Against this backdrop, the central challenge in Yemen is
finding a functional equilibrium before factionalism and
parochialism inspire a race to the bottom. With an
estimated 9.9 million small arms circulating within a
population of only 24 million, the failure to appreciate
Yemenis’ local grievances could inadvertently precipitate a
regional crisis.
----------------------------------------------------------
Notes
[1] Mahmoud Assamiee, “Yemen asks for USD 44 billion from
Friends of Yemen,” Yemen Times (Sana’a), Apr. 6, 2010.
[2] “Yemen: Country Profile,” Al-Jazeera (Doha), Mar. 3, 2010,
available at
http://www.englished.aljazeera.net.focus.2008/09/2009919223525
6194.html.
[3] “FM meets foreign journalists,” Saba (Sana’a), Apr. 10,
2010.
[4] “World Bank launches report on poverty in rural areas of
Yemen,” Saba (Sana’a), Jan. 16, 2010, available at
http://www.sabanews.net/en/news203250.htm.
[5] “Yemen: Country Profile,” Al-Jazeera.
[6] Elizabeth Leahy Madsen, The Effects of a Very Young Age
Structure in Yemen: Country Case Study (Washington: Population
Action International, Dec. 2011), 2.
[7] Ibid.
[8] World Economic Outlook. Tensions from the Two-Speed
Recovery: Unemployment, Commodities, and Capital Flows
(Washington: International Monetary Fund, April 2011), 193.
[9] Ali Saeed, “Yemen introduces 20 investment opportunities in
oil and minerals,” Yemen Times (Sana’a), Oct. 21, 2010.
[10] John Collins Rudolf, “In Yemen, Water Grows Scarcer,” New
York Times, Oct. 25, 2010.
[11] Andrew England, “Arid cities face future without water,”
Financial Times, Sept. 7. 2010.
[12] Country Profile: Yemen (Washington: Library of Congress,
Aug. 2008), 5.
[13] Qahtan Al-Asbahi, Water Resources Information in Yemen
(Sana’a: National Water Resources Authority, 2007).
[14] Gerhard Lichtenthaler, “Water Conflict and Cooperation
in Yemen,” Middle East Report no. 254 (Spring 2010).
[15] Doing Business in Yemen 2012 (Washington: World Bank, Nov.
21, 2011).
[16] Tom Finn, “Yemen army split casts shadow over elections,”
Reuters, Feb. 20, 2012, available at
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/20/us-yemen-election-
idUSTRE81J0MF20120220.
[17] Kareem Fahim, “Yemeni Uprising Opens a Door to Besieged
Rebels in the North,” New York Times, Dec. 16, 2011.
[18] Hakim Almasmari, “Saudi-Iranian War fought in Sa’ada,”
Yemen Post (Sana’a), Apr. 10, 2010.
[19] “The Southern Issue: Secession or Unity. Is there another
Option?” Sada al-Malahim (Sabwa), May 13, 2010.
[20] “Yemen Gunmen in Deadly Raid on Aden Security Services
HQ,” BBC News, Jun. 19, 2010.
[21] Ghamda al-Yusifi, “Report on al-Qaida Threat to Assassinate
54 Yemeni Security Officials,” Elaph.com (Dubai), September 20,
2010.
[22] “Yemen army recaptures provincial capital of Abyan,” CNN,
Sept. 10, 2011.
[23] Mohammed Mukhashaf, “Al-Qaeda-linked group gives Yemen
Government ultimatum,” Daily Star (Lebanon), Fe. 29, 2012.
[24] Ahmed al-Haj, “Al-Qaeda in Yemen Captures Town South of
Capital,” Associated Press, Jan. 16, 2012.
[25] “Yemen: Small arms sales heading underground,” IRIN, Feb.
14, 2010.
----------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Foreign Policy Research Institute
(http://www.fpri.org/).
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