ÙÙضرÙرة اØÙا٠Ùا ÙظرÙÙÙا Necessity has its own rules and conditions
Any external observer looking at the political history of unified Yemen would agree that the 1993 parliamentary elections were one of its brightest chapters, just as the 1994 civil war was one of its most sombre. Yemenâs experiment in pluralism during the transition period from 1990 to 1993 remains unparalleled in the history of the Arabian Peninsula, for it seemed to suggest that the Yemeni sister states had shaken off their troublesome pasts and, in a joint effort, catapulted themselves from the age of Cold War confrontations, particularism, and one-party rule into that of sisterhood, unity, and democracy. Against this background, the 1994 civil war appeared like an atavism, a relapse into a dark past that was characterized by separation and deep-seated resentments.
Seen from another angle, it could also be argued that in the sequence of events that began in 1990, the parliamentary elections were only a temporary delay that (similar to the moment of retardation in a classical Greek tragedy) momentarily halted a fatal escalation, in a way that still suggested the possibility of a different outcome. Like in a Greek tragedy, however, this hope was bound to be disappointed. The North and South were heading towards civil war with ominous inevitability, and the elections only delayed their path into the abyss.
Anyone looking at the interior workings of this process would agree that the elections, despite a few minor surprises and unexpected events, were not expressions of genuine competition. Its results could have been predicted from the very day of unification. Northern dominance in united Yemen was the outcome of simple arithmetic: since the concept of democracy is based on the will of the majority, the yspâs electoral defeat simply reflected the demographic fact that after unity the southerners had become a minority, amounting to about 20 per cent of the total population. Democracy had disadvantaged the South and the ysp, and they had badly miscalculated the effects of pluralist competition
For the same demographic reason, and in spite of the desperate efforts of the southern forces, the outcome of the civil war was inevitable, and the northern victory imposed further brutal and irrefutable realities. With his double victory â electoral and military â á¹¢Äliḥ took full power and implemented a good part of his autocratic policies by exploiting and corrupting the existing democratic system from within â a classic method of autocrats and dictators. Even though he played his part as president of a united, âdemocraticâ Yemen with skill, he could not hide the fact that competition and power sharing were contrary to his inclinations. Once his position at the helm of a united Yemen was cemented, he returned to his earlier erratic, autocratic system of governance. In many ways the post-war situation suited his yearning for non-political politics, and the sham democracy that he introduced into Yemen was in fact the end of open competition and genuine pluralism.
The consequences of the renunciation of politics were soon felt. After taking power, control over the âunited Yemenâ was exercised by á¹¢Äliḥ, his extended clan, and those who had supported him in the elections and the civil war. These included Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar, who stood firmly on á¹¢Äliḥâs side during the war and for this reason even fell out (at least temporarily) with his Saudi patrons who had actively supported the southern secessionists to counterbalance the growing power potential of a united Yemen.1 In the 1993 elections, the Iá¹£lÄḥ party did well, and in the 1994 civil war Iá¹£lÄḥâs Islamist warriors, directed by al-Aḥmar, were instrumental in the subjugation and humiliation of the South. In this way the Islamists, who had been lurking in the shadows at least since the War of the Central Areas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, finally emerged from the darkness and took the spotlight of this national drama to become central actors.
The present chapter follows MujÄhid, whose unwavering support for al-BīḠ(which was more an expression of his antagonism towards á¹¢Äliḥ than enthusiasm for al-BÄ«á¸) seemed to become increasingly disconnected from the political environment, for shaykhly loyalties were rather fluid and subject to incessant
Throughout this time, from 1990 to 1993, MujÄhidâs personal biography remained closely linked to the political history of Yemen. This chapter enquires into some of MujÄhidâs most ill-fated projects, endeavours, and experiences: his aborted candidacy for parliament, the military defeat of his tribe at the outset of the 1994 civil war, the siege and fall of Aden, al-BÄ«á¸âs revocation of their alliance, and his catastrophic third encounter with á¹¢Äliḥ. This succession of disasters and milestones on the way to failure put him on the defensive on all fronts. At length, shaken by this succession of blows, and in greater peril than ever before, even endangering those around him, he chose to end the struggle and fruitless exertions that had characterized his shaykhdom. His resolve to leave Yemen and go into exile was as much an admission of failure, a reaction to the enormous tension and disappointed hopes, as it was the result of his overconfidence in his own strength.
1 âSomething Wonderful Has Happened in Yemenâ (1993)
The whole world seemed to be looking at Yemen when the countryâs first parliamentary elections were held on 27 April 1993. On this occasion, the New York Times headline read âSomething wonderful has happened in Yemen,â expressing wonder and enthusiasm about the end of the Cold War and its aberrations in South Arabia and the peaceful transformation of two one-party regimes that had been at loggerheads with each other for almost a quarter of a century, into
Inspired by the political optimism and the grassroots activism of the transition period from 1990 to 1993, thousands of candidates and more than forty parties contested for 301 constituency-based parliamentary seats. On this occasion, the parties sought to represent themselves in the best possible light. The gpcâs electoral programme, vaguely presented as broad and multidirectional, reflected liberal and democratic convictions. The ysp presented itself as a social-democratic party and the champion of democracy, modernization, and order, and as anti-corruption. The Iá¹£lÄḥ party slogan âThe Quran and the Sunna supersede the constitution and the lawâ promoted the central role of Islam in all areas of life and politics, including the constitution. Scores of smaller parties, such as al-Ḥaqq (representing the interests of the Zaydis and the sÄda), Baathists, and Nasserists vied for the favour of the voters. Despite the multitude of parties, three-quarters of the contenders stood for the elections as âindependentâ candidates; however, after the elections, many of these âindependentsâ turned out to have been stooges of the gpc or the other large parties who, with this ruse, managed to double and triple the number of their candidates.3
One of these independent candidates was MujÄhid Ḥaydar. In the run-up phase of the elections, and despite the discouraging events of the recent years (the military campaigns that targeted him and his tribe, the thwarted TalÄḥum party project, the futile efforts to unite the BakÄ«l and mobilize them against the northern regime, the death threats and attempts on his life), he once again gathered his forces and prepared to run for constituency number 280, Ḥarf SufyÄn. He decided to run as an independent candidate because he still clung to the project of the TalÄḥum party and viewed himself as an ally, not a member, of the ysp.
I decided to run for parliament as an independent candidate, because ultimately the TalÄḥum party did not get al-BÄ«á¸âs support. And ideologically, I was no socialist. Yet, as the proverb goes, âthe enemy of the enemy is a friendâ (Ê¿aduw al-Ê¿aduw á¹£adÄ«q).
In the run-up to the elections, people from al-BÄ«á¸âs office sought me out and told me that al-BīḠwanted me to come and meet him in Aden. I went to Aden, and there he said to me, âI invited you because I want to ask you not to run for parliament.â I asked him for the reasons, and he told me, âYour opponent Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar will run for parliament in his constituency [Khamir], and you would meet him in parliament, and you would fall out with him, and they would exploit this against us because you are considered one of us.â He continued, âWe have many charges against á¹¢Äliḥ and al-Aḥmar, and they do not have anything against us, not a single point, and any problem you cause with al-Aḥmar when you meet him in parliament will be used against us.â He asked me to identify a person from the SufyÄn who would run for the ysp in my stead, and to mobilize the SufyÄn to elect this person. I balked at his request, but he kept me in Qaá¹£r al-MaÊ¿ÄshÄ«q [the presidential palace in Crater] for two days until he had persuaded me and compensated me with other things: expensive real estate in Aden, heavy and medium weapons, and money.
Al-BÄ«á¸âs request put me in a quandary, but eventually I gave in. I was keen not to lose him, because he protected me in confrontations with my opponents, á¹¢Äliḥ and al-Aḥmar. At length, I suggested the candidacy of Muḥammad Muá¹£liḥ al-ShahwÄnÄ« [from SufyÄn], who was a ysp man and heir to Shaykh Muá¹£liḥ al-ShahwÄnÄ«.4 After the death of my brother Ḥaydar [in 1982], Muá¹£liḥ al-ShahwÄnÄ« had succeeded him and became the ndf field commander in Ḥarf SufyÄn in his stead, may God have mercy on them. Our families were very close, always on the same side. We mobilized the SufyÄn to elect Muḥammad al-ShahwÄnÄ«, and he won the parliamentary seat for the ysp. It was the only seat the ysp won in the far north. [After the elections] al-BīḠagain asked me to meet him in Aden, where he thanked me profusely. I recall that [the southern politician] JÄrallÄh Ê¿Umar told me, âOur success in the SufyÄn constituency is equal to ten other constituencies. It is our only bridgehead [into the north].â
In fact, in Ê¿AmrÄnâs áºulayma ḤabÅ«r constituency (ironically the home constituency of ḤamÄ«d al-Aḥmar), the ysp had done well, and ysp candidate Ê¿AlÄ« á¹¢aghÄ«r JamÄ«l asserted himself against ḤamÄ«d al-Aḥmar, who ran for the Iá¹£lÄḥ party. Yet the course of the elections took an unexpected turn when ḤamÄ«d al-Aḥmarâs escorts removed the ballot boxes at gunpoint and the ensuing quarrel escalated into the destruction, by rocket-launcher, of the ysp headquarters in ḤabÅ«r. ḤamÄ«d al-Aḥmar declared himself the winner of the election.5
The gpc emerged as the largest party with a total of 122 parliamentary seats, falling short of an absolute majority. The Iá¹£lÄḥ party was a surprise success and won 62 seats. The ysp won only 56 seats. A coalition of gpc, ysp, and Iá¹£lÄḥ was formed, in which gpc and Iá¹£lÄḥ, by applying the percentage of their votes, refused to allocate more than one of the presidential councilâs five seats to the ysp (previously the ysp had held two).8 The ysp had badly miscalculated the effects of a pluralist competition for political power. The ysp could count on its long-standing northern connections through the old ndf network, and the yspâs grievances against Sanaa were shared by many in the North, but this did not suffice to mobilize a significant proportion of northern voters for the ysp and maintain a strong position in the presidential council.
On the day of parliamentâs opening session, I provided Muḥammad al-ShahwÄnÄ« with my car and a group of my tribal guards, and they entered the parliament compound in Sanaa along with Muḥammad al-ShahwÄnÄ«âs own guards and car. When Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmarâs guards saw them entering and parking my car next to al-Aḥmarâs car, they raised the barrels of their guns and pointed them at my men. This greatly angered my men, who responded by hitting al-Aḥmarâs car with the butts of their guns, leading to scuffles between them. The situation was only relieved when the guards of Prime Minister Ḥaydar AbÅ« Bakr al-Ê¿Aá¹á¹Äs appeared on the scene and managed to separate them.
2 The Wrong War (1994)
The results of the elections and the dispute over the seat distribution in the presidential council led to a further deterioration of the situation. The ysp leaders were convinced of the bad faith and aggressive intentions of á¹¢Äliḥ and the Iá¹£lÄḥ party, and their view that the northern regime was waging a campaign against them was confirmed. An undeclared war was being carried out by political machination, intimidation, and assassinations, and thus the ysp leaders began to speak openly of federation.9
By contrast, the gpc and Iá¹£lÄḥ leaders believed that they had accommodated the ysp sufficiently, and allowed it a far greater voice and share in the government than its demographic weight (20/80) justified. In the southern federation plans the North saw nothing but a distraction to undermine Yemeni unity, a first step towards secession; they suspected that al-BÄ«á¸âs meetings with foreign powers â Saudi Arabia and the United States â were a conspiracy to divide a united Yemen. Eventually the conflict within the governing coalition prompted al-BīḠto leave Sanaa for Aden in January 1994. Neither domestic nor foreign attempts at mediation, including a broad national dialogue aimed at a comprehensive resolution of the underlying conflict, could persuade him to return to Sanaa and cooperate with á¹¢Äliḥ.10
After unity, the former states each worked to weaken the other by placing army units in the territory of the other state. Thus, the southern army moved several brigades to the North: The Fifth Brigade was shifted to SufyÄnâs Jabal Aswad, the Third Brigade went to Ê¿AmrÄn city, the Baʾ á¹¢uhayb Brigade went to DhamÄr, the Fourteenth October Brigade went to KhawlÄn al-ṬiyÄl, the First Brigade went to YarÄ«m, and some smaller units were sent to á¹¢aÊ¿da, al-Jawf, and the TihÄma lowlands.12 Only two northern brigades were placed in the former South: the Second Brigade near ḤabÄ«layn was located at the arterial highway that ran from Laḥj to al-á¸ÄliÊ¿, and the Ê¿AmÄliqa (âGiantsâ) Brigade was sent to Abyan.13 Yet whereas the southern brigades in the North did not occupy positions of much strategic importance, the northern Second Brigade and the Ê¿AmÄliqa were ideally positioned to enable a massive strategic thrust from the
Since 1990, and particularly after the 1993 elections, the ysp had tried to mobilize disaffected elements among the northern tribes to join the southern cause. The southern leaders had strategically placed major southern forces in the northern highlands â the Fifth Brigade at SufyÄnâs Jabal Aswad, the Third Brigade at Ê¿AmrÄn city, the Fourteenth October Brigade at KhawlÄn al-ṬiyÄl â in areas where clandestine underground communication between the BakÄ«l and Aden were still in place and where southern soldiers would be able to withdraw into the surrounding tribal areas if needed. Even if many disaffected BakÄ«l tribes were no longer as proactive vis-à -vis the ysp as in the first days of unity, the southern leaders hoped for friendly or at least neutral tribal environments.15
Certainly nowhere were the ties between southern army units and the surrounding tribes as old and close as in SufyÄn, where the Fifth Brigade was garrisoned at Jabal Aswad after it came along with Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir to the North in 1986. By 1994, the garrison at SufyÄnâs Jabal Aswad was composed of the southern Fifth Brigade and a northern battalion (katÄ«ba), the latter stationed in an elevated place (qarn) towering over the Fifth Brigadeâs camp. This battalion, which belonged to Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsinâs Firqa, consisted of radical Sunni Islamists, most of ḤÄshid origin (the battalionâs commander himself was from al-Ê¿Uá¹£aymÄt). The fact that since its flight to the North in 1986 the Fifth Brigade had no heavy weapons and was âsupervisedâ by a northern Islamist battalion is an indication of Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsinâs concerns about the brigadeâs political orientation.
In mid-February 1994, in a last but futile attempt to find a constructive solution to the crisis, the collective leadership of Yemen signed the Document of Pledge and Accord (dpa) in Amman, Jordan.16 At the same time, limited
In 1986, Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin had integrated the Fifth Brigade into the Firqa and garrisoned it at SufyÄnâs Jabal Aswad. Since the Fifth Brigade had come with Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir to the North, Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin assumed that the brigade was sympathetic to the regime in Sanaa and hence hostile towards us, the SufyÄn. In the years to come, however, when the soldiers began to feel the bigotry and tyranny of Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin, they started leaning towards us, the tribe of SufyÄn, because it was known that we were opposed to him.
In September 1993, Aden replaced the Fifth Brigadeâs commander with ysp-loyalist Ê¿AbdallÄh ShalÄ«l.18 ShalÄ«l knew about my hostility to á¹¢Äliḥ, Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar, and Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin, and about my close relationship with the ysp. He visited me in [my home village] WÄsiá¹ al-á¸alÊ¿a and asked me to go to Aden and coordinate for him with [the southern] minister of defence, HaythÄm QÄsim ṬÄhir. I went to Aden, and during my absence Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin appointed a new commander to the Fifth Brigade, [á¹¢Äliḥ Muḥammad] Ṭaymas, to replace ShalÄ«l.19 ShalÄ«l disobeyed Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsinâs orders to hand over the command of the Fifth Brigade to Ṭaymas, and flatly refused Ṭaymas entry to the brigadeâs camp. Ṭaymas returned to Sanaa and told Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin that Ê¿AbdallÄh ShalÄ«l had refused to implement the order, and shortly after the war broke out [at Jabal Aswad] when I was still in Aden.
Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsinâs forces and the ikhwanjÄ« [Islamist] ḤÄshid battalion that was also stationed at Jabal Aswad attacked the Fifth Brigade with heavy artillery. Since the Fifth Brigade had no heavy weapons, the minister of
defence, HaythÄm QÄsim ṬÄhir, urged me to summon my tribe to fight alongside the Fifth Brigade, which I did, and we supported it with our tribesmen and matériel from our own arsenal: B-10 recoilless rifles and rpg-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Over the course of the night, we managed to achieve victory over the Firqa and the Islamists. The next morning, however, army reinforcements in plain clothes arrived from á¹¢aÊ¿da on public buses, pretending that they were civilian travellers on their way to Sanaa. We were caught by surprise when suddenly they opened fire on us from the front and rear, and we were in the middle of the battle. When it was over, ten of my tribesmen and a number of soldiers of the Fifth Brigade were dead or dying, and many others had been wounded.20 The war continued, until dawn of the second day, when the commander of the Fifth Brigade announced that they had run out of ammunition. He and many of his soldiers managed to withdraw into the surrounding tribal areas of SufyÄn. The minister of defence asked me to secure their evacuation to Aden, and I instructed my tribesmen, headed by Shaykh NÄjÄ« ḤirshÄn, to escort them from SufyÄn to al-Ê¿Abla in al-Jawf and from there to al-Ê¿Abr border crossing point in Ḥaá¸ramawt, and then, via Abyan, to Aden.
How did you communicate with your tribesmen?
I spent two days stuck to the telephone in Aden and communicated with my tribe through the central telephone that belonged to Ḥarf SufyÄn district, in the main communications centre where a landline telephone was run by someone from the city of al-Ḥarf. We called him always, for any matter, and told him, âMove your jeep and bring the Ê¿Äqil so-and-so to the call centre, so we can talk to him.â I was in a kind of overdrive, talking to my men, gathering information, following-up on the battle; all the time coordinating between my tribe, the Fifth Brigade, and the southern leadership in Aden.
Ê¿AbdallÄh ShalÄ«l and the southern soldiers managed to withdraw into the BakÄ«lÄ« hinterlands from where they âmiraculously passed out to the South,â as a local newspaper termed it.21 It was a kind of triumph when ShalÄ«l, accompanied by surviving soldiers and their SufyÄnÄ« escorts, arrived safe and unscathed in Aden; yet it was a triumph that left MujÄhid and the southern leaders who went to receive them with a stale aftertaste. ShalÄ«lâs survival could not conceal
When I asked why, in these fateful days, when his tribe was in distress and SufyÄn was in furious turmoil, he did not return from Aden and take matters into his own hands with his usual energy, MujÄhidâs answers were unusually evasive. In retrospect, his atypical lack of action and lingering in Aden suggests that, for the first time, he might have been haunted by doubts, by an unspoken, uncomfortable premonition that he did not yet want to admit to himself; namely, that his return to SufyÄn would worsen rather than improve the situation for his tribe. Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin and the northern army had defeated the SufyÄn and would not hesitate to further harm the tribe and prove the supremacy of the northern regime. Now northern supremacy was a fait accompli, and little could be done about it.
Indeed, the Fifth Brigadeâs defeat in SufyÄn proved to be only the first step towards the eradication of the remaining southern units stationed in the North. Having delivered this vigorous blow to the SufyÄn, the civil war was paused for a short while; this interlude that only emphasized the cruelty of the looming southern defeat. Tensions continued to soar, and after a short lull, on 27 April 1994 â the anniversary of the 1993 parliamentary elections, and exactly two months after the SufyÄn battle â á¹¢Äliḥ gave an inflammatory speech, in which he accused the ysp of fomenting division; the South took this to be a declaration of war, which it undoubtedly was. Within hours after á¹¢Äliḥâs speech, clashes erupted anew, between the southern Third Brigade and the northern First Brigade stationed at the same garrison in Ê¿AmrÄn city. In this way the civil war resumed in full force, from dangerous words and undue stimulation of national passions.
After a brief period, the battle moved to the southern Third Brigade led by Sayf al-BaqrÄ« and Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsinâs First Brigade in Ê¿AmrÄn city. This was the hardest battle, 130 tanks aimed their barrels at each other and fought at point-blank range inside the confined space of the garrison; the Third Brigade was destroyed and nearly annihilated in a terrible manner. After the Third Brigadeâs defeat, tribesmen from al-GhÅ«la and Ê¿IyÄl Surayḥ [of BakÄ«l] managed to evacuate the southern commander, Sayf al-BaqrÄ«, and other survivors to SufyÄn, where our tribesmen took over and brought them down to Aden.23
The Ê¿AmrÄn battle signalled the beginning of fateful events in the annals of Yemeni history; yet in one contemporary document it left scarcely a trace, namely the memoirs penned by Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar. In his typical way of glossing over critical situations, he dismisses the battle (or rather massacre) of Ê¿AmrÄn, though the death toll was greater than that of Yemenâs 1972 and 1979 border wars combined, as âsome problemsâ (baʿḠal-ishkÄliyyÄt). Al-Aḥmar nevertheless elaborates on why, in his opinion, the cooperation between the southern leadership and the BakÄ«l was bound to fail: the BakÄ«l had promised to support the southern leaders in Aden â by rallying their tribesmen to the southern cause, blocking roads, and laying siege on Sanaa, so that the war would take place in the northern capital rather than in Aden â yet in their hour of need the BakÄ«l did not meet their promises and âlet them downâ (khadhalÅ«-hum).24
Indeed, most northern tribes, whose support Aden had sought since unification, were of no help to the South in the civil war. Once again, the ysp was confronted by the way in which tribal leaders shifted with the changing wind. When the civil war erupted, many of the northern shaykhs who had leaned towards the ysp during the post-1990 transition phase, had already re-aligned themselves with those in power. The secession debate had antagonized them.
[After unity,] some shaykhs came out [outwardly] in opposition to á¹¢Äliḥ [while secretly] they were in league with him. á¹¢Äliḥ wanted al-BīḠto invest his financial and military resources in these shaykhs, to make sure that al-BÄ«á¸âs resources would not harm him and that the war would take place in Aden rather than in Sanaa, because these resources went into the hands of the shaykhs who were á¹¢Äliḥ loyalists, and not into our hands â the hands of those who were á¹¢Äliḥâs real enemies. The á¹¢Äliḥ loyalists took al-BÄ«á¸âs resources, but did not use them against á¹¢Äliḥ. There was a collusion between those shaykhs and á¹¢Äliḥ. á¹¢Äliḥ told them, âBetween me and al-BīḠis a disagreement. Al-BīḠhas financial and military resources that he could give to our true opponents, and as a result, the war will take place here, in Sanaa. I want you to come out in opposition against me; tell all and sundry how much you loathe me and give al-BīḠevery reason to trust in you, to invite you [to Aden] and invest his resources in you â and then you ensure that they will not be used against us!â25
From the outbreak of the civil war, MujÄhid had lingered in Aden, until he and his companions eventually joined the southern forces. In the battle for al-Ê¿Anad airbase in Laḥj, where two of the three northern prongs converged on their way to Aden, MujÄhid and his men faced the northern forces in battle.28
We stayed with them [the southerners] and fought with them, as is our custom. We participated in the battle for al-Ê¿Anad airbase with my tribesmen who had escorted Ê¿AbdallÄh ShalÄ«l to Aden, plus those who had escorted Sayf al-BaqrÄ« to Aden, plus my sixteen personal guards, in total seventy tribesmen from SufyÄn. We fought alongside the southerners and helped them confront the northern forces, but our enthusiasm suffered a heavy blow when al-BīḠdeclared southern secession [on 21 May 1994], because basically we were waḥdawiyyÅ«n (unionists), not secessionists.
When southern resistance at al-Ê¿Anad was about to break and the southern forces began to withdraw, we retreated with them, because I had decided not to sacrifice my tribesmen for the sake of southern secession. Since the days of the ndf, we were firm unionists, and the idea of paying for southern secession with the blood of my tribesmen was unacceptable to me.
During our retreat, we stumbled across an arms cache left behind by southern forces, [there were] rpg-7 grenade launchers and 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, and we decided to take our share of these arms. This
delayed us and [in the meantime] the northern reconnaissance arrived at the battlefield. Some of us confronted the northern vanguard in order to slow down its advance, while others continued to load weapons on our cars, then we left al-Ê¿Anad. There were clear signs that the southern forces had been infiltrated by traitors and [loyalists of] á¹¢Äliḥ and Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin. On one occasion, southern forces laid a minefield behind the front, so in case of defeat, we would withdraw from the minefield through the safe corridor they left between the mines, which would explode only when the northern army came through. Yet when we withdrew from that place, we lost the safe corridor and were in desperate fear of the mines. But they did not explode. The soldiers who had laid the mines were traitors, they did not extract the arming pins, hence the mines were not armed and did not explode. We withdrew together with the southern forces to the city of al-Ḥawá¹a, the capital of Laḥj, then to al-ḤussaynÄ«. As southern resistance became ever weaker, in the bottom of my heart I knew that the South was going to be defeated.
After the conquest of al-Ê¿Anad air base, the northern forces continued their advance, forcing the southern army to the defensive on all fronts. By the beginning of July, MujÄhid and his companions were back in Aden. As the city was approached from all sides and the lines of the three-pronged northern advance slowly converged on Aden airport at Khormaksar, an eerie drama began to unfold. Exposed to massive shelling, parts of the city had become a landscape of craters, ruins, and rubble. Bombs had damaged many buildings, blasted out windows, and cut off water supplies to a population of nearly one million, all during the sweltering summer heat. Against a background rumble from heavy artillery, the sound of guns firing in the distance and fronts cracking everywhere, public order gradually dissolved, and the first looting took place. With their defeat at hand, the southern leaders, disappointed by their failure to gain either domestic support or international recognition, boarded ships and left Aden for al-MukallÄ.
I went to HaythÄm QÄsim ṬÄhir, the minister of defence, and á¹¢Äliḥ Munaṣṣir al-SiyaylÄ«, the governor of Aden. I told them that á¹¢Äliḥ is fighting them together with Islamist warriors of the Iá¹£lÄḥ party, and southerners who left the South together with President Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir [in 1986]. And that they had not yet benefited from those oppressed northern tribes who despised á¹¢Äliḥ, al-Aḥmar, and the Islamists. I offered to head to the North and rally the tribes to fight alongside the South against á¹¢Äliḥ and asked them to open al-Ê¿Abr border crossing point in Ḥaá¸ramawt to let thousands of BakÄ«l warriors enter to fight alongside them. They supported my idea and told me to rush to al-MukallÄ and convince al-BīḠof it. The plan was to go to Aden airport and board an Antonov military transport aircraft to al-MukallÄ, because northern forces were already laying siege on Aden from three directions. The Ê¿AmÄliqa stood in Abyan at the gates of Aden, shelling the city and the airport with Katyushas, and the land route to al-MukallÄ was impassable.
Yet when we arrived at the airport, there were no planes. I asked the airport director about it and he told me, âWe cannot hold any plane at the airport as a result of the shelling. You must be present when a plane arrives, because it cannot wait at the airport. I advise you to dig pits for you and your companions and seek shelter in them until a plane arrives. Get on board as quickly as possible because it wonât stop for more than a few minutes!â We dug pits to protect ourselves from splinters, because the airport building did not provide any protection against the airstrikes. The Ê¿AmÄliqa was shelling the airport with Katyusha missiles, and we waited for one week in heaps of rubble, fragments of wall, and scattered rubbish for the arrival of a plane that would evacuate us from Aden.
One week in a pit?
Necessity has its own rules and conditions.
How is this, Katyusha shelling?
Scary, terrifying. The howling sound is freaking creepy. Like screaming death. The noise of hell.
The first plane that landed on the airportâs runway was right away struck by a Katyusha missile and broke apart into halves. The shelling drove us back to the pit, and we kept waiting. At length, some days later, all of a sudden another plane arrived. It was a small military aircraft that seemed to come out of nowhere. The moment it landed, we ran across the tarmac and got aboard. Were there others waiting for a plane?
Yes, there were some military leaders, and I think Dr YÄsÄ«n SaÊ¿Ä«d [NuÊ¿mÄn], but I am not certain. The plane took off again after a few minutes without gaining altitude, and flew for a while extremely low over the sea, it felt like one meter above the water surface, staying as low as possible to remain invisible [to radar] and lessen the chances of discovery and taking a hit. After a while it gained altitude, and finally we reached al-MukallÄ. Shortly after we left Aden, the northern forces entered the city.
In al-MukallÄ, I found the southern leaders in hopeless perplexity. I ran into a southern brigadier general and told him that I urgently needed to talk to al-BÄ«á¸. He accommodated me in a hotel room to refresh myself â the past days had not exactly improved my already somewhat dishevelled appearance â and then went to inform al-BīḠabout my request.
In my meeting with al-BÄ«á¸, I reiterated my proposal to rally the tribes of BakÄ«l and send them to the South. Yet in spite of strenuous efforts to gain al-BÄ«á¸âs approval, I was unable to obtain his consent. After being deceived by so many northern shaykhs, al-BīḠwas not convinced of my idea. He preserved a graceful, suave demeanour, but below the surface he seemed distressed and confused, as if he had lost confidence in the whole North except us, the SufyÄn. He said, âNo one is with us except you, the SufyÄn, and I do not want to sacrifice you.â
I looked at him in stupefaction. Then I understood that this man was profoundly scared. This was the voice of one who had been shaken to the depths. He was afraid of letting further northern tribes enter [the South], lest they, too, betray him and direct their weapons against the southerners.
And al-BīḠwas not all that wrong. While they were meeting in al-MukallÄ, the northern army was launching its final assault on Aden, with furious shelling as they engaged the southern forces in a massive artillery duel at Aden airport. When the southern defenders began to vanish, northern forces along with tribal and Islamist irregulars, jihadis, and Arab-Afghan mujahideen entered Aden and moved into Crater, MaÊ¿lÄ, and TawÄhÄ«. Disastrous scenes took place as they began to loot the city, their violence and vandalism greatly supported
The northern excesses lasted ten days, during which âthere was total disorder where you saw people looting and destroying everything.â29 Although the first looting began when Aden was still under siege, in that summer 1994, it was seared in the collective southern memory that again, the northern tribes had descended from the highlands and swarmed toward the South, like locusts, to collect whatever booty they could find, in the process adding to the long-existing southern fears and historical angst about being overrun by the northern tribes.30 Many at the time drew parallels with the 1948 sack of Sanaa.31
Two days after my meeting with al-BÄ«á¸, á¹¢Äliḥ AbÅ« Bakr Bin ḤussaynÅ«n (the leader of the Ḥaá¸ramawt front) was killed, and the South suffered a terrible defeat. The southern leaders fled in all directions, to the Sultanate of Oman, Djibouti, Asmara (Eritrea), but I refused to take refuge with them. My companions and I rented cars and headed for al-Ê¿Abr border crossing in the Empty Quarter. There we met a southern military leader who told us that five hundred tribesmen from SufyÄn had arrived at al-Ê¿Abr and demanded to cross the border into the South to protect me and fight alongside me in Aden, but he had refused them entry. My tribesmen waited at Jabal Ê¿AlÄ« near the border crossing point for seven days. Then they decided to return home, because â according to the latest news â they believed that I had fallen in the battle for Aden. You have to remember that this was a time before satnav and mobile phones. Once you were on the road, you were really on your own.
At al-Ê¿Abr, my companions and I left the South towards the Empty Quarter. We entered Maʾrib and stopped in SÅ«q al-JalÄl for lunch, then we continued to travel via the desert route towards al-Jawf. I reached my father-in-lawâs house [in SaraḥÄt al-MatÅ«n] in al-Jawf at night and found my wife sleeping. I woke her up. When she caught sight of me, she flung herself into my arms, then she fainted. I picked up a water bottle and splashed some water on her face until she awoke from her faint. She told me that the news said that I had been killed in the war in Aden. The next day, we continued to WÄsiá¹ al-á¸alÊ¿a in SufyÄn.
3 First Exile (1994â2004)
Great were the surprise and joy when MujÄhid and his companions arrived back in SufyÄn. Hardly had MujÄhid reached his home village, when family and fellow tribesmen thronged around him and congratulated him for having escaped from deadly peril; they paid their respects to their shaykh and his companions whom they believed to have perished in the battle for Aden.
Back in SufyÄn, and after months of breathless activism, MujÄhid at length found time to meditate on the abyss into which the defeat of Aden had plunged him. An almost incredible time it had been, perilous and murderous, weighty with destiny, and he had displayed an immense amount of passion and courage, but in the end his overwhelming exertions had been fruitless, and all he could show for was the bare rescue of his life. The scales had tilted definitively in the direction of á¹¢Äliḥ, who stood in control of a united Yemen and at the very climax of his power.
Indeed MujÄhid returned from Aden to a depressingly changed scene. The consequences of á¹¢Äliḥâs victories â both electoral and military â soon made themselves felt. á¹¢Äliḥ, his extended clan and those in league with him, including Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar and his sons, had extended their dominance over the whole country. As always, the war, a devourer of men and destroyer of values, proved a profitable business for the victors, for with times of chaos there came splendid opportunities for empowerment and enrichment. After 1994, âall pretences to conceal the presidential familyâs monopoly of military power were abandoned.â32 There were golden prospects for army contractors and other profiteers of the military-commercial complex.33 And splendid possibilities
Likewise in domestic political terms, á¹¢Äliḥ, now all-powerful, used the war to clear out the last opposition to him. ysp politicians and other adversaries were persecuted, and thousands of southerners fled into exile. The supreme southern leaders, among them al-BīḠand Ḥaydar AbÅ« Bakr al-Ê¿Aá¹á¹Äs, were tried in absentia for treason, and five of them were sentenced to death.36 In sum, the civil war of 1994, âerased any vestiges of Southern goodwill towards Sanaa, left the country bitterly divided and reduced to vanishing point the chance of President á¹¢Äliḥ being either able or willing to lead the country towards political pluralism and economic well-being.â37
During the war, á¹¢Äliḥ had counted on crude domination. After his military victory, however, he again assumed the role of a politician who played his cards with deliberation and used the principle of tactical duality to his supreme advantage â his very style of governance, which combined authoritarianism with persuasion, intimidation with promises. á¹¢Äliḥ knew that in the long term a certain degree of power sharing (or its semblance) with the South and thus the inclusion of a certain number of southerners in the post-war government would be crucial to maintain northern dominance. His enemies must not unite against him, nor should his friends become too powerful. His goal was to keep all of them in well-tempered dependence â this was his style of rule, and on the whole it was successful. However, it goes without saying that he did not appoint true ysp loyalists to the post-war government, rather he appointed loyalists of (pro-North) ex-President Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir. Hence his appointment of feeble, submissive Ê¿Abd Rabbuh Manṣūr HÄdÄ«, who had come to the North with Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir in 1986 and had no power base of his own, to the post of minister of defence. HÄdÄ« also replaced al-BīḠas vice president.
Given his mutinous record, MujÄhid assumed that he would be excluded from the great reconciliation that was taking place. His conflict with Sanaa had reached a life-and-death struggle that left no room for doubt about his determination to confront á¹¢Äliḥ and his regime. Another phase of confrontation had begun, and MujÄhid knew all too well that in this phase his back was against the wall. Therefore, he was surprised beyond measure when a phone call reached him from the presidential office; it kindly conveyed the message that the president wished to meet him in Sanaa. Like his second personal encounter with the president in 1988, the events that followed provided him with an intimate glimpse into the sordid games and devious policies at the heart of the regime.
Indeed, á¹¢Äliḥ considered MujÄhid a troublesome fellow who during the transition period and the civil war had gone far beyond the parameters á¹¢Äliḥ had put around him. But after the civil war, which á¹¢Äliḥ had won with the help of the ḤÄshid, Islamist, and jihadi warriors of al-Aḥmar and the Iá¹£lÄḥ party, a struggle for power and position had set in again, and this prompted á¹¢Äliḥ to turn a blind eye to MujÄhidâs scandalous behaviour. In his memoirs, Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar never tires of stressing the instrumental role that the Iá¹£lÄḥ party and the tribal and Islamist militias had played in the civil war against the South, and to emphasize the âunity,â âsolidarity,â and âcohesionâ of the anti-ysp coalition39 â and this was exactly the problem. For mystical sentimentalities of this sort meant little to á¹¢Äliḥ. To him, every partnership was a form of imprisonment. Political and military considerations fettered him to Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar and the Iá¹£lÄḥ party, who had supported him during the war and who now wanted more concessions and influence than he was prepared to give them. á¹¢Äliḥ was looking for ways and means to free himself from these obligations. Moreover, the post-war economic situation brought about rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and the United States. This in turn also required a tougher government line against Islamist extremists, all of which strained the wartime alliance between á¹¢Äliḥ and the Islamists.40
Most unwillingly, and with a sense of disquiet and foreboding, at length MujÄhid agreed to go to Sanaa and see what á¹¢Äliḥ had to offer, but on the condition that á¹¢Äliḥ provide him with a guarantor to ensure his safe conduct. To his astonishment, á¹¢Äliḥ immediately consented to his demand and even appointed as his guarantor Shaykh QÄʾid Shuwayá¹ of SaḥÄr, who was a friend of Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar and a patron of the Salafi teaching centre DÄr al-ḤadÄ«th at DammÄj.41 After the civil war, which had given the Islamists an enormous boost, QÄʾid Shuwayá¹ had risen to become a person of some importance in tribal-Islamist circles. It was only in retrospect that MujÄhid understood that in fact á¹¢Äliḥ had deliberately calculated that QÄʾid Shuwayá¹ would attend their meeting, listen to their conversation, and inform Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar (plus their Islamist friends) about its content; in this way á¹¢Äliḥ aimed to convey a hidden threat to his former war-time allies who had by then already become a burden to him.
At that time á¹¢Äliḥ was filled with self-conceit and complacency because of his victory over the South, and during our meeting it surfaced that he also wanted to get rid of the Iá¹£lÄḥ [party]. á¹¢Äliḥ did not say this expressly, rather he went on talking about common goals, the possibilities of cooperation, and the like. The meaning of that was not lost on me, for I understood all too well that something sinister lay behind his lofty talk, and that he wanted to win me over to counter the influence of al-Aḥmar and the Iá¹£lÄḥ [party]. Yet I loathed him too much to make common cause with him, and the prospect of using my blood feud for his personal benefit remained utterly repugnant to me. Eventually I put an end to his sermon
and interrupted him by saying, âIt seems that Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar is the real master [of Yemen], because I have met you many times and you have never offered me any solutions.â
á¹¢Äliḥ appeared much exercised over my rebuff. Naturally, he did not like to deal with people who had a strong personality. He only liked [to deal with] yes-men who told him, âAye, aye, as you likeâ (ḥÄá¸ir, ḥÄá¸ir, kayfamÄ bidak).
He began scolding me, âWell, then, now I want to hear whatever excuses you care to offer up for your latest enormities. You, and your father before you, you are from SufyÄn, there is nothing good in you, you were always against me, you were with the royalists and the ḤamÄ«d al-DÄ«n, then with the ndf, then with the socialists. Now, with the socialists defeated, there is no one left to support you except the Jews, if you go to them!â
I replied, âBecause of your vanity and tyranny we would gladly put our hands into the hands of the Jews if they supported us. But the Jews wouldnât accept us because you are their first agent in Yemen!â
á¹¢Äliḥ went black with anger. He reared up like a viper and shouted, âYou are an insolent rogue! It is impossible to come to terms with you!â His menacing posture made me leap to my feet and place my hand on my side, ready to defend myself. Then the guarantor Shaykh QÄʾid Shuwayá¹, may God rest his soul, also rose from his chair and said, âYou are both insolentâ (kilÄkumÄ jalafayn)!
Our meeting ended with á¹¢Äliḥ saying that he was now finally convinced that we would never reach any agreement. When we were done, I left the presidential palace with my companions and we headed towards al-JirÄf [neighbourhood in northern Sanaa], where we planned to pass the night before continuing via the desert route to SufyÄn the next morning. We knew that á¹¢Äliḥâs tantrum meant danger, and we were in a state of heightened vigilance. The traffic was fairly heavy, but we did not hear nor see anything suspicious to give rise to alarm. However, when we reached MÄzdÄ Street, all at once we got into an ambush of the military police, who launched an attack on us with truck-mounted machine guns. One of my companions suddenly roared in anguished pain and crumpled on his seat, and our car broke down beyond repair. Our second car stopped to defend us. Dashing for cover to escape what was now murderous gunfire, we forced our way into the cover of adjacent buildings, from where we resumed shooting. We were almost suffocating on gun smoke as shots rang out and bullets ricocheted off the walls. After a gun battle of half an hour, our guarantor Shaykh QÄʾid Shuwayá¹ appeared on the scene and demanded an end to the hostilities. When it was all over, two of us were wounded, and one of the cars was lost. The military police had three wounded people. Later on, we learnt that they were taken to Russia for treatment. After we returned to SufyÄn, á¹¢Äliḥ sent the Firqa on a punitive campaign against us, for flimsy reasons, and demanded my return to Sanaa.
This time, the Firqaâs approaching mechanized colossus left the SufyÄn little more than their courage. The fall of Aden and the southern military defeat had given them a good scare, and MujÄhid and his tribesmen knew that they no longer stood a chance against the regime. á¹¢Äliḥ, in cahoots with Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsin, would never cease to hatch new plots to harass and punish them for their tenacious opposition. It would take many men and resources to counter the regimeâs concerted onslaught, and even in MujÄhidâs heyday, he hardly commanded that. His tribe was outnumbered and, after the loss of their southern sponsor, they were underequipped and financially exhausted. The situation was hopeless.
I gathered the shaykhs and Ê¿uqqÄl of SufyÄn and told them, âThe tribes have fallen or have been silenced, and no one except us remains to confront the regime. The ysp, which helped with money and arms to keep us on our feet, is gone. á¹¢Äliḥ will continue to confront us and send out punitive campaigns against us on the grounds of false accusations and calumnies, and our defensive potential is at an end. Peradventure we could achieve a settlement if á¹¢Äliḥ was the only problem. But Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar will never cease sowing discord between us, and the extremisms he introduced into Yemen are not only devouring me and my people, but have even penetrated into the mosques and [fomented] theological debates. And you, my tribesmen, you are brave, you are heroes, you would never abandon me, you would never hesitate to fight alongside me and defend me against our enemies. But I do not want to sacrifice you in defence of myself, especially at this very difficult point in time when á¹¢Äliḥ is victorious and all the tribes remain subdued.â
I told them, âI will leave Yemen and look for a sponsor, a powerful patron. If I find one, I will return to you from abroad. And if I do not find support, I will stay abroad so as to relieve you of my presence, which would attract ever further persecution and spilled blood. For if I leave Yemen, tensions will ease, the punitive campaigns against you will stop, and you will live in safety and peace. My absence from Yemen will save your blood and help you find repose.â We discussed this, and we agreed on this, and I left SufyÄn and Yemen via smugglersâ paths and al-Khaá¸rÄʾ border crossing point [at NajrÄn] for Saudi Arabia; later I moved on to Syria. I did not find support and stayed abroad for a long time. And my tribe remained safe during my absence.
In 1994, Saudi support for southern secessionists led to a severe crisis between Sanaa and Riyadh. Since Ê¿AbdallÄh al-Aḥmar sided with President á¹¢Äliḥ, his relationship with the Saudis temporarily deteriorated, see Dresch 1995: 39. For the Saudi position in 1994, see also Burrowes 1995: 73â77; Katz 1995: 82â85; and Dresch 2000: 196. Khayrullah (2016: 140â143) argues that there was always a line of communication between al-Aḥmar and á¹¢Äliḥ; al-Aḥmar did not allow this connection to be severed, despite the often intense differences and rivalries between them.
New York Times, 8 May 1993, p. 20.
For the 1993 election programmes and party representatives, see Detalle 1993: 8â9; Carapico 1993a; Carapico 1993b; Carapico 1998: 140â151; Glosemeyer 2001: 83â94; Day 2012: 117â122; and Brandt 2017a: 118â127. The large number of independent candidates has since become a general pattern in Yemen electoral politics. In considering the 2003 parliamentary elections, Longley Alley (2007: 249â250) explains that the gpcâs effective use of local and popular figures was matched by their respect for local traditions and norms. When party organizers found, for example, that any person (a sayyid, or a lesser shaykh) was more popular than the areaâs senior shaykh, they would sometimes allow the senior shaykh to run on the gpc ticket, while encouraging the other candidate to run as an independent. The other candidate would then promise to switch to the gpc after winning the election.
In 1980, when Muá¹£liḥ al-ShahwÄnÄ« of the SufyÄn took revenge from a ḤÄshid shaykh for the death of one of his tribesmen, the incident became the starting point of the process that developed into the blood feud between bayt Ḥaydar and bayt al-Aḥmar, see chapter 2.
On the ḤabÅ«r incident see, for example, Detalle 1993: 11; Carapico 1998: 144; and Dresch 2000: 194. On Ê¿AlÄ« á¹¢aghÄ«r JamÄ«lâs assassination, see the interview with his son (Yemenat, 25 November 2013). Like Aḥmad Ḥaydar, Ê¿AlÄ« á¹¢aghÄ«r JamÄ«l was assassinated in al-Rawá¸a neighbourhood in Sanaa in 1995.
Detalle 1993: 11.
On al-Ḥaqqâs electoral success in á¹¢aÊ¿da province, see Brandt 2017a: 118â131.
On the National Dialogue, see Carapico 1998: 176â180; and Day 2012: 126â128. SinÄn AbÅ« Laḥūmâs memoirs (2004: vol. 4: 135â137) contain a particularly meticulous description of the process of alienation that took place between the North and South, including the numerous domestic and foreign initiatives and attempts at mediation.
On the difficulties surrounding the merger of the armed forces, see Hudson 1995: 25; Warburton 1995: 23â24; Kostiner 1996: 28. Warburton (1995: 23â24) considers the failed merger in part a âdialectical problem, as the only raison dâêtre of the armed forces of either former state was to threaten the other.â
Warburton 1995: 24.
The Ê¿AmÄliqa is an elite, non-tribal brigade of the armed forces, established in the early 1970s by former President IbrÄhÄ«m al-ḤamdÄ«. Placed under the command of his brother, Ê¿AbdallÄh, until their violent deaths in 1978, al-ḤamdÄ« used the Ê¿AmÄliqa to strengthen his position against the regular and irregular units dominated by the tribes and to gain and maintain control of the yar during and after the 1974 coup, see Burrowes and Schmitz 2018: 209.
Personal communication with Noel Brehony, February 2019.
Warburton 1995: 24, 26; Dunbar 1995: 63â64; Whitaker 1997: 25; and Bin Aḥmad 2017.
The Document of Pledge and Accord (dpa) was an outcome of the national dialogue process. It favoured federalism, the form of government preferred by the South. The North, by contrast, favoured the Constitution, which provided for national unity, a fact that would also facilitate northern access to the oil fields in Ḥaá¸ramawt, see Day 2012: 126â128; and Khayrullah 2016: 75.
For the battle at SufyÄnâs Jabal Aswad, see Warburton 1995: 26. MujÄhidâs narrative gives a more detailed version that explains why the Fifth Brigade, which was considered loyal to Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir and hence representing northern interests, turned against the North at the very outset of the civil war. For a version in conformity with MujÄhidâs narrative, see NÄá¹£ir 2015: 140â141.
ShalÄ«l had been a loyalist of Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£ir, but supported al-BīḠin the ysp power struggle of 1986, see Dresch 2000: 195; and Day 2012: 134.
In 1986, Ṭaymas joined Ê¿AlÄ« NÄá¹£irâs flight to the North, where he continued his military career in Ê¿AlÄ« Muḥsinâs Firqa.
Dresch (2000: 195) estimates the number of casualties in this battle at approximately 20â30 people.
Supposedly, about 80 tanks were lost in the Ê¿AmrÄn battle, of which two-thirds may have been southern. For further details, see Warburton 1995: 26â27; al-Bakr 1995; Dresch 2000: 196; and NÄá¹£ir 2015: 141.
Warburton (1995: 26) speaks of âfearing a massacre, Southern troops abandoned their heavy equipment and withdrew into previously prepared fortifications in the Bakil, where they were safe.â MujÄhidâs account corresponds with Day (2012: 131), who writes that during the Ê¿AmrÄn battle âsouthern commanders tried to bring Bakil tribal militias into their compound as a protection force. They hoped that northern Hashid shaykhs would prevent any military actions that could spark an intertribal war. However, the northern troops denied the Bakil tribesmen access to the southern camp. Soon afterward southern troops became pinned down by northern artillery barrages from strategic high ground surrounding the camp. During intense, close range shelling, hundreds of southern soldiers were massacred ⦠the remnants of the southern brigades at Amran retreated under the protection of Bakil tribesmen.â
Al-Aḥmar 2008: 279â283. For a similar view, cf. Dunbar 1995: 63â64.
Similar activities seem to have taken place during the War of the Central Areas in 1980â81. In a diary entry, SinÄn AbÅ« Laḥūm notes that some northern shaykhs joined the ndf nominally, in order to gain access to southern money and weapons, yet they did not intend to use them against Sanaa, see AbÅ« Laḥūm 2004: vol. 3: 270.
In 2004, during the first á¹¢aÊ¿da war between the á¹¢Äliḥ regime and the resurgent ḤūthÄ«s, JawÄs was identified as the officer who shot Ḥusayn al-ḤūthÄ« in the caves of Jurf SalmÄn in MarrÄn, see Brandt 2017a: 382 n. 61.
Dresch 1995: 38.
For the al-Ê¿Anad battle, see Warburton 1995: 31.
Throughout Yemeni history, northern tribes have repeatedly raided Lower and southern Yemen, see, for example, Dresch 2006: 67 and passim. Some northerners subsequently settled down in these areas, leading to extended family networks. The âlocustsâ trope goes back to al-ShawkÄnÄ«, see Dresch 1989: 28. The brutality of these tribal raids contributed significantly to the negative image of the northern tribes in the South. The tribes of SufyÄn were no exception: after they raided Lower Yemen at the turn of the eighteenth century, womenâs earrings, some with ear fragments attached, appeared for sale in markets, prompting public outrage; see ZabÄrah 1958: 670.
For the aborted Constitutional Revolution of 1948 and an eyewitnessâ account of the sacking and pillage of Sanaa by northern tribes, see Bruck 2018.
On the military-commercial complex and the development of the Yemeni Economic Corporation (yeco), see Seitz 2016. Burrowes and Kasper (2007) argue that after 1994 democracy was declining, leading to a kind of âarrested statehoodâ as the regime prevented state-building by encouraging oligarchy, corruption, and incompetence.
Mercier 1997: 69â70; and Dresch 2000: 198.
Dunbar 1995: 58.
See Dunbar 1995: 60â61; and al-SharjabÄ« 2009: 63.
Al-Aḥmar 2008: 289â290.
Whitaker 1997: 27. See also Schwedler 2006: 188.
The Salafi teaching centre DÄr al-ḤadÄ«th al-Khayriyya was established in 1979 by Muqbil b. HÄdÄ« l-WÄdiÊ¿Ä« (d. 2001) at DammÄj in the Zaydi heartland of northern Yemen. Some of the areaâs shaykhs assumed protective roles towards the centre, see Brandt 2017a: 106â111.