The Fall of Amran and the Future of the Islah Party in Yemen
As the world’s attention was riveted on the lightening conquests of the Islamic State in Iraq, Yemen’s al-Huthi movement made an equally stunning but largely unnoticed military advance on Amran Governorate and captured the provincial capital, Amran, in July. The fall of Amran has extraordinary political significance: The al-Huthi advance dislodged the al-Ahmar family’s grip on the leadership of the Hashid tribal confederation, a central political pillar of the Yemeni Republic since 1962, and threatens the survival of the Islah Party itself.
The Popular Committees of Abyan, Yemen: A Necessary Evil or an Opportunity for Security Reform?
In early 2011, Yemeni youths took to the street to demand the downfall of the regime and much-needed democratic reforms. This eventually led to the removal of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power later the same year. The political turmoil associated with the uprising has resulted in an alarming deterioration of the security situation throughout the country, most notably the seizure of two major cities in the southern governorate of Abyan by Ansar al-Shariah (AAS), an offshoot of al-Qa`ida. Backed by the Yemeni government, the Popular Committees (PCs), local armed resistance groups, pushed AAS out of major cities in Abyan.
Yemen’s Contentious Transitional Justice and Fragile Peace
Yemen was not immune to the wave of popular uprisings that swept some countries of the Middle East and North Africa region. However, because of the Yemeni state’s fragility, concurrent zones of conflict, and a power struggle that divided the core military and tribal elites, the international community was afraid that the youth uprising that started in January 2011 might lead to a collapse of the state. Given the consequences of such a collapse on the security of the Gulf states, oil production, and the international war on terror, the Gulf Cooperation Council brokered a deal in November 2011—the Gulf initiative—which laid the foundation for a transitional government. The main aim of the initiative was to secure a peace deal that halted Yemen’s slide into chaos. Peace was sought through the brokering of an inclusive National Dialogue Conference (NDC), but peace did not entail changing the regime or its pattern of politics. While transitional justice has been a part of this process of peaceful reconciliation, it raises questions about the sustainability of this peace and provides a showcase of the precarious state of Yemeni affairs.
The removal of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 has created an existential crisis for Yemen’s Houthis. Like many other armed political groups in Yemen and elsewhere, the Houthis’ survival depends on the continued existence of an enemy. With Saleh gone, their raison d’être has become difficult to define and their armed opposition hard to defend.
The members of the Friends of Yemen, comprising over 30 governments and several international institutions, including the United Nations, World Bank, Arab League, and European Union, gathered for their sixth meeting September 25 in New York on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Chaired by the governments of Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the United Kingdom, participants praised Yemen’s efforts to implement a political transition through inclusive and comprehensive dialogue and negotiation—a stark contrast to the course of events in better-known Syria and Egypt.
Last week, MEI scholars Allen Keiswetter, a retired Foreign Service officer, David Newton, former ambassador to Yemen, and Roby Barrett, author of Yemen: A Different Political Paradigm in Context(2011), gathered for an informal discussion about Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC), which began in March.
Since the 1970s oil boom, the Gulf region has been one of the principal destinations for workers from South Asia, with the result that today Indians constitute a large percentage of the non-nationals living in the region. Indeed, at five million out of an estimated 15 million people, the Indian community forms the largest expatriate group in each of the Gulf countries. Most Indian immigrants are from the south Indian state of Kerala, while many of the rest originate from Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.
When the young Shaykh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani became ruler of Qatar last month after his father stepped aside in a seamless transition, one of his first official acts was to seal the generational shift by appointing a new prime minister.
In a speech on 23 May 2013, President Obama declared the war on terror over. “We must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror,’” he said, “but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”[1] He argued that al-Qa`ida is on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan and no longer threatens the U.S. homeland.
Oman is strategically positioned across the Gulf of Oman from Iran, north of Yemen, and east of Saudi Arabia. It has arguably been able to secure its rapid economic growth—spurred by oil riches—by maintaining neutral, if not friendly, relations with these neighbors, including Iran. Yet while Oman has successfully kept itself neutral, it still inhabits a precarious location. It shares with Iran the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway that Iran has threatened to close due to its charged relations with the GCC countries and the United States, who rely on the Strait to transport oil to world markets.
Interview with Indian Ambassador (ret.) Ranjit Gupta: Cairo, Egypt — The First Posting (1965-1968)
Even before I left India for Cairo, I had the impression that there was a special relationship between India and Egypt. Indeed, within a few weeks of my arrival in Cairo, I found tangible manifestations that it was indeed so and discovered many more in due course.
