Tag Archives: YEMEN

Control of Aden: Arab-African Royal Alliance Gives Jihadis a Head Start……

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Three sure signs that Saudis and Colombians and other assorted corsairs have liberated the largest Yemeni port city of Aden from the Houthis and Saleh and from law and order:

(1) Suicide bombings are escalating in the city. The latest today killed at least 22.

(2) There are no signs of escaped ex-president General Hadi Al Zombie and his PM Khalid Bahahahahah (except in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi 7-star hotels). This is is a blessing for all concerned.

(3) The city is largely lawless now, as is the surrounding country. Ripe for Al Qaeda and ISIS. AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), ISIS, and other local militias are now fighting for control of the city as well as the countryside.
Even the hired Sudanese forces have reportedly disappeared from the streets. Not that they matter much in a real fight. The Sudanese are probably some of the worst soldiers in the world, except against unarmed civilian women and children as in Darfur. The UAE pulled their own troops days (or maybe weeks) ago.

So Aden is now liberated from law and order as ell as from the Houthis and Colonel Saleh’s forces. Other parts of Southern Yemen as well are enjoying the same. All with extensive help from the weapons and intelligence provided by the USA and Britain. Yemen is now heading toward the same fate as Libya and Syria. In all three cases thanks to the sisterly and brotherly intervention by extremely democratic and extremely tribal Arab autocratic kings and princes and potentates.

I just hope these democracy-loving autocratic kings, princes, and potentates don’t get the notion of trying to liberate their own countries. That would be even more disastrous than liberating other countries.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

 

Lebanon Faces an Economic Blockade: the Other Saudi Quagmire………

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The Saudis brought enough pressure, and presumably wrote enough checks, to get most Arab Ministers of Interior at a meeting this week to vote on calling Hezbollah a “terrorist” group. Europeans only consider the military wing of it a sponsor of “terrorism”. Americans are more in line with the Saudis: everything that has anything to do with Hezbollah is terrorist, including its TV network.

This new vote does not create many problem for most Arab states. Most of them take the Saudi or Emirati money and go home. They make the occasional right noises about Hezbollah, but it is too far away and they know its focus is on the periphery of Lebanon, unlike the Wahhabi groups which are global.

But this does create an interesting dilemma for two Arab states: Lebanon and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s man in Lebanon, former PM Saad Hariri, has said that negotiations with Hezbollah continue. Other politicians of the March 14 (Saudi-financed) movement disavowed that their foe, Hezbollah, is a terrorist group. Otherwise, how can they be seen to negotiate and form a cabinet with Hezbollah (which is also the largest political party in Lebanon)?
Complications for the Lebanese, no?
But complications for the Saudis as well. They have been embroiled in a war against Yemen for a year now. It is war without end, as I could have told them last year, actually I did. I had thought Vietnam proved that the most expensive weapons can’t win a foreign civil war. Apparently that period of history bypassed the princes. The deposed former ‘president’ of Yemen General Hadi Bin Zombie occasionally claims from his Riyadh hotel that Hezbollah agents were arrested in Yemen, he did so again last week. Yet he and his foreign bosses have failed to produce any such arrested Lebanese agents.
The Yemen war is easy to get out of, at some cost of losing face. They can always declare victory in Yemen and pull out. The USA did it in Vietnam, with no lasting negative effect.

Getting out of Lebanon is harder, more complex. Unlike the Houthis of Yemen, Hezbollah is a true ally and beneficiary of Iran. Unlike the Houthis and Iraqis and many Hezbollah members, its chief Hassan Nasrallah himself believes in the theocracy. It is not clear if he means that he believes in it in Iran only or even outside that country. His close Lebanese Christian allies don’t seem to take it seriously, nor do his Lebanese Sunni allies.
Still, giving the Iranian mullahs a black eye in Lebanon is an irresistible goal for the Saudis. It is a goal that seems to be moving farther and farther way from them. The Israelis have failed to do it militarily for them so far, and seem to have given up unless seriously provoked. The Americans, under both George W Bush and Obama, have declined to be drawn into the morass of the warlord-dominated shifting politics of Lebanon.
The Saudis have now persuaded their Persian Gulf allies to impose an economic blockade on Lebanon. It is not original (the Saudis are never original): they probably mean to ratchet it up, like the now-defunct Western blockade of Iran…..

And that is where it stands now………
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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King Quagmire of Arabia and his Prince Harming: One Year Later……..

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“King Salman bin Abdulaziz marks one year in power since becoming the ruler of Saudi Arabia after the death of his half-brother, the late King Abdullah. Salman was crowned as the new King following the death of King Abdullah who passed away on Jan. 23 last year. After his crowning, in a televised speech, King Salman said: “We will continue to hold on to the strong path on which Saudi Arabia has walked on since King Abdulaziz.”……….”

Strong path indeed: I beg to differ, strenuously. Controlled Saudi media have been making a lot of the first anniversary of King Salman’s reign. They always do, for every king.
This one certainly started quite different from the reigns of the three kings that preceded him. While all Saudi kings picked, mostly, their own successors from among their brothers and half brothers, Salman quickly cut to the chase. He appointed his favorite young son Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) as a crown prince to the crown prince. The crown prince himself is his nephew Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef (MBN) who, tellingly, is reported to have no male heirs.
MBS is already acting as almost a king, not even a king in waiting. He is now Minister of Defense, a very lucrative post in Saudi Arabia (and the Gulf). He has also been given a lot of powers over the economy as well. Yet the rival MBN is also powerful: he is minister of interior and controls the police, the religious police, and the domestic security apparatus.

Saudi opposition of its various stripes (Wahhabi and otherwise) claim that MBS is plotting to get rid of cousin MBN while his father the king is alive. That would leave his uncles Prince Muqrin Bin Abdulaziz and Prince Ahmed Bin Abdulaziz as possible blocks in his way.

Yet King Salman’s reign has not gone well, an understatement. The Saudis had earlier started a campaign to reduce crude oil prices with the goal of harming their Iranian and Russian rivals. That was when prices were well above $100 a barrel. They probably thought a price around $100 would be okay for their economy but still harm their regional rivals, and harm the U.S. shale industry. I opined here that this was a stupid policy and could backfire on them. It did backfire, big time, and it may end up harming the Saudis more than their rivals and neighbors. Oil reached down to $100 and kept going down. Now it is around $30, well below what can be considered the Saudi break-even point, reportedly closer to $80-$100. No firming of prices is in sight, give that more Iranian and Iraqi crude will be flowing in the near future.

Then there is the costly quagmire in Yemen, in which some of the most advanced and most lethal Western weapons are being used against lightly-armed opponents. And against unarmed civilian populations. The most advanced Western weapons also happen to be the most expensive weapons in the world to service and replenish. And they need Western logistics and guidance support for targeting. So the Saudi war in Yemen is also a Western war on a party that has never threatened the West, unlike its Wahhabi rivals like AQAP and IS.
It is a war not only against the Houthis and the Yemeni army; it is a war on the painfully-built infrastructure of the poorest Arab country outside Africa. They are stuck in Yemen with no victory in sight, but they have plenty of foreign mercenaries for hire to fight the war, mainly from Sudan, Somalia and from far away places like Colombia and Australia and South Africa. The costly self-inflicted war has come at a bad time for the Saudi budget and people, but the princes always manage to thrive financially.

Then there are the military and diplomatic losses in Syria and Lebanon. I forgot the potential coup de grâce: finalization of the Iran nuclear deal and the lifting of Western sanctions on the mullahs.

Not bad for one year’s work! Long live the king, I think………
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Yemen: a Genocidal War of Clashing Foreign Mercenaries…….

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Some Gulf states have hit on a new ingenious technique to compete with more powerful neighbors like Iran, Turkey, and Israel. They have sought to expand their sphere of influence through a combination of financial inducements and the hiring of foreign mercenaries to act like national armies. All of it allegedly hush-hush, but not enough hush-hush on the Gulf. State secrets on the Persian Gulf last about as long as they would in a cathouse (a k a a brothel for the, er, uninitiated). But that is okay: everybody is involved in Arab civil wars these days, from Russians to Americans and Iranians and Turks and Lebanese and Chechens and Euros. Among others.

The United Arab Emirates, UAE, with a small native population of nearly a million have been actively hiring foreign mercenaries. They have been especially hiring Colombian fighters, so many officers at high pay, creating a shortage in the Colombian military. Some reports have also come out of Mexicans. As early as the Arab Uprisings of 2011, Abu Dhabi formed a mercenary brigade organized by former Blackwater executives, and composed of Latin Americans, Australians and white South Africans, among others.

The Saudi population is about one third temporary foreign laborers (housemaids, drivers, etc). The native population is not interested in fighting a foreign war or any war, except for the many who volunteer with terrorist Wahhabi groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.  So the princes have sought a different kind of mercenary force. They have bought off the dictator of Sudan, the convicted war criminal General Omar Al Bashir. He has rented off thousands of his forces to the Saudis in their war on Yemen. There is the possibility of Mauritanian and other African mercenaries, including Djibouti (both members of the Arab League). Jordanian mercenaries are almost certainly involved as well, as they almost always are in these cases (in Bahrain, as one example). Pakistan, which has about 35+ million Shi’as, has declined for its army to be hired off, and Egypt has been stonewalling.

The deposed Yemeni regime of General Hadi (Al Zombie) has been allied with the corrupt Islah (mainly Muslim Brotherhood) group. Now the Saudis are moving closer to the MB with whom they had good relations in past decades that had soured, while the UAE rulers see the MB as Enemy Number One. Hence a divergence of opinion and policy among allies in the quagmire that is Yemen.

Both countries have been bombing Yemeni cities for months, essentially committing genocide, with logistical and targeting help from the United States government and possibly other Western powers. Reports indicate that the UAE is moving away from the Saudis, especially in Yemen which lies almost between the two countries. The Abu Dhabi potentates are reportedly sending their own mercenaries to southern Yemen. They are also inviting former South Yemen (PDRY) Marxist leaders to the UAE for consultation. Since the Emirati sheikhs are unlikely to have gone Marxist, I assume they are making some other deal.

So, the real war is not between just two Yemeni sides. It is between the Saudis and Emiratis and Qataris and Colombians and Americans and Mexicans and Sudanese and Jordanians and Al Qaeda (AQAP) and ISIS and Hirak secessionists and aging Aden Marxists. Meanwhile the genocidal air war by the bought and hired Arab and African alliance is pushing Yemen back about sixty or so years.

Stay tuned………

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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A Dummy’s Guide to Managing Arab Turmoil: from Iraq to Libya and Syria and Yemen………

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A few Arab governments, and their controlled media, spent several years criticizing the way the United States handled Iraq. The Saudi and Qatari potentates especially seemed to think they could have done better.
They dabbled in Iraq, but got their real chance, both of them and others, in places like Libya, Syria, Egypt, and Yemen.

  • In Libya they talked the Western powers through NATO into bombing the installations controlled by the Gaddafi regime. The West essentially won the civil war in Libya for “the opposition”. People like Senator McCain, Hillary Clinton and French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy thumbed their chests (and breasts) and declared a victory in Libya for democracy and tolerance. Allegedly with some Arab help, no doubt token help. It turns out the Libyan opposition was not what they thought it was. Libya is now divided among tribal elements and Jihadist terrorists. It is suffering from Al Qaeda affiliates as well as ISIS (DAESH) branches.
  • These two Persian Gulf , er, “powers”, ruled by absolute tribal Wahhabi potentates, also thought they could do better in Syria than the West did in Iraq. Of course they had a strong hand in the failure of Western intervention in Iraq and the growth of Wahhabi terrorist enclaves in that country.
  • Having messed up Libya, the Saudis and Qataris started, along with Senator McCain and, yes, French pop-philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy to push for the Western powers to follow their same advise in Syria. From the spring of 2011 they flooded Syria with money, weapons, and Salafi Jihadists. With logistic and trafficking help from the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Caliph Erdogan of Turkey. That was when the non-sectarian original Syrian uprising ended and was replaced with sectarian Salafi Jihadist groups many of whom eventually joined ISIS or Al Nusra. Close to a quarter million Syrians from both sides have died, millions are roaming the shores of Europe seeking refuge. Meanwhile, the Arab potentates who started it all refuse to take in the refugees they helped create.
  • Now the current options for the West in Syria range between accepting Al Assad or one of his allies in power or allowing the intolerant sectarian Wahhabis to take over. There might be a quasi-Wahhabi option somewhere in between, but that may have been co-opted by the new Russian intervention.
  • In Yemen, the Gulf potentates allowed former vice president Generalissimo Abd Rabuh Hadi to win a rigged election with 99.8% of the vote in 2012. Not a very subtle form of democracy is it? Hadi allied himself with the corrupt quasi-Islamist Muslim Brotherhood-ish Islah (ironically Islah means Reform in Arabic). He lost out in Sanaa to an alliance of tribal Houthis and former dictator Ali A Saleh supporters in the army. He fled to Aden, but he was chased out to a hotel in that other bastion of Arab democracy and freedom, Riyadh. The war in Yemen became a struggle between the Houthi-army alliance and Southern secessionists and Al Qaeda. And American drones.
  • Now the Saudis have managed to hire, rent, and buy a bunch of Arab and impoverished African allies ranging from Jordan to Sudan and possibly Mauritania and others. There are unconfirmed reports that the UAE is also sending its mercenary army of hired Colombians to Aden. Yemen is now a war among various groups and proxies. The Saudis and their allies are bombing the country indiscriminately, as do some of their local enemies. Thousands have died, and many displaced in the second poorest Arab country after Somalia. Speaking of which, many Yemenis have fled to Somalia, which tells you how bad things are in that country.

Together, these princes and potentates can write a best-seller: A Dummy’s Guide to Managing Arab Turmoil………
So much for an ‘Arab solution‘. I had thought the idea of an ‘Arab solution’ for any regional problem was laid to rest in 1990/91. Apparently not yet, but no doubt soon enough.
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Comparing Cool Apple and a Genocidal Petroleum Oligarchy………

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Reports say that Apple Corporation (AAPL) has about $207 billions in cash (that was before the latest good results came out on Tuesday). All these beautiful useful gadgets, some necessary and some not so necessary, and some American technical ingenuity/creativity have made a lot of money for Apple during the past decade. They may use it to buy back shares, pay more dividends, expand into new products, or acquire subsidiaries.

Reports also claim that Saudi Arabia used to have over $700 billion in foreign exchange (Forex) reserves (its Sovereign Fund managed by its monetary agency SAMA).  All of it from oil revenues. These have probably been depleted by somewhere over $100 billion over the past two years, since the new regime of His Majesty King Salman Bin Abdulaziz and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince to the Crown Prince (and Minister of Defense) Mohammed Bin Salman came to power. The latter is the putative conqueror of Yemen: he has been pouring Saudi money and American (and British) bombs (cluster bombs and otherwise) all over the poor country of Yemen for seven months. With the goal of establishing a government to his liking in Sana’a.

Too much power and money can make even the most impotent of potentates blind to past history. All it takes is a tablespoon of foolish vanity, and the rich young Arab princes have plenty of that. Hence this new quagmire in Yemen, which promises to go on long after former president Hadi (Bin Zombie) evacuates his Riyadh hotel suite for wherever the hell he’ll end up. Long after Al Qaeda (the Saudi-led AQAP) expand their newly acquired territory in the South beyond Al Mukalla. Long after the Caliphate of ISIS expand their current use of the porous border to attack civilian Ismailite (quasi-Shi’a) inhabitants of Najran and Jazan.

Hence the new barely-veiled threats by Saudi officials of sending newly hired Arab and African (and Western?) mercenaries into Syria.

The IMF has noted that Saudi reserves could vanish within five years. That is possible if the funds are used at current rates and crude oil prices remain near current low levels. Especially if the need arises to buy public approval with new royal handouts. Especially if the princes continue their costly genocidal war on Yemen and expand their intrusion in Syria into an official military confrontation with their Iranian and Lebanese rivals, even if the “boots on the ground” are rented foreign mercenaries.

Hopefully their reckless policies do not doom the economies of the other Gulf states.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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War on Yemen: Assault by Rich Arab Princes and Poor African Rapists……

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Yemen has been under severe assault for almost eight months now. From the air, warplanes of Arab princes, the best machinery of war that the West can sell, are raining death and destruction on the poorest of Arabs. Now the princes have also bought or rented thousands of African/Arab mercenaries to do the ground fighting for them. Apparently too many casualties among the Gulf coalition soldiers (Saudi, UAE) in Aden have raised ‘concern’ among the peoples of these two countries.

The Saudis have already handed parts of Aden in Southern Yemen to mercenary Sudanese soldiers. These soldiers have been rented from the wanted international criminal Omar Al-Bashir, military dictator of Sudan for almost 27 years. Al-Bashir was convicted by the International Criminal Court years ago, but he keeps traveling at will across the Arab world. He met the Saudi king in recent days. His army excels in and is famous for rape and murder of unarmed civilians. Now he is being paid by the Saudi princes so that his army of rapists and killers can help control the city of Aden. These Sudanese soldiers are now technically allies of American and British forces that are involved over Yemen.
Arab media report that more Sudanese soldiers, a third wave, are heading to Aden. Saudi daily al-Hayat (owned by Prince Khalid Bin Sultan) quotes a senior adviser to the deposed Yemeni president General Hadi that mercenary Egyptian soldiers hired out from Al Sisi are also on their way.

I have some doubts about the veracity claim of this Egyptian role. Unless the price was raised to an offer that the ruling military could not refuse.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Battle for Aden: the Fatwa Stands……..

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It looks like the alliance of Houthis-Saleh have been pushed back from certain regions around Aden. The Saudi alliance of cluster-bombers are claiming a victory. Former president General Hadi Bin Zombie and his hotel cabinet in Riyadh are also declaring a victory. Everybody is declaring a victory in Aden, except the Houthis. Everybody except those who may have been crucial in achieving that partial ‘victory’: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Southern Independence Movement (Hirak).
Western media are copying Saudi media and claiming a victory for ‘Hadi supporters’. Except that almost all Hadi supporters are not fighters: they are suited politicians and corrupt Islah potentates ensconced in hotels in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The people of Aden are no doubt against the Houthis and Saleh encroaching on their city, but they also remember that General Hadi was sent by Colonel Saleh in 1994 to shell Aden and force it into an unwanted marriage with Sanaa.

The battle of Aden apparently continues, but it is telling that the Hadi ghost cabinet is staying away in the safety of exile. One thing is certain as I predicted months ago. Actually it was almost a fatwa by your truly that Hadi will not return to rule in Sanaa. A serious and irrevocable fatwa, no matter who wins in Aden, no matter who wins in Sanaa.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Monologue in Geneva: another Yemeni GWTW Without Rhett and Scarlett ……..

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According to some Arab media, a small airplane that was sent by the UN to carry the Houthi-Army delegations to the Geneva talks failed to do so because of mutual suspicion. The Houthis and Saleh delegation got suspicious when told the UN plane needed to land for refueling at Jazan (southern Saudi Arabia). They worried the Saudis might grab and take hostage some of the top delegates on any excuse (this won’t be the first time). Especially since there are ‘rumors’ that Mohammad Ali Al-Houthi, a top leader of the movement may head their delegation. The Saudis now force all sanctioned airplanes heading for or taking off at blockaded Sanaa to land at Jazan.

Later Arab reports claimed the Houthi delegation flew through Muscat, Oman, since they only trust the Omanis among all GCC Gulf states. Maybe not quite so: as of Monday there were no Houthi or Yemeni Army delegations in Geneva. Other Arab sources claimed the Houthi jet is stuck in Djibouti because the Egyptian government has denied them the right to overfly Egypt to Europe. The Sisi regime is apparently trying to do their Saudi creditors a favor, except that the Saudis may need this conference more than their Yemeni opponents do.

So, the Saudis and the Hadi rump cabinet are re-doing their futile Riyadh conference monologue of two weeks ago, this time in Geneva with some UN bureaucrats in attendance. Again, no Houthi or Saleh or Army representatives. Again, Gone With the Wind without Rhett or Scarlett, as I opined once. I also expressed a more ‘visual’ (almost adult) description of the Riyadh monologue right here.

It looks more and more that the fate of what is left of bombed-out Yemen will be determined on the ground in Yemen. Not from the air, not in Geneva or Washington or Riyadh or Tehran. I could have told them that months ago. In fact I did, I did, more than once.

(P.S.: I still think if the Saudis want to get out of this quagmire, then they should—> do this).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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