Yemen terrorists: Why killed by drones not captured when it's easier?

Yemen terrorists: Why killed by drones  not captured when it's easier?

From communist to drone-target Jihadist

By Nasser Arrabyee,26/04/2013

It seems that US drone attacks resumed after months of halt in Yemen.

The big question coming to mind of a lot of Yemenis and Americans is : Could  those  targeted men be captured rather than killed by drones?

The answer is yes. They could be captured easily. Even more, almost all those Al Qaeda suspects killed in Yemen ( more than 100 since 2009) could have been captured including Anwar Al Awlaki, who was  the most wanted Yemeni-American terrorist before being  killed in September 30, 2011 by US drones in Al Jawf east of the country.

  

The Yemeni government would not arrest these people not only in fear of anger and retaliation of relatives but also in fear of  anger and retaliation of  other tribesmen who look at these people ( Al Qaeda members or leaders) as the most devout men and the most helpful for others because they are the most closest to Alllah.  Tribesmen always like and respect the extremely religious men like Al Qaeda members  even though they  do not understand their thoughts and ideologies.

Adnan Al Qadi, who was killed by US drones late last year as dangerous Al Qaeda operative and local leader, was living in his house in Bait Al Ahmar, Sanhan, the village of ExPresident Ali Abdullah Saleh and many other senior officials. 

The village Sanhan is only less than 30 km east of the capital Sanaa. The man, Al Qadi, was not hiding in his house, he was doing all his activities publicly including Al Qaeda activities  such as painting his house with the black flag of Al Qaeda. Shortly before he was killed by drone in his village, the government asked him to go as a mediator to Al Qaeda local leaders in Radaa for a truce that never happened.  Al Qadi could have been captured easily or even summoned and captured. Al Qadi was from the ruling tribe Sanhan, he was senior military officer, and was receiving his salary from the defected division of general Ali Muhsen until he dies and now his family receives the salary. 

Another example is Hamid Radman, the local top leader of Al Qaeda in the mountainous areas of Wesab, who was killed with three other operatives  last week by US drones. His village  Mathlab is very close to headquarters of  local local government and he was always with security and police men "helping"  each other. Which means there was some kind of cooperation between Radman and the local authorities of Wesab only because each side was afraid from the other. 

One day in the middle of 2012, about 16 security soldiers on two vehicles were stopped for hours by armed men of Hamid Radman nearby his village only because they( Hamid's men) did not know  where they were going and why.

"Hamid and his men told us, and they are the authority there and they should know where are we  going," said Mohammed Al Yafee who was with the soldiers at the time.

The 16 security men and their vehicles were only released after the security commander  of Wesab negotiated with Radman, said Al Yafee.

In July 2012, Hamid Radman along with more than 50 gunmen surrounded Al Dan, place where headquarters of  local government  of Wesab is located, which is close to Radman's  house and village. With his men besieging Al Dan, Radman stormed with his Kalashnikov  a meeting of the local goverment officials saying " We must uproot corrupts and establish Islamic State."

"We could have easily arrested him without single shot, but no one told us to do so," said a local security official who knows Radman very well.

The official, who asked not to be named for sensitivity of the issue, the senior security officials  in Dhammar, capital of province, and also senior officials in Sanaa, were afraid from supporters of Radman.

"Our superiors in Dhammar and Sanaa did not order us to arrest him, maybe 

because Radman's followers would take revenge on us," said the security official.

"Radman would always tell me friendly that killing a soldier or soldiers 

( meaning Yemeni soldiers) is  permissible necessity for the time being, because the soldier now is the barrier between us and the big enemy, America," said the official. 

"But if the strike comes  from the sky, the followers will be confused and not know who to take revenge on, maybe this is what our superiors think," said the official. 

 Radman along with three others of his fighters were buried as " Martyrs" in their home village of  Mathlab on April 18, 2013 after being charred and cut into pieces in their car which was completely burned and destroyed by US drones one day before  nearby Radman's  house in Wesab.

Radman, was  almost the absolute ruler of Wesab  and neighboring areas, about 200 km south west of Yemeni capital Sanaa,for more than three years. He was not ruling by force but by content of local people who were looking for a ruler who can solve their daily  problems when the government is  completely absent. 

In 1980s,  Radman was communist and he was sent by  his Yemen socialist party to Cuba where he studied economy  for 4 years and returned  to Yemen in  1991. Then  he was sentenced to death for killing one of his cousins. He was released in 1999 because his cousins pardoned him shortly before he was executed. 

 In 2004, he tried to go for Jihad in Iraq but he was captured in Yemen airport before leaving for Iraq and he was put in intelligence prison. In 2009, he was released from intelligence prison after he met many of Al Qaeda veterans inside the prison. He returned to his village with retaliatory thoughts and  rosy ideas of establishing the "State of Justice, the Islamic State".

"Every body is sad, everybody is asking who would solve our problems now ?," said Ali Abdullah from local hospital of the village of Mathlab where he works as a laboratory technician. 

" Hamid was very popular, everyone would like him and respect him as soon as he sees him let alone if he  solves his  problem," he added. 

"If he was from Al Qaeda, then he made the people like Al Qaeda, he did very well to  improve the bad image of Al Qaeda for some people here who hate Al Qaeda," said Ali.

The Yemeni government ignored and let Hamid do whatever he wants for years not only because Wesab is not important and remote mountainous to it but also the Yemeni government ignored when it knew that Wesab became the back garden of Al Qaeda fighters coming from many volatile areas like Abyan and Shabwah.

Al Qaeda used to send tens, if not hundreds, of those injured in Abyan battles of last year to such a  remote and mountainous area for  treatment under the supervision of thief local leader Hamid Radman.

He  was not only a trustworthy local commander of  Al Qaeda but also he was the police man, the judge, the minister of water, education, health, and everything for the people in ignored  Wesab.

The officials including director of Wesab and security director stay  months and months in their homes and they come only for salaries and get back quickly, according to many residents who were asked why people liked Radman?

Even worse, the low level officials who kept attending and doing their jobs were threatened to be left alone for Radman and his militants.

" One day I had arguments with the intelligence officer who is assigned to monitor Radman's activities, and he was a little bit angry with me so he said: we will leave you alone for Radman if you do not listen to me," said the low-level security official who identified himself only as Yahya.

 " Everything about Radman was reported to the intelligence senior officials but they did nothing more than threatening us with this guy," added  Yahya.

Radman's village Mathlab  is located in Juar mountain, one of the highest mountains in Yemen. Wesab in general is a series of mountains, the highest ever is Juar which overlooks the Red Sea. Poverty and ignorance and illiteracy  is widely spread in these areas which look like Tora Pora of Afghanistan. 

Although US drones have been sporadically  flying over Wesab for about six months, the local people were surprised by the drone strikes.

"We thought we  are not important enough for American drones," said Abdu Morshid, one of the social figures in the area.

"To mention our name ( Wesab) with drones  is better than no mention at all," said Murshid who talked about a great sufferings of the local population. 

However, Murshid said, "Killing this man will not solve the problem without solving the development problems of the people who do not care about Al Qaeda and cares only for their food."

US-based Yemeni activist talks about impact of drones on his village before American Senate

US-based Yemeni activist talks about impact of drones on his village before American Senate 

Source: Agencies, 24/04/2013

WASHINGTON -- A Yemeni man named Farea al-Muslimi told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday that a U.S. drone strike on his small town of Wessab "tore my heart," much as the Boston Marathon bombings upset Americans.

"Most of the world has never heard of Wessab. But just six days ago, my village was struck by a drone, in an attack that terrified thousands of simple, poor farmers," Muslimi said in prepared testimony. "The drone strike and its impact tore my heart, much as the tragic bombings in Boston last week tore your hearts and also mine."

Muslimi testified that he was with an American colleague in the town of Abyan last year when the local residents suddenly became worried.

"They were moving erratically and frantically pointing toward the sky. Based on their past experiences with drone strikes, they told us that the thing hovering above us -– out of sight and making a strange humming noise -– was an American drone. My heart sank. I was helpless. It was the first time that I had earnestly feared for my life, or for an American friend’s life in Yemen. I was standing there at the mercy of a drone. I also couldn’t help but think that the operator of this drone just might be my American friend with whom I had the warmest and deepest friendship in America," Muslimi said.

"My mind was racing and my heart was torn," Muslimi continued in his statement. "I was torn between the great country that I know and love and the drone above my head that could not differentiate between me and some AQAP militant. It was one of the most divisive and difficult feelings I have ever encountered. That feeling, multiplied by the highest number mathematicians have, gripped me when my village was droned just days ago. It is the worst feeling I have ever had. I was devastated for days because I knew that the bombing in my village by the United States would empower militants."

Farea al-Muslimi, center, told a Senate Judiciary committee today about a recent lethal drone strike in his Yemeni village. Photo: Spencer Ackerman/Wired

For the first time, the Senate heard from someone who lives in a village where U.S. drone strikes are believed to have killed civilians.

Farea al-Muslimi, who was born in the mountain village of Wessab and educated at a California high school, described a drone strike in the village that took place a week ago. His voice occasionally catching, al-Muslimi told a Senate judiciary subcommittee today that the target of the strike, Hameed Meftah, was well known to villagers, and could have been captured.

A “psychological fear and terror” has now taken ahold of his old neighbors, al-Muslimi said. “The drone strikes are the face of America to many.”

al-Muslimi — who actually livetweeted the strike, although he was not there — said the drone strikes have taken on a terrifying character that other weapons may not share. “The drones have made more mistakes than AQAP has ever done,” he said, using the acronym for al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate. Parents in Yemen now tell their children to hurry off to bed by saying they’ll call in a drone strike if they don’t. As human-rights groups have documented, the buzzing overhead of a Predator or Reaper engine as the flying robot hovers has a chilling psychological effect.

Sen. Richard Durbin, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee that convened the hearing, asked al-Muslimi if Yemenis are aware that U.S. military and CIA drone strikes occur with the complicity of the Yemeni government. al-Muslimi replied that the question barely registers.

“On the ground,” he said, “it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this is problematic.”

The hearing was apparently the first ever in the Senate to openly question the Obama administration’s targeted killing programs, especially as it applied to drone strikes. It built on Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) recent 13-hour filibuster to protest the administration’s broad claims of executive authority over counterterrorism operations, including inside the United States. But while Paul’s effort largely concerned what might happen to American citizens accused of terrorism, al-Muslimi attempted to turn the debate toward the vastly larger cohort of non-Americans killed in drone strikes, missile strikes and commando raids far from declared battlefields globally. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) recently said he believed some 4,700 people have been killed by drones.

One option under discussion by legal scholars testifying before the panel was to create something resembling a court to review potential drone targets, either before or after the fact of the operations. (Graham objected strenuously.) Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University School of Law, pointed out that Israel maintains one to prevent unchecked executive power. James “Hoss” Cartwright — a retired Marine general, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and leading figure in the targeted-killing effort — said the court idea might have merit.

“I am concerned we may have ceded some of the moral high ground in this endeavor,” Cartwright said, though he said he remained a supporter of the drone strikes.

Durbin became a rare senator to publicly consider “making amends to civilian victims of covert drone strikes, their families, and communities,” something the U.S. military has done in Afghanistan. He didn’t mention it, but such reparations would constitute a public acknowledgement that the strikes have occurred, something the U.S. has been reluctant to admit.

al-Muslimi said that reparations were imperative for undercutting the narrative al-Qaida presents about U.S. drones ravaging Yemeni civilians. “There has to be some sort of compensation — build a hospital or school,” he said.

After the hearing, Cartwright, the former senior Obama administration official involved in the targeted killing efforts, came up to al-Muslimi and shook his hand.

Yemen UNHCR provides community center for north IDPs

 Source: UNHCR press release, 24/04/2013

UNHCR reactivates Community Centre for IDPs and Host Community in Sa’ada

Sa’ada, Yemen: As part of its continued efforts in the northern governorates of Yemen, UNHCR reopened its Community Centre activities in cooperation with a local NGO in order to assist IDPs, returnees and affected host community members providing them access to social services and protection.  

The Community Centre will provide social, legal, and psychological counselling. It will serve to strengthen and maintain a referral network with governmental, non-governmental organizations and institutions that are engaged with IDPs and host community members.  There will be a child friendly space for children who accompany their parents; and dedicated staff will be present to operate a hotline to respond to calls from those in need of protection assistance and counselling.  

During several regional consultations and workshops with UNHCR, IDPs and local authorities stressed the need for specialized service providers and services for the disabled and elderly in areas of displacement and return. The establishment of this centre will serve to address these concerns and assist persons with specific needs, including the elderly and disabled, providing them provide special assistance and attention. The centre has been set up with the intent to also build the capacity of community service providers in the area.

In 2013 UNHCR continues to provide protection and lifesaving assistance. Thus far, nearly 475,433 IDPs, returnees and host community families have been assisted in Hajjah and Sa’ada Governorates. UNHCR distributed tents for temporary shelter and basic household items such mattresses, blankets and kitchen sets to improve living conditions for them

Since 2004, a series of armed conflicts has affected more than 1 million people and repeatedly displaced populations in the northern governorates. Around 320,000 people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands more affected by the conflict and are in need of humanitarian and development assistance. “The international community must do more for Sa’ada and the northern Governorates,” said UNHCR Representative in Yemen, Mr. Naveed Hussain.  IDPs live in camps, informal settlements and with host families and are keen to see a resolution to their displacement. UNHCR will continue to assist IDPs in the northern governorates, enhancing social cohesion, improving their lives in areas of displacement and advocating the sustainability of voluntary returns.  

UNHCR is the lead international agency responding to protection and shelter/NFIs needs of Yemenis that have been internally displaced and has assisted over 146,000 IDPs return to Abyan since July, and is working in developing durable solutions for over 322,000 IDPs in the northern governorates.

Yemen 'Tora Pora' under fire of US drones for first time

Yemen  'Tora Pora' under fire of US drones for first time

By Nasser Arrabyee,18/04/2013

It was  too late to prevent a Yemen Tora Pora from being established when the American and Yemeni governments decided to kill by  drones  an Al Qaeda top leader in a remote mountainous  area  south west of the country.   

Hamid Radman Al Mate'a  along with three others of his fighters were buried as " Martyrs" in their home village of  Mathalab  today (April 18, 2013) after being charred and cut into pieces in their car which was completely burned and destroyed by US drones yesterday Wednesday nearby Al Mate'a's house in this area.

Hamid Radman, was  almost the absolute ruler of Wesab Aali and neighboring areas, about 200 km south west of Yemeni capital Sanaa, for more than three years. He was not ruling by force but by content of local people who were looking for a ruler who can solve their daily  problems with the complete absence of the government. 

"Every body is sad, everybody is asking who would solve our problems now ?," said Ali Abdullah from local hospital of the village of Mathalab where he works as a laboratory technician. 

" Hamid was very popular, everyone would like him and respect him as soon as he sees him let alone if he  solves his  problem," he added. 

"If he was from Al Qaeda, then he made the people like Al Qaeda, he did very well to  improve the bad image of Al Qaeda for some people here who hate Al Qaeda," said Ali who tried to treat Ghazi Al Emad in his hospital before he died of serious injuries by the US drone. 

The Yemeni government ignored and let Hamid do whatever he wants for years not only because Wesab is not important and remote mountainous to it but also the Yemeni government   ignored when it knew that Wesab became the back garden of Al Qaeda fighters in many volatile areas like Abyan and Shabwah.

Al Qaeda used to send tens, if not hundreds, of those injured in Abyan battles of last year to such a  remote and mountainous area for  treatment under the supervision of thief local leader Hamid Radman.

He  was not only a trustworthy local commander of  Al Qaeda but also,  Hamid Radman, was the police man, the judge, the minister of water, education, health, and everything for the people in ignored  Wesab.

Radman's village Mathalab is located in Juar mountain, one of the highest mountains in Yemen. Wesab in general is a series of mountains, the highest ever is Juar which overlooks the Red Sea. Poverty and ignorance and illiteracy  is widely spread in these areas which look like Tora Pora of Afghanistan. 

Although US drones have been sporadically  flying over Wesab for about six months, the local people were surprised by the drone strikes.

"We thought we  are not important enough for American drones," said Abdu Morshid, one of the social figures in the area.

"To mention our name ( Wesab) with drones  is better than no mention at all," said Murshid who talked about a great sufferings of the local population. 

"Killing this man will not solve the problem without solving the development problems of the people who do not care about Al Qaeda and cares only for their food," said Murshid.

Mukaram Ahmed Hamoud, Ghazi Hamoud Al Emad, and Najm Al Deen Al Rai were killed along with Al Qaeda founder in Wesab,   Hamid Radman Al Mate'a late Wednesday in his car after he concluded a big tribal meeting for solving problems of people who were listening and implementing his decisions without any objections.   

Some sympathizes and  of Al Qaeda and observers here in Yemen who know Wesab, say if Al Qaeda takes control of Wesab and its mountains, they would fight hundreds of years without fear. 

Saudi Arabia gives 3 months for Yemeni and other expatriates to "conform" with law or go

Source : The New York Times, 07/04/2013

Saudis to Delay a Measure Deporting Foreign Workers

In late March, Saudi officials announced changes to the country’s employment code, promising tough measures, including deportation, for foreigners found to be violating the work-visa sponsorship system. The statement on Saturday said the workers had three months to conform with the new regulations.

It was not immediately clear whether workers who had already been deported — including up to 20,000 from Yemen, according to officials there — would be allowed to return.

Saudi officials have framed the crackdown as part of a continuing effort to lower the country’s staggering youth unemployment rate, in part by shifting the balance in hiring practices for private-sector jobs, which are overwhelmingly occupied by the kingdom’s 10 million foreign workers. In November, the government started penalizing private companies that hire more foreigners than Saudi citizens as part of a plan to create six million new jobs for Saudis by 2030.

The policy also reflects fears of political instability among the monarchies of the Persian Gulf region, where the authorities have combined inducements with repression to contain the discontent among young people that helped propel the Arab uprisings more than two years ago.

Officials in Kuwait also recently announced a policy to reduce its high proportion of expatriate workers over the next decade.

After the crackdown was announced, some Saudi employers reported that their businesses had been raided and said that employees fearful of the authorities were staying away from work. A lawyer in Saudi Arabia said that “an army of women law enforcers” had descended on women-only shops and salons to find people in violation of the law.

At one of the country’s largest ports, in Jidda, workers said that the handling of shipments had slowed because most of the port’s foreign workers were staying home, according to a report on Saturday in The Saudi Gazette. Workers told the newspaper that the labor force had dwindled to about 200 workers from more than a thousand before the government announced its new enforcement policy.

Yemen, Saudi Arabia’s neighbor and the region’s most impoverished country, was perhaps hardest hit by the policy. A Yemeni presidential media adviser, Rajeh Badi, said in an interview last week that 18,000 to 20,000 Yemenis had been deported from Saudi Arabia since the authorities started enforcing the new regulations, cutting off a critical source of remittances. The deportations led to protests in Yemen’s capital, Sana, last week.

In Yemen, “there are no jobs,” Mr. Badi said. “Those returning Yemenis will be joining the lines of unemployment.”

At least a million Yemenis are believed to be working in Saudi Arabia, mostly as laborers who remain with their original sponsors for only a few months before trying to find other work, Mr. Badi said. He added that it was often difficult for workers to switch to other sponsors, raising questions about whether the grace period would be able to help Yemeni workers in Saudi Arabia legalize their status.

World Food Program feeds more than 5 million poor people in Yemen during 2013

World Food Program feeds more than 5 million poor people in Yemen during 2013

Source: WFP press's release, 06/04/2013

WFP SIGNS AGREEMENTS WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF YEMEN TO DELIVER AID TO MILLIONS OF YEMENIS

SANA’A – The United Nations World Food Programme signed two agreements with Yemen’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation today to provide food and nutritional assistance to more than five million people in the country.

Under the terms of the two agreements—officially Letters of Understanding (LOU) —WFPwill deliver food, specialized nutritional support and some cash to a range of needy beneficiaries, including food insecure households, internally displaced Yemenis,malnourished mothers and young children and refugees from the Horn of Africa.

“This is a critical time for Yemen and we hope that WFP assistance will contribute to the general stabilization of Yemen at an important moment in the transition process,” said

Lubna Alaman, WFP Country Director, as she signed the LOUs in a ceremony at the Ministry.  “We hope that we receive funding to be able to continue our programmes to reduce acute malnutrition among young mothers and children as well as raise the food consumption levels of families struggling to feed their families and others affected by conflict.”

Mohamed Saeed Al-Sa’adi, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation said: “WFPhas made ​​significant contributions in Yemen, which have been very important. We hope those operations will continue in the same spirit of open cooperation.” He thanked WFP’s Country Director for her efforts. Minister of Education Abdulrazzaq Alashwal also attended the signing ceremony.

The LOUs cover two WFP programmes. The first involves a year-long US$242 million emergency operation that the agency launched at the beginning of 2013. It targets three main areas: delivering emergency food assistance to 3.5 million food-insecure people and cash to another 400,000; distributing food assistance to 600,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) to some who have returned to their homes and to others affected by conflict; and providingnutritional support to 405,000 children under five and 157,000 nursing mothers and pregnant women threatened by acute malnutrition.

The emergency operation requires a total of 226,000 metric tons of food, including wheat, pulses, vegetable oil, sugar and a range of specialized, micronutrient-enriched products designed to either cure or prevent acute malnutrition.

The second agreement covers a smaller, US$8 million relief and recovery operation to provide food assistance to almost 70,000 refugees in Yemen who have fled conflict or difficult conditions in their home countries in the Horn of Africa. More than 20,000 of these refugees, mainly Somalis, are sheltered at the isolated Kharaz refugee camp outside Aden inLahj governorate, where they are entirely dependent on WFP rations for survival.

Full implementation of the US$ 250 million cost of the two operations will depend on the continuing generosity of donors. The refugee project is close to being fully funded but only US$ 127 million of the US$ 242 million needed for the emergency operation has been received. Major donors to date include Japan, the United States, Canada, the European Commission, Germany and Finland.

Yemen President Hadi advised to keep rival army generals

Yemen President Hadi advised to keep rival  army generals

Source: ICG Study, 05/04/2013

The International Crisis Group recommended the Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to keep the rival and most powerful and controversial generals of army for the sake of balance.

In the newest 52-page study (Yemen’s Military-Security Reform: Seeds of New Conflict? by  Dr April Longley Alley, the ICG said that Hadi  should  preserve political balance by either excluding or including both Ahmed Ali Saleh and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.

The whole recommendations and summary as follows:  

   

RECOMMENDATIONS

To President Hadi:

1.        Communicate a clear vision to the public of how the national dialogue will guide the military-security restructuring process.

2.  Redouble outreach and confidence-building measures aimed at the South to ensure greater inclusion and acceptance of dialogue decisions.

3.  Work with national dialogue participants, technical committees and foreign advisers to ensure full integration between the dialogue and restructuring process.

4.  Facilitate implementation of the December 2012 defence ministry reorganisation by appointing new regional commanders in consultation with the defence minister and army chief of staff; and preserve political balance by either excluding or including both Ahmed Ali Saleh and Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.

5.  Avoid the appearance of “rule by decree” by giving the technical committees and army chief of staff more prominent roles in determining and communicating next steps in the reform process.

6.  Avoid, to the extent possible, regional-based appointments and explain to relevant stakeholders and the public the rationale behind new appointments and rotations.

7.  Demonstrate a commitment to reform, and particularly to limiting presidential authority, by reducing the size of the Presidential Protection Unit and moving responsibility over the Missile Command to the regular command hierarchy as soon as politically feasible.

To the defence and interior ministries’ technical committees for restructuring:

8.  Take the lead in communicating progress on restructuring, including concerning the role of international advisers, through regular press briefings and public symposia.

9.Consider measures to accelerate professionalisation of military-security services by rotating and retiring current officers, for example by financially encouraging voluntary retirement.

10.Develop and implement plans for administering direct payment to all soldiers and police and for training and integrating post-uprising recruits into the military-security services.To the interior and defence ministers:

11.Adhere to established rules governing hiring, firing and rotating military-security personnel.

12. Freeze hiring until decisions are made regarding the appropriate size of defence and interior forces, with the exception of the reintegration of southern employees illegally expelled from service following the 1994 civil war.To Generals Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and Ahmed Ali Saleh:

13.  Implement without delay orders from President Hadi, the defence minister and the army chief of staff.

14.  Refrain from using soldiers as political proxies and avoid political activity. To national dialogue participants and their UN-sponsored advisers:

15.  Specify an agenda for discussion in the military-security working group, including, inter alia:a) developing mechanisms to ensure civilian oversight over the military-security apparatus; andb) designing a national vision governing strategic roles and responsibilities of the defence and interior ministries and their relationship with other state institutions.

To international actors supporting the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative and implementation mechanisms (inter alia, the UN special envoy, the U.S. and other permanent members of the Security Council, the EU and its member states, the GCC and Jordan):

16.  Continue to communicate clear support for decisions by President Hadi, the technical restructuring committees and the national dialogue, so as to discourage potential spoilers.

17.  Provide training and information to members of parliament, civil society groups and political parties on how to forge a comprehensive national security strategy.

2.        Sanaa/ Brussels, 4 April 2013

    

The latest report from Dr April Longley Alley.  The full report is attached.  The Executive Summary is below.  Yemen’s Military-Security Reform: Seeds of New Conflict?

Middle East Report N°1394 Apr 2013EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Ask virtually any Yemeni from across the political spectrum, and he will protest support for a professional military-security apparatus free from family, tribal, party and sectarian influence.

Yet, these public assurances do not mean it is easy – far from it. Military-security restructuring is hugely critical to a successful transition, but it also is hugely difficult, because it directly threatens an array of vested interests.

Although President Abdo Robo Mansour Hadi has taken important first steps, the harder part lies ahead: undoing a legacy of corruption and politicisation; introducing a coherent administrative and command structure, instilling discipline and unified esprit de corps; and continuing to weaken the old elite’s hold without provoking a backlash.

 All this must be done as the nation faces a redoubtable array of security challenges, including al-Qaeda attacks; sabotage of critical infrastructure; growing armed tribal presence in major cities; Huthi territorial gains in the North; and increasing violence in the South over the issue of separation.

There is a long way to go. Under former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the military-security services were virtually immune from civilian oversight and operated largely outside the law.

Loyalties flowed to individual commanders, who hailed mostly from the president’s family or tribe. Then, amid the 2011 uprising, those commanders fractured the military in two, with one group (General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar’s) supporting protesters and the other (Saleh’s family) the regime; today, they remain powerful political players who control significant resources and sizeable slices of the economy.

However much they claim to support the transition, there is good reason to suspect they will deploy their still formidable resources to sway or even thwart the national dialogue, which began on 18 March 2013 and is scheduled to last six months.Military-security reform is, in part, about loosening the grip of the now-bifurcated old regime and, in so doing, opening political space for meaningful and effective change through the national dialogue, the cornerstone of the transition process.

Hadi has made some inroads. By ordering a personnel and administrative shake-up and then scrapping two controversial military organisations – the Republican Guard, commanded by Saleh’s son, Ahmed Ali, and the Firqa, led by Ali Mohsen – he clipped his two rivals’ wings and bolstered his own hand.

But dangers lurk: implementation is embryonic and will take time; some of Hadi’s appointments smack of his own brand of partisanship; Mohsen’s and Ahmed Ali’s military fates remain unknown; and, by dealing by far the more serious blows to Saleh’s camp, Hadi might unwittingly have disproportionately strengthened Mohsen’s.Lasting institutional reform must entail more than reshuffling individual positions. Therein lies a second risk, or shortcoming. To date, Hadi’s changes appear to have been driven chiefly – and understandably – by political expediency and the urgent need to remove controversial commanders from their posts without prompting violent resistance.

 Other festering issues cannot long be ignored, however, such as professionalising the military-security sector; gradually enforcing non-partisan laws governing hiring, firing, retiring and rotating personnel; integrating tribesmen into the security forces without encouraging factionalism; ensuring civilian oversight and decision-making; and, more broadly, elaborating a national security strategy within which the mandate and size of the various military-security branches make sense.

In a larger sense, the key obstacle to meaningful reform remains the absence of an inclusive political pact. It is hard to see major military-security stakeholders relinquishing hard power or fully accepting change that could leave them vulnerable to domestic rivals in any circumstance; it is near impossible to imagine it when distrust runs so high. There are other, related complications:

 two major constituencies, the primarily northern-based Huthi movement and southern separatists, share profound scepticism toward a restructuring process from which they have been essentially excluded; they are unlikely to support decisions taken without broad agreement on the parameters of a post-Saleh state.

That is where the national dialogue comes in. Only by closely integrating the process of military-security restructuring within the larger effort to produce an inclusive political consensus – a national pact and new constitution – can the two be successful.

The challenge is to generate a virtuous cycle in which restructuring and dialogue proceed in tandem and reinforce one another. It is a tricky dance. International actors can and should lend a hand. But Yemenis carry the heavier burden of getting the sequencing and timing right.