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Yemen: Unlikely Key to Western Security
By Sue Lackey
12 October 2000

 

With the chewing of the soporific qat an endemic problem in Yemen and democracy in the country still in its infancy, observers could be forgiven for thinking there is nothing to be gained in courting -- or at least taking account of -- this impoverished and unlikely republic. Yet that would be to ignore Yemen's unique placement within the Middle East's geopolitical firmament, as Sue Lackey reports.

FOR the traveller in Yemen's Abyan province, surrounded by black rock and arid desert, the sense of isolation can be complete. Yet at one point, as the shoulder of a mountain comes in to view, an Arabic phrase has been painstakingly spelled out with painted white rocks against its looming bulk, its message following everyone who enters the Abyan: "Don't forget to remember Allah." A homily in the Islamic world, the message takes on the tenor of a threat in this province racked by civil wars and bloody kidnappings, where foreigners are forbidden by law from travelling the roads after dark. Poor but pivotal Yemen is an Islamic country, like all its neighbours in the Arabian peninsula, but for most Yemenis their religious identity is eclipsed by their tribal and national identity. Yemen is the only country on the peninsula that has not been admitted to the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), and while the rest of the world ignores its existence, its gulf neighbours and the US military are acutely aware of its potential impact on the region.

Yemen has a larger indigenous population than any of the GCC countries -- an estimated 16.4 million people -- and is by far the most desperately poor. Its per capita GDP is US$2,300, compared with $24,000 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The estimated daily income of the average Yemeni is less than $1 per day, adequate medical care is beyond the reach of the average citizen and the capital city of Sana'a has an open sewage canal flowing through its centre. According to Yemeni press sources, inflation rose by 8% in the last week of May, while the cost of certain foodstuffs increased in price by between 20 and 100%.

Yemen's fertile northern provinces once supported a thriving agricultural economy, but deforestation and the increasing cultivation of qat have devastated the industry. Qat is a small shrub which produces a mild narcotic effect when the leaves are chewed. It has negligible export value, thus tying up a significant portion of agricultural production in a recycled economy. Its social impact is heavy as well: most Yemenis chew daily, with the average worker spending about a third of his income on qat.

Yemen's most significant export has traditionally been its labour force. At its high point in 1990, 1.5 million Yemenis were working abroad, mostly in the Gulf countries, and sending a significant portion of their wages home. Yemen's provinces are filled with large, new homes built with wages earned in oil-rich economies. Yemenis hold positions as trusted advisers in most of the gulf countries -- including their traditional enemy Saudi Arabia -- and make up the bulk of the military and police forces in countries such as the UAE, which has an expatriate population that outnumbers nationals by 3:1. Yemenis are preferred by these countries as security personnel because they are Arab Muslims, are intelligent and hard working, and because most want to return to Yemen when their employment is finished. However, this large expatriate force became a concern to its neighbours when Yemen, previously divided into the communist People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south and the Yemen Arab Republic in the north, decided to unify in 1990 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union dried up the flow of financial aid to the PDRY. Yemen further alarmed its neighbours by declaring itself a democracy, holding a referendum in May 1991, adopting a constitution, legalising political parties, opening up the press and conducting free elections.

When Yemen refused to support Western intervention in the 1990 91 Gulf War, its GCC neighbours expelled almost a million Yemeni workers (over 600,000 from Saudi Arabia alone) in an attempt to economically cripple the fledgling democracy.

The return of the labour force dealt a severe blow to the country's economy. It also forced Yemen to turn away from its neighbours for financial aid and created economic conditions ideally suited to the expansion of a thriving black market economy. Instead of keeping Yemen 'in the tent', with its expatriate labour force as leverage, Saudi Arabia has a country on its southern border with a population exceeding its own, a strategic position controlling the access point to the Red Sea (and thus the Suez Canal), a natural deep water harbour at Aden on the Arabian Sea and an enterprising population willing to trade with the highest bidders. In addition, Yemen's democratic political system is deeply threatening to Saudi Arabia's monarchy, particularly since Yemen broadcasts congressional debates and open political discussion on radio and TV signals easily transmitted into the Kingdom. While many of the GCC countries are facing the need to re-invent their economic strategies, they have no desire for any real societal reform such as Yemen has undertaken.

Increased interest

The strategic importance of Yemen, its status as a transitional democracy and its need for cash have not gone unnoticed by other world powers. While Yemen sits poised to control the access to the Red Sea, its neighbour to the northeast, Oman, controls access to the Arabian Gulf (through the Straits of Hormuz), through which flows an estimated 60% of the world's oil production. Oman, with a population of 2.4 million, is better off economically than Yemen. However, it faces the imminent depletion of its oil income and has no obvious successor to its ruler, Sultan Qaboos. Both countries are developing Arabian Sea ports modelled after the successful Jebel Ali Free Zone; Oman at Salalah and Yemen at Aden.

Oman and Bahrain (which serves as the headquarters for the US Fifth Fleet) are the first of the GCC countries which must make the transition from a rentier state to a diversified market economy as oil supplies dwindle. Bahrain has traditionally been protected by Saudi Arabia and its need for a US naval presence to safeguard the Kingdom's Arabian Gulf access; as Saudi Arabia's regional alliances change, this puts Bahrain in an ideal position to negotiate with the Fleet.

Meanwhile, Yemen and Oman, which control the entire southern flank of the Arabian peninsula and both its strategic ports, are the most economically disadvantaged, the most independent and the most amenable to foreign investment. In addition, neither of these countries can afford to maintain standing armies or air power adequate to defend themselves and must rely on foreign intervention in the event of a military threat to their strategic access. US Central Command (USCENTCOM), under General Anthony Zinni, has pushed for an increasingly strong force in the region. Though no formal decision has been made, Gen Zinni reportedly wants the CENTCOM Special Operations Command headquarters (SOCCENT) moved from its base in Florida to a base in Qatar. He has also been instrumental in relocating the military refuelling docks from Djibouti to the newly opened container terminal in Yemen's Free Zone in Aden. Additional permission has been granted by the Yemeni government, in lieu of a formal treaty, to allow US forces access to landing and staging areas in the country with only short-term notice. US Special Forces teams have been in the country since last Autumn teaching Yemeni army staff to maintain demining programmes, the object being to clear up an estimated 85 minefields around Aden-- leftovers from the short-lived 1994 civil war. At the request of the government, a US Navy SEAL team dynamited a ship sunk during the war that was blocking access to part of the harbour there.

US cultivation

The USA has every good reason to keep a watchful eye on the situation in Yemen and to encourage economic reform. Yemen is faced with more than just economic problems in its attempt to maintain a democratic republic. The political system that takes precedence in Yemen is that which underlies all the governments of the Arabian peninsula: tribal allegiances. All political transactions in Yemen -- from the office of the president down to the local army officers -- are based in some way on tribal hierarchy. Because of previous divisions between north and south, tribal structures are far stronger in Yemen than in any other country in the Gulf. In these times of desperate poverty, the tribal Shaikh who slaughters a goat to feed your family will receive far more loyalty than an obscure government leader in Sana'a. One opposition party leader said that democracy was just a way of maintaining centralised control over the population by making them think they had a voice in running the country when it was really just controlled by the president's family. "If they can't have money," the man said, "let them think they have freedom."

There are numerous problems in this infant republic as well as the real progress that has been made. There was no real civil society in place to make a transition to a democratic system. Judges were not adequately educated; courts were understaffed. The police forces have no adequate grounding in due process, nor are there forensic facilities available, which results in a continuing reliance on torture-based confessions rather than in Western investigative techniques.

Perhaps the biggest challenge to an already overburdened economic system has been the return of large numbers of Mujahideen from Afghanistan. At the time of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, many of the always-mobile Yemeni work force were recruited for service there. Many were trained in Saudi Arabian or Pakistani camps; some were sent directly to Khost in the Paktia region of Afghanistan. They were indoctrinated by Muslim extremists and supplied with an estimated $5 6 billion worth of equipment from the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi Arabia and other Arab sources. When their services were no longer needed (or paid for) many Yemenis returned home. Most had gone for the money, for a chance at a job, not for a moral conviction. These soldiers came home and integrated themselves back into Yemeni society. This huge influx of battle-hardened young men was, and is, worrisome to the government. The quickest way to reintroduce them to a society which had no real private-sector jobs available was to place them in the army. While army wages are piteously low, military service at least provides food, housing and a uniform. Income can always be supplemented by baksheesh, the institutionalised bribery that drives all Middle Eastern economies.

Soldiers that came back in the early 1990s were augmented by expatriate workers displaced by the GCC countries during the Gulf War and added to a group of underpaid and disaffected young men. This contributed to Yemen's 1994 civil war, as the central government failed to unify the armies of the north and south even as the country was unified. After the short-lived conflict, the vast majority of soldiers from the south were welcomed back into the army. Now, however, army units are a collection of local Bedu and soldiers from the southern army mixed in with northern regiments. Other than a small number of élite infantry units, the average army unit has no solid allegiance, little discipline and fluctuates in number as soldiers hitch rides from checkpoint to checkpoint as escorts or couriers. This extreme mobility of the army is used to the advantage of the ruling party during elections since soldiers are allowed to vote where they are stationed. Regiments can be moved from one location to another before an election to influence the outcome in a particular area.

Everyone in Yemen is armed, so the army has no particular hold over the general populace other than through sheer numbers. In provinces where the tribal allegiances are very strong, army soldiers frequently defer to locals despite orders from their commanders. There is no standard-issue weapon for infantry soldiers. Most carry a variety of AK-style weapons, while artillery is generally of second- or third-generation Soviet origin. Yemen's MBTs are T-55s and T-62s, while air-defence artillery is generally up-to-date and serviceably deployed.

Despite the large numbers of men incorporated into Yemen's army, its numbers are grossly inadequate to deal with the country's miles of coastline and undefined desert borders in the north. With its porous borders, isolated mountain terrain and sympathetic local population, Yemen was an ideal haven for Mujahideen -- some estimates put the number as high as 2,000 -- returning from Afghanistan with a broader political agenda. In fact, harbouring terrorists has become something of a cottage industry in Yemen.

Many of these 'righteous men', or 'strivers' as they are called locally, went directly to 'Islamic learning centres' in the north or to a camp financed by Osama bin Laden in Mudiyah, Abyan province (the camp was formally disbanded in 1992, but continues to be used occasionally). Although Bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia, his family is Yemeni, he has business interests in Aden and has made several trips into Yemen since becoming known for his sponsorship of international terrorism.

Bin Laden made the most of these disaffected young men, setting them up in small businesses in Yemen where they could be easily reached, but from where money could not be traced. An estimated third of Bin Laden's recruits are Yemeni. Passport control has been tightened only recently, but moving people into Yemen without documentation is still easily done. Yemen has become known as a trans-shipment point for arms, assets and foot-soldiers for the cause. The flow of cash these illegal arms transactions bring into Yemen drives a flourishing underground economy: the 'black authority' as it is called in Sana'a.

The entire Arabian Sea route lends itself to the shipment of illegal materiel. Large amounts of Pakistani and Afghan drug money (mostly funnelled through legitimate businesses), as well as funds from Saudi and Iranian sources, is laundered in Dubai. Cargo can easily be shipped by freighter from the free port of Jebel Ali or brought in by dhow from Iran. Arms transiting Yemen flow through the natural deep water port of Aden, where bribery and extortion is endemic, or through the western port of Al-Hudaydah, which funnels arms to and from the Horn of Africa and into Central Africa as far south as reported training camps in Zimbabwe.

Yemenis can be marvellously egalitarian where money is concerned. There is currently a flourishing trade in illegal arms to Eritrea, which is maintaining a bloody border war with Ethiopia. Yemen and Eritrea only recently resolved a long-standing dispute over ownership of several islands, which was decided by the World Court in Yemen's favour.

Yemen is a natural harbour for refugees, legal and otherwise. (Yemen was the destination of choice for displaced members of Hamas and the Palestine Liberation Organisation, which have maintained offices there for years.) As of June 1998, there were around 130,000 people classified as refugees in Yemen, with only 66,807 under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The vast majority of these -- some 80,000 -- are Somalis; another 38,000 are Arabs from Palestine, Sudan and Iraq.

In the last quarter of 1998, roughly another 400 Yemeni men re-entered the country on Yemenia commercial flights from Afghanistan via Pakistan. What made these flights unusual was the routing. Yemenia normally routes these regularly scheduled flights through the hub of Dubai. These flights, however, were diverted straight to Yemen, bypassing Dubai and its much tighter passport control. Against these total numbers, the Ministry of the Interior states it has expelled 1,827 illegal immigrants this year as part of a security crackdown, including 869 Arab nationals.

The Yemeni government has long looked the other way where suspected terrorists are concerned, for several reasons. The primary one is tribal allegiance. Many of these 'strivers' were legitimate Yemeni citizens, with every right to return. Most had strong family or political ties and did nothing wrong within Yemen's borders. They often brought money in with them or were channels for black market arms sales. Secondly, army and security forces do not have the means or manpower to cover Yemen's extensive borders (more isolated than those the USA shares with Mexico, which the USA cannot contain even with its vast resources and sophisticated detection equipment). Thirdly, within the borders of Yemen, incidents of violence perpetrated by fundamentalist groups are a rarity. What kidnappings do regularly occur in Yemen are tribal in nature and involve Westerners -- usually tourists, oil workers or embassy personnel -- being taken as bargaining leverage in local disputes over fines, taxes or schools and road construction. Hostages are generally treated with traditional hospitality and returned unharmed.

Homing in on Bin Laden

All that came to a halt, however, when 10 Muslims holding British passports were apprehended by Yemeni security officials on 24 December 1998. The group of young men were legitimate British nationals who had entered the country on 19 November and were allegedly apprehended with arms in their car. They later confessed that they planned to bomb the Movenpic Hotel (where US soldiers are frequently billeted), the Christ Anglican Church Clinic and the British Consulate.

What made this case unique were the ties the young men had to a Muslim cleric based in London: Shaikh Abu Hamza al Masri. One of the young men was Al Masri's 17-year-old son, Mustafa Kamal (since convicted on charges of forming an armed group); another was his 22-year-old son-in-law, Galan. The young men had been sent as couriers to Abu al-Hassan, leader of a splinter group of Islamic Jihad known as the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army (AAIA).

Abu Hassan retaliated by taking 16 Western tourists hostage in an apparent bid to gain the release of the 10 men. Retreating to the old Bin Laden camp at Mudiyah, the group was ambushed by the Yemeni army and killed four of the tourists after attempting to use them as human shields during a firefight with the Yemeni army. Abu Hassan has since been tried with his AAIA co-defendants and sentenced to death. His sentence is on appeal.

What elevates this tragedy beyond the level of a badly botched rescue attempt is the evidence recovered in the course of apprehending Abu Hassan and his confederates. The original suspects who came in from the UK brought a considerable amount of equipment to Yemen to be delivered to Abu Hassan. Among these were videos of some of the suspects at training camps in what may have been Albania or Kosovo, tapes showing Mustafa Kamal demonstrating a booby-trap and evidence linking defendants to Al Masri. (Al Masri admits to talking with Abu Hassan about the hostages and has been arrested in the UK under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. He is currently out on bail.)

The real bombshell was the discovery of a satellite phone provided by al-Masri, currency forgery equipment and two computers containing sophisticated encrypted files believed to contain financial, logistical and operational details providing the keys to the workings of a multi-national terrorist network. Intelligence sources say both Abu Hassan and Al Masri have documented ties to Bin Laden, although Abu Hassan may have had a falling out with the terrorist leader, according to communications intercepts. These same sources indicate that the Federal Bureau of Intelligence team dispatched to Yemen from Washington in January is decoding the files. In addition, a Scotland Yard team working in Yemen is tracing serial numbers from the satellite phone and other equipment, attempting to trace its origin. If the satellite phone can be traced to a group of phones taken from British Telecom, as is suspected, the service provider can easily show its connections through billing records. While Yemeni officials were not originally forthcoming with British diplomatic officials on the case, they are co-operating in tracing phone calls made by Abu Hassan while the phone was in his possession. Among others, Abu Hassan allegedly made phone calls to highly placed officials in the Yemeni government that can easily be explained as an attempt to exploit tribal connections or issue threats and does not demonstrate government complicity. It is also doubtful that Abu Hassan was anything but an intermediary for the sensitive material in his possession.

For the Yemeni government and security forces, the presence of groups on Yemeni soil linked to an international terrorist organisation could not have come at a worse time. Desperate to attract foreign investment to reduce its deficit, the government has aggressively acted to prosecute Abu Hassan's group and is co-operating with US intelligence sources, who are anxious to trace Bin Laden's financial network.

Recent intelligence reports indicate that Bin Laden has been forced to move from Afghanistan, which may be supported by the sudden departure of the large number of Yemenis from Afghanistan in late 1998. Intelligence sources indicate that Bin Laden may be establishing a temporary base in Ras Kamboni in Somalia, near the Kenyan border. Ras Kamboni has been a base for the fundamentalist Al Ittihad group, which has been linked to Bin Laden's organisation. This could inadvertently involve the USA in Ethiopia's border war with Eritrea, as the USA would request assistance from Ethiopia in apprehending Bin Laden, and Al Ittihad has previously received assistance from Eritrea.

Somalia, Sudan and the countries of the Horn of Africa are a natural destination for Bin Laden. He previously spent a considerable amount of time in Sudan, and the close proximity to Yemen's porous borders promise ease of movement of arms and assets across the Red Sea. Bin Laden's family and ideological ties in Yemen also ensure support.

Yemen's place in the scheme of things

All of this intrigue takes place against a backdrop of NATO's heavy handed and arguably at times inept handling of the situation in the Balkans, as well as the continuing inability of the USA to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions. The Yemeni government, meanwhile, wants to put as much distance between itself and terrorist organisations as it can while it desperately courts US financial and military assistance. Its willingness to share information with the USA and enlist its technological aid give the USA a much needed foothold in this strategically important area of the Arabian Sea, even as states of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) realign themselves in the Arabian Gulf.

There has been a growing call among the Arab nations for an Arab resolution to the problem in Iraq and a desire to see Baghdad less alienated from its Gulf neighbours. This has proven an ideal opportunity for Iran to further its own regional ambitions, which do not involve a dependence on the USA, but do involve the avoidance of international economic sanctions. President Mohammed Khatami, as one part of a political diarchy controlling Iran, has seized the opportunity to strengthen his own internal political position by opening a path for economic growth in Iran, while at the same time containing its ambitious neighbour, Iraq. With a population of over 68 million and an arms programme aiming at a nuclear capability, Iran presents a convincing argument for the advantages of an alliance. Iran's recent reconciliation with Saudi Arabia represents a major realignment of power in the Gulf, one that will almost certainly result in increased oil prices if the two countries can maintain their recent agreement on OPEC oil production strategies. Iran needs sanctions to be lifted in order to recover economically. This would also increase the leverage both countries have over the USA via its oil supply and over US military presence in the Gulf.

While Iran and Saudi Arabia can argue that their combined forces could keep Iraq contained without Western involvement, neither country can afford to lose the US military presence in the region. Iran cannot discount the gathering strength of neighbouring Russia, which needs to recoup its considerable investment in Iraq. Saudi Arabia is painfully aware of its own inability to defend itself and is also aware that Iran does not yet have the military capability to do so either. Nor would a significantly increased military capability in Iran be to the advantage of the GCC states, for obvious reasons. The traditional Bedouin axiom, 'Keep your friends close, and keep your enemies closer', applies here. Additionally, a majority of Saudi Arabia's oil-field workers belong to the Kingdom's Shiite minority and have been a recurring source of internal tension; an alliance with Iran would give the Saudis increased leverage in controlling the export of dangerous ideas from its revolutionary Shiite neighbour.

While it has always been to the advantage of the Gulf states to have Iran and Iraq preoccupied with each other, this presupposes an equal strength between the two foes to balance their effect on the region. If a Gulf alliance could succeed in convincing the UN to withdraw sanctions against Baghdad, Iraq could begin to regain its strength as a trading partner and continue to act as a regional buffer. An Iraq that is effectively contained by regional forces removes the main argument for US military activity in the Gulf. This, in turn, gives the GCC increased leverage in negotiating with the USA for permission to maintain its presence in the area.

This subtle shift of power is already in evidence with the concessions made by the US State Department to the UAE over the sale of $7 billion dollars worth of F-16 Block 60s. While a sale of advanced military technology, comparable to that given to the closest US allies, would normally be handled as a military sale and channelled through the Pentagon, the transaction with Abu Dhabi was handled as a commercial licence from the start. That put ultimate control over the terms of the sale in the hands of the US State Department, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense. The UAE stalled on closing the deal unless the USA released the source codes for the advanced Block 60 technology. Lockheed-Martin, US Air Force spokesmen and also State Department sources publicly declared the codes would never be released -- and in fact had refused to release source codes to Japan under similar circumstances. However, a matter of weeks after President Khatami announced Iran and Saudi Arabia no longer had any practical differences between them, the US DoD removed its objections to releasing source codes to the UAE, which is in a long-standing dispute with Iran over the ownership of the Lesser Tunbs and Abu Musa islands.

The oil glut of the 1980s, combined with the prolonged war between Iran and Iraq, precipitated the GCC's heavy reliance on a US military presence. The possibility of increasing co-operation with Iran through its alliance with Saudi Arabia is particularly valuable to the USA in light of the US sale of military technology to the Chinese, coupled with Chinese acquisition of delivery and nuclear technology through espionage and other means. The strategic importance of the Arabian peninsula and the placement of a missile defence system there become vital to US interests. As the GCC countries seek to balance the involvement of the USA in Gulf affairs, US military and economic involvement in Yemen takes on increasing significance.

First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was scheduled to stop in Yemen during the last week of June to participate in an international conference on transitional democracy being held in Sana'a. Although driven by US domestic politics, this public acknowledgement of Yemen's political efforts gives the USA a certain leverage of its own. The Western powers have every reason to want a healthy democracy on the Arabian peninsula, one that looks to the West for financial aid and provides strategic access to the Suez Canal and the Horn of Africa. Increased US vigilance, in co-operation with Yemeni intelligence sources, could also potentially dam -- or at least trace -- the flow of arms and foot-soldiers supplying international terrorist groups and threatening Western interests worldwide.

The village of Bayhan, in Shabwa province, is comparable to a county seat. There are active wells and the areas of cultivation provide fodder for goats and cereal grains. Areas of cultivation are scattered in the province, which largely consists of desert and barren mountains. (Source: Sue Lackey)

Biding their time: the surfeit of arms and lack of employment in Yemen are not conducive to firm government control. (Source: Sue Lackey)

An ancient fortress sentinel guards a valley north of the capital, Sana'a. This is typical of the widely varied terrain in Yemen, ranging from rugged mountains and cultivated land, to barren desert and volcanic rock. (Source: Sue Lackey)

USCENTCOM Commander-in-Chief General Anthony Zinni during a visit to a Yemeni minefield being cleared with US assistance. Gen Zinni is looking to increase the US presence in the region. (Source: Sue Lackey)

All civilians are heavily armed in Yemen, in cities and villages alike. Young boys of 5 years of age carry curved daggers like their elders, while most adult men have a rifle or handgun, usually of Russian manufacture. (Source: Sue Lackey)

An army checkpoint along the main road to the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa. Typically there are one or two men on guard and a small unit of 20 24 men encamped in the vicinity. Guards are assigned to accompany all foreigners between checkpoints and extract bribes of YR200 to YR1,000 (between US$3 and $7) for the service. (Source: Sue Lackey)

A Yemeni soldier demonstrates demining techniques taught by US Special Operations officers as part of a demining training programme. There are believed to be about 85 minefields around Aden as a result of Yemen's 1994 civil war. (Source: Sue Lackey)

A typical Army unit stationed at a checkpoint. Composition of these units fluctuates as soldiers shuttle between checkpoints frequently. Typically, there is at least one truck-mounted 12.7mm machine gun at each checkpoint. (Source: Sue Lackey)