Category Archives: Yemen

Marriage, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Postpartum and Marriage in Arabia: Young Prince Bombs Yemen, Takes New Wife, Goes to Paris……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Saudi Arabia’s new young defense minister Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saudi apparently can multi-task. He has drawn the ire of some among the Wahhabi opposition, as well as predictably some senior officers from the ruling family (commoners would not dare express irritation at a royal). The story as told by opposition activists, including Mujtahidd, is as follows:

The prince followed up his trip to Camp David with a quick marriage to a second wife (or maybe a third wife). His first wife, a princess, is going through the after birth period of postpartum when the prince took another wife, another princess/cousin last week, and flew her to a Paris honeymoon. Now what can be more romantic than taking a new wife while your earlier model is struggling with the tough problems of postpartum? Especially if you take the new model to Paris (Abu Bakr Al Samarrai of ISIS, eat your heart out).

Paris is where he and the new bride are: dunno why he did not go to Yemen. So, a new baby, an old wife, and a new wife. Now he is handling a bombing war (on Yemen), a current wife in postpartum complications, and a new wife who God knows how long will last before being traded for a newer model. Plus an elderly father-king surrounded by rival princes: brothers, cousins, minions and all kinds of snake-oil salesmen.

I guess these entitlement people have their own unique problems too……….

    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Cinema, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

A Fatwa in Arabia: Gone With The Wind Minus Rhett and Scarlett…………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Displaced Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi said he is sure that the Houthi rebels will be defeated in the near future. Yemen Reconciliation Conference to Provide Basis For Any Future Talks. The Houthi rebels will be defeated in the near future, displaced Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi said Sunday at a conference on Yemen reconciliation. The conference in the Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh involves over 400 representatives of the country’s political forces and the international organizations. The representatives of the Houthi rebel group, the main opposition force in Yemen, do not participate in the conference…………”

This futile Saudi-organized conference on Yemen is a monologue rather than a dialogue. The most important actors in Yemen are not attending. It is like Gone With The Wind without Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara. No Houthis or former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh representatives were invited or would attend anyway. Hadi and those with him could never fill the place of either Rhett or Scarlett, or even the fat slave Mammy of Tara.
That is where escaped deposed president General Hadi of Yemen gave his latest fatwa that “the Saudis will win their air war against the Houthis soon”. Hadi had also announced two weeks ago a grandiose plan for Yemen to join the Gulf GCC, which was ignored by everyone especially the GCC. He also issued a string of meaningless decrees appointing and disappointing commanders who had mostly fled Aden with him to Riyadh. Any commander worth his salt who remained in Yemen would ignore his orders after he abandoned them for the safety and luxury of Saudi hospitality.    

Then there is my own famous and potent fatwa on Yemen and Hadi’s prospects in Sanaa. Here it is.   
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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Mocha Con Kafka: Southern Arabia as a Testing Ground for Royal Weapons……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2        SaudiObama1

Finally the Saudi princes had a chance to use their hundred billion dollars of weapons stockpiles. They chose Southern Arabia, or events chose Yemen for them.

Except that they used it in their usual shadow-dancing: they used the best Western weapons that money can buy, at a huge cost of prices and bribes, but they used them in yet another Arab country. A country that has not attacked them. This time the poorest Arab country outside Africa became the testing ground. Last time it was Bahrain, but that was a security operation. This one in Yemen became a genocidal massacre of people, destruction of cities and infrastructure and food supplies. A genocide against a whole country, even as the local Yemeni factions are killing each other, largely but predictably ignored by Western media. The remnants of Arab liberals, with keen trained eyes focused on Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati money, have largely ignored the attack on Yemen.

The Saudis harkened to the simpler days of Desert Storm, when the cause was clear: Saddam’s Baathist army had occupied a sovereign country and was trounced by an American-led  Western coalition, with  a few Arab brigades for window-dressing. Never original, they came up with Decisive Storm, which has proved anything but decisive. The ragtag Houthi tribals and their Yemeni army allies withstood the air assault and forced a ceasefire. The escaped former president of Yemen, General AbdRabuh Hadi (Bin Zombie) and his foreign minister and their corrupt Islah (Muslim Brotherhood) partners kept urging more war and a land invasion, into a war they had both escaped and would not fight. The Saudis may have even used the fateful motto “Mission Accomplished”, a la George W Bush in the early days of the Iraq War.

So, will the absolute repressive tribal non-elected Saudi and Qatari potentates force a democratic elected government on Yemen? Would that be through the reinstatement of the weakling General Hadi and his corrupt Islah (local Muslim Brotherhood) allies? Oddly, or maybe not, Islah is Arabic for Reform, but it was anything but reform). Both prospects are unlikely: there an Arab saying that “one can’t bestow what one doesn’t have : فاقد الشيئ لا يعطيه“. An excellent and appropriate saying in the rich Arab tradition. But the Middle East strives to be a little bit more Kafkaesque than the rest of the world.
    

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Operation Failed Storm: Frustrated Saudis Seek to Flatten Saada………..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Saudi-led forces warned civilians that Yemen’s Saada province would be a military target as of Friday evening, Saudi state television Al Ekhbariya reported. The leadership of the coalition asked all civilians to leave the province, a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, by 7 pm local time, the station said. Saudi Arabia said Thursday it would respond forcefully to cross-border Houthi attacks that started on Tuesday, and has targeted the province with air strikes since then………….”

The Saudi princes have declared all of Saada a target, all of the region a free-fire zone. They’ve asked the residents of the region to leave, go elsewhere, but not to Saudi Arabia. Expect missiles, bombs, and Western cluster munitions to carpet the region. That is the home region of the Houthis who seem to be giving the princes another bloody nose. A clear sign of deep frustration by the planners of Operation Failed Storm.

It looks like Yemenis are neither shocked nor awed with the most advanced most-expensive Western weapons thrown at them by the Saudis. Weeks into the bombing campaign, with the threat of a land invasion by hired African mercenaries (from Senegal, Sudan, and Egypt), the lightly-armed Houthis have had enough. They struck at Najran, a north Yemeni area occupied by Saudi Arabia during the last century. It shows how vulnerable the border region is that the Saudis were forced to close schools and airports in the area. Almost a replay o the 2009 war when the Saudis thought they had a cakewalk into Northern Yemen and were disappointed.

Now, in princely frustration, they are having a royal fit, they are seeking to flatten the Saada homeland of the pesky Houthis. They have said as much. The problem with such saturation bombing is that the  marginal effect declines as the bombing continues (we call it diminishing marginal return in economics) . It is the (North) Vietnam syndrome: the more they were bombed, the less likely they were to give up. It is unlikely the Houthis will travel to Riyadh any time soon to kiss and make up with their attackers.

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Al-Qaeda, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen

Nusra Front: Are the Princes Bringing Al Qaeda Back in From the Cold?………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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Speaking of my last post on Middle East media control and its influence on Western policies. Perhaps the biggest success of the Saudi-Qatari massive media has been in Syria. They have done the unforeseen: they have managed to smooth out the transition to open support of Al Qaeda in Syria without much audible American complaint. I mean Al Nusra Front is a true-blue terrorist cutthroat group, it is the legitimate chosen local franchise of Al Qaeda, the same Al Qaeda which attacked the United States in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania, and Port of Aden (Yemen). Now the Saudi-Qatari axis, plus the Turks, are supporting and supplying the Jihadi groups in Syria with American weapons, and what else is new? With the alleged exception of the Caliphate of ISIS: but ISIS has been supplied and armed and enabled by the same suspects for several years.

When this topic was publicized in the media last February, there was some thinking that they will try to reset the favorite Syrian group of Arab quasi-liberals and Wahhabi-liberals- the Free Syrian salafi Army- the FSA. But now it is clear that they are trying to rehabilitate the Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda and its allies. Which indicates that it is true: it is the same old trick tried in Iraq and Syria.  It isn’t easy to teach an old dog new tricks. You can’t teach an old Wahhabi (Saudi and Qatari) or Muslim Brotherhood (Turkish), both old dogs, new tricks.

That may also be going on for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula-AQAP. Saudi air strikes in Yemen have reportedly left the AQAP territory and operations deliberately intact. I have posted on this possibility of bringing Al Qaeda in from the cold some years ago, once the Jihadi violence in Iraq escalated. Is this following the age-old rephrase of the idea that “Me and My Fellow Wahhabi Against the Houthi“? And where does that leave the major indispensable Western ally?


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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Media, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen

Unequal Media Wars, Proxy Wars in the Middle East……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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The Saudi Wahhabi opposition (Mujtahidd and others who support ISIS) recently claimed that the new defense minister Mohammed Bin Salman, the crown prince to the crown prince, has ‘purchased’ a hundred thousand Twitter accounts, possibly other social media as well. That he plans to hire many security workers to man them and use them. It claims he plans to use them to build up himself in the media. That is not new, some of the top potentates, as well as the most vociferous fundamentalists now ‘own’ millions of followers. 

Anyway, right now the media wars for the West are being won by the Arab princes. Hands down. When it comes to media control and public opinion, billions of dollars make a big difference, especially in influencing Western opinion (but not so much non-Gulf Arab opinion). That is why the Saudi and Qatari potentates have spent billions acquiring existing major traditional Arab media outlets and establishing new ones. From Asharq Alawsat (owned by King Salman) to Al-Hayat (owned by prince Khaled Bin Sultan) to Alarabiya (Saudi royal in-law) to Al-Jazeera and Al-Quds Al-Arabi (Qatari royals) to Middle East Online (UAE) to Al-Arab (owned by Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal but searching for a home outside the Gulf after being ejected from Bahrain), to LBC, among others. And many others.

Now major Western outlets and news agencies often grab anything headlined by Saudi and Qatari networks and magnify them as ‘truths’. By the time they are bounced around the globe and return to where they started from, they ‘are’ quoted as ‘the truth’. A neat trick. It is like the claim that in Yemen, ‘loyalists’ to deposed president Hadi Al Zombie (actually mostly Southern Independence and AQAP) are fighting the Houthi-Saleh alliance on his behalf. Or the myth that Yemen’s war is a proxy war between saudi Arabia and Iran: except that it is the Saudis who are directly bombing Yemen (no proxies there) with Western munitions including cluster bombs. There are no proxies there now, unless the rented Sudanese and Senegalese and Egyptian troops land in Yemen. But then some clever reader might ask: and who are the Saudis acting as proxies for?

Initially the Houthis were not Iranian proxies or allies either: they had their own agenda. Colonel Saleh certainly is not: he was a close Saudi ally for years, even though he is a Zaidi, (or Shi’a) as Western media keep mentioning. But now the Houthis have moved closer to the Iranians for practical reasons, so they are Iranian-backed, but it is still farfetched to call them proxies or stooges.

Yet references to the legend of ‘proxy’ wars in Yemen and Syria continue in the media………

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Africa, Arabian Peninsula, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Politics, Xenophobia, Yemen

Tale of Two Invasions: Threat to Texas, Assault on Yemen……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“Amid unfounded, Internet-fueled rumors that U.S. Special Operations Forces might be trying to take over parts of the southwest, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered Texas State Guard forces under his control to keep an eye on the U.S. military during a large upcoming training exercise. The exercise is called Jade Helm 15…………..”

Texas has gone xenophobic. No, not towards Mexicans or even Muslims. Like Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Texans now worry about a foreign invasion, but not by Saudis and their African mercenaries. Its worst nightmare comes from Washington, DC. 

The U.S. military plans some exercises in Texas. Normally that would not cause any consternation in Tejas. Except that now the commander in chief is a blackish man who is a Democrat from Hawaii (by way of Illinois and possibly some distant shores as well).

Texas politicians, from governor on down, are making a lot of noise about a possible U.S. invasion of Texas. You’d think it is Mr. Putin marching into Ukraine. Imagine Mr. Obama as General Santa Ana, leading an army to reclaim Texas. But this is not new for embattled Texas: when they are not busy executing poorer convicts or keeping Mexicans out, Tejas officials are often concerned about a Yankee invasion from the north. It would be the third invasion from the North: the first one was by the immigrants of the Mexican province of Tejas before 1836, the second during the Civil War.

The previous governor even hinted at possible secession from the Union, now that Abe Lincoln is dead and buried for good by his own Republican Party. The party that has switched places with the Old Democrat Party of the CSA and Jim Crow and Dixiecrats.


Now about the assault and possible invasion of Yemen by a bought and fully-paid African-Saudi coalition………..

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Yemeni Monolog of the Walking Dead: Hadi’s Political Masturbation in Riyadh……….

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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The deposed and exiled former president of Yemen Hadi has come out publicly and announced May 17 for the start of a “dialog” on Yemen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He even almost looked official, almost serious, in the media photos.

There will be no dialog on Yemen in Riyadh. Hadi will not have the two most powerful men in Yemen to talk with: neither Houthi nor the deposed Saleh will show up. Nor the powerful Southern Independence movement, whose leaders supported the Saudi bombing and cluster munition attacks on (North) Yemen when they were mostly done over Sanaa and Saada. Nor the Al Qaeda AQAP that now controls more territory as a result of the Saudi bombing campaign.

I immediately suggested that the only “dialog” will be between Mr. Hadi and Mr. Hadi, i.e. himself. A sort of vocal political masturbation for the former runaway president. I also suggested he could install a large mirror so that he can look himself in the eyes and launch his monolog, pretending he is actually in a dialog with other than his Saudi hosts and masters.

Two things have been clear to me for at least six weeks now: (1) Abdrabuh Hadi (Al Zombie) is a walking dead politically: he will never return to Sanaa, nor will he ever rule any part of Yemen; (2) there will be no dialog in Riyadh with his participation or that of his foreign minister Yassin who has been urging more Saudi bombing of the Yemeni people. Even Mr. Bahah has almost crossed that line with his moving closer to the position of the Saudi masters.

Which means that any “dialog” on Yemen can only be held in some non-GCC country. With the possible exception of Oman which wisely avoided getting involved in this Foolish Storm over Yemen. And under the supervision of some international figure (LOL no, not Tony Blair)

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Islamic History, Saudi Arabia, Yemen

Queen Balqis Resists the Wisdom and Charm of King Solomon in Yemen………

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

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“It may be that King Salman of Saudi Arabia and his younger son Mohammad, who is defence minister and chief of the royal court, saw the war in Yemen as a way of securing their power and removing rival factions in the royal family from power. On his throne for only a few months, King Salman has been taking a harder line in the Saudi confrontation with Iran and the Shia. He has not only started an air war in Yemen but has given stronger backing to Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qa’ida affiliate, and other jihadi groups in Syria. These have recently won several victories in Idlib province over the Syrian army and forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. A problem in ending the war in Yemen is that it will be difficult for King Salman to come out of it without a success if he wishes to avoid damage to his prestige at the start of his reign. At the same time, Saudi Arabia does not appear to have a plan other than the total defeat of the Houthis and their allies, something that is unlikely to happen…………”

The American bombs, delivered by the Saudis, have been falling for over six weeks, to no avail. Except the continued destruction of the fragile infrastructure of Yemen and the increased misery of its people.

So far there has been not a sign of Brig. Qassem Soleimani in Sanaa or Aden. Not a single Iranian has been seen, apprehended, or photographed anywhere in Yemen. As I noted once “not a soldier, Revolutionary Guard, or bricklayer“. So much for the claims, and the excuse, of “Iranian incursion” in Yemen. Al Qaeda and the Southern Independence Movement (Hirak) and ISIS (Islamic State) are now the only opponents of the Houthi-Saleh alliance. The IS have made their presence felt, but they have been reduced to beheading and shooting other Yemenis since they could not find any Iranians, nor could they find any of the Iraqis or Lebanese that Gulf Salafis and Wahhabi-Liberals claim are all over the region.

This time the wisdom of King Solomon has failed, so far, in bringing the Yemeni Queen Balqis, Queen of Sheba to her knees (forgive the irresistible pun). That is unlikely to change in modern Yemen: the rugged Houthis, northern country folks that they are, are well experienced in fighting superior forces and frustrating them.
So far. But the Saudis have deep pockets, and their Western suppliers are willing to replenish the bombs, for a price……..

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, European Union, GCC, Yemen

A Solution: Hadi to Join European Union, Erdogan to Join Gulf GCC……..

Shuwaikh-school1 RattleSnakeRidge Sharqeya-Baneen-15

KuwaitCox2

During the turmoil of the Arab uprisings of 2011, the Saudi king came up with an interesting idea, what Americans would call “a dilly”. He invited two unlikely Arab kingdoms to join the Gulf Cooperation Council– GCC: humorless Jordan and faraway but certainly more exotic Morocco. Even though the two countries are not located on the Persian Gulf, unlike for example Iraq or Iran or even the United States Navy. Anyway, I opined loudly and persistently that it will never happen, that it was a knee-jerk reaction by the Saudis to the Arab turmoil around them. I suggested that they will end up at most with a sort of watered-down ‘association’. As it happened the Arab turmoil turned the wrong way, and the princes used their money wisely to influence events in Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Or so they thought. There was even some loose talk of membership and maybe association with military-ruled Egypt. Yemen was never mentioned at that time.

The invitations to the kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan were quietly shelved. The assumption was that Yemen can also forget about it. Now that the country is in turmoil, its former president is on the run, the issue comes up. Reports claim that the former president AbdRabuh Hadi is formally applying for membership of the GCC. The man is not even the true president as his term expired last year and he decided to unilaterally extended his own term, in true Arab fashion. I suppose it could be a way to show that he and his ministers are acting like a real ‘government’. Even after escaping first Sanaa and then Aden to the safety of Riyadh.


It will be interesting if the Saudis encouraged them to apply, or if they decided to spring a spring surprise while the Saudis are busy in their own power struggle. It is possible they resorted to this after failing to raise the expected popular militia in support of the air campaign: the opposition to Houthi-Saleh is mainly Southern Independence, Al Qaeda, and some tribal elements.

Either way, his chances of joining the GCC now are zero, mainly because Hadi will never return and rule in Sanaa. He has as much chance to join the GCC as Erdogan of Turkey has of joining the European Union. This is not to say that Yemen does not fit into the GCC, culturally and historically it could fit. But Yemen has three handicaps:
(1) it is a republic not a monarchy, presumably with an elected president;
(2) it is very poor, and;
(3)it is a large country that has more citizens than Saudi Arabia. Which means it can be the most populous country of the GCC, with all the economic and financial pressures that would create on the rest of the GCC.

So, if I were a joking type, which I probably am not, I would suggest that Yemen Hadi has a better chance to join Europe than the GCC and Erdogan Turkey has a better chance to join the GCC than the European Union. I bet you know where this is leading……….

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Mohammed Haider Ghuloum                          Follow ArabiaDeserta on Twitter
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