Category Archives: Yemen

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Hezbollah, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

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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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Sorcery, Yemen

Yemen War Awaits the Secret Shari’a Weapon……….

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انشودة المرتزقة:
بلاد العرب اوطاني ,    وكل العرب اخواني
من الشام لكولومبيا    و استراليا وجنوب افريقيا

Yemen is a problem the Saudis themselves have created. Yemen is already spilling over the border. An unmotivated army with the best Western weapons cannot seem to defeat the Houthi tribal guerrillas and the remnants of the Yemeni army. The army of the poorest Arab country outside Africa.

Not even after many months of indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities and the infrastructure. Not even with the help of hired and paid foreign mercenaries from South America and Australia and Africa, courtesy of the potentates of the United Arab Emirates. Not even with the dutiful help of the mighty Obama Administration in targeting and blockading and other logistics. They even have a couple of classic local Yemeni stooges pretending to run Yemen from hotels in Riyadh, presumably under the non-existent leadership of former president Generalissimo Hadi Al Zombie. General Hadi got a Kim-Jong-Un style 99.8% of the vote in elections organized by the Gulf princes (Bashar Al Assad got about 88% last year, Hassan Rouhani got less than 60%). Even as a 30-year old Saudi prince is trying to conduct a genocidal war against it, also from Riyadh.

The Saudis did not learn from their earlier 2009 attempt at military intervention in Yemen. That was a big failure. Now the new Yemen war is definitely spilling over into Saudi Arabia, into regions that were usurped and annexed from Yemen in the 1930s. The rugged Yemeni tribal guerrillas are not like the peaceful urban and village people of Bahrain of 2011. The Saudis and their allies and mercenaries have probably bitten more than they can chew this time. And they have strengthened AQAP and ISIS in Southern Arabia.

They should get out of the way and let the Yemenis settle their matters: unlike in Syria, there are no Iranian or Lebanese forces or militias in Yemen. Not yet. Foreign powers find it difficult to control the country. Resort to witchcraft and sorcery is banned by Saudi clerics, on the pain of death. So, they can only carpet bomb it and kill many of its innocent people.

Unless their hundreds of thousands of graduates of local Islamic Shari’a colleges and universities are working on a decisive secret weapon.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen

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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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Caliphate, GCC, Iraq, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, U.S. Foreign Policy, Yemen

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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Arab Politics, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, U.S. Foreign Policy, United Arab Emirates, Yemen

Yemen: Hadi Escapes again, the Bought Coalition Shrinks in Stature…….

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Yemen is becoming more complicated, as civil-proxy wars are wont to become. Yemen is also being set back about a century, through destruction by native rivals and foreign Arab invaders. The Saudi-United Arab Emirates (UAE) bombers/invaders have acquired, bought or rented, a gaggle of questionable hungry allies (Sudan, Eritrea, humorless Jordan, among other Arab payees). The Western powers, especially the US and Britain, are also helping the attackers.  They are siding against the wild Houthis and the Yemeni army, the side that fights Al-Qaeda (AQAP) and the Islamic State. The Westerners don’t get paid directly, but they expect fat contracts from the Saudis and Emiratis for weapons and their services.

Now, in the service of the Saudi princes, the two Western powers are direct war allies of Sudan, whose dictator has been convicted by the ICC and is a wanted war criminal. The Sudanese soldiers under dictator Omar Al Bashir are probably among the least professional in the Arab world, and have a well-deserved reputation for raping and pillaging in their own country. And they are being used in the contested and divided city of Aden.

Now there are also some media reports of the UAE recruiting more Colombian mercenaries to send into the parts of Aden they are trying control. UAE, with a tiny citizen population of about one million who are unwilling to fight abroad, had started to hire a largely Colombian mercenary army after the Arab uprisings of 2011. Now some of these are reportedly poised to enter Yemen, if they re not there already.

To further complicate matters, or perhaps simplify them depending on your point of view, two new not-unexpected developments have occurred. Deposed former president Generalissimo Hadi Bin Zombie and his prime minister Bahah had managed to be flown into Aden by the Saudis. But the much-publicized return did not last. Soon both Bahah and Hadi fled Aden again to the safety of their Saudi hotels in Riyadh.

In the meantime, the Yemenis are countering the Saudi-UAE bombing and attempted invasion of their country in their own favorite way. They are making successful incursions into Saudi territory, often ejecting the inept Saudi garrisons and controlling towns and villages (that used to be part of Yemen some eighty years ago).
Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum

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Africa, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Mercenaries, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

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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Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Cinema, GCC, Jihadis, Russia, Syria, Yemen

New Folly of Charlie Wilson and his Mistress: from the Stinger to the TOW………..

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In the 1980s the Reagan Administration decided to supply the Afghan Mujahideen with ground-to-air Stinger missiles with which to shoot down Soviet (Russian) helicopters/aircraft. Years later Hollywood gave “credit” for that policy, and presumably for the fall of Afghanistan to the Jihadists, to a Texas Congressman named Charlie Wilson and his influential Texan mistress (and to Tom Hanks).

The film Charlie Wilson’s War was made just a few years after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, but Hollywood has its own tunnel vision and did not see the irony lurking somewhere in the background of that story. Or, most likely, it was seen as inconvenient to paying suburban movie-goers to bring out the connection that was screaming out of the large screen. After all, that Stinger policy may have contributed to the eventual Soviet withdrawal and handing Afghanistan to a bunch of Islamist terrorists.
The civil war that ensued between the Mujahideen factions and Islamist tribal warlords destroyed more of Afghanistan than the Russian incursion/occupation. It culminated in the takeover of the Taliban and their Arab Wahhabi (Al Qaeda) paymasters. We all know the rest: the switching off the lights all over Afghanistan, terrorist attacks in Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, other places, then in the USA, Europe, and Asia.


That was the Stinger. Now the Russians and Iranians are in Syria, in the air and on the ground. Just as the Saudis and their partners are in Yemen, in the air and on the ground. Now the TOW is being supplied to what are called “moderate” Syrian rebels. And I had thought all moderate Syrian rebels resided in Europe and North America by now. The American TOW is being supplied to counter a possible Russian-Syrian (and possibly Iranian) assault on the strongholds of the Jihadis in northern Syria. If this new weapon works, the likely beneficiaries will be the Jihadis of ISIS and Al-Nusra allies. It is almost certainly too late to revive the old moderate Syrian opposition in-country: the Wahhabi princes and petroleum potentates saw to that three years ago. With crucial Turkish cooperation by Caliph Erdogan, of course.
No doubt the Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati potentates are footing the massive bill.

But does history repeat itself? Can it be repeated? I know that mistakes can and are repeated, and too often.

Cheers
Mohammed Haider Ghuloum
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Fatwa, Yemen

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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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Cinema, Saudi Arabia, United Nations International Organizations, Yemen

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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