| Washington Post | - |
SANAA, Yemen - The Shiite insurgents who have toppled Yemen's
government are threatening to take over a key oil-producing province to
the east of the capital, triggering fears that the country could
explode in all-out civil war.
Houthi rebels in Yemen eye oil-rich province, sparking fears of all-out civil war
Armed Houthis gather around the wreckage of a vehicle set a blaze by angry protesters after Houthis fired on them in Yemen's central town of Ibb on Feb. 14. (Stringer/Reuters)
The rebels, known as Houthis, have already seized much of the country’s north with relative ease. But they are likely to encounter stiff resistance if they move into Marib province. Already, the largely Sunni tribes in the region are arming themselves with tanks and rocket-propelled grenades, according to tribal leaders, and the governor has ringed the area with tribal fighters and military units.
“It will be civil war if they come here,” said Mohammed al-Wills, a leader of the Murad tribe in Marib, who has begun coordinating with fellow tribesmen and soldiers to defend the province.
The Houthis say they want to protect residents of Marib from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), whose fighters have launched periodic attacks in the province. But diplomats and analysts say a conflict could wind up strengthening Yemen’s franchise of al-Qaeda, which has plotted high-profile attacks on the United States. A battle could also draw in tribesmen and Sunni fighters from other provinces.
Sectarian tensions are inflaming the situation. The Houthis follow the Zaydi branch of Shiite Islam, but the majority of Yemen’s 24 million citizens are Sunni. While Yemen has a history of conflict, it has been spared the kind of Sunni-Shiite rivalry that has torn apart Syria and Iraq.
“This is becoming a sectarian-driven war because of these outside powers,” said Ali Saif Hassan, a Yemeni political analyst.
The Houthis swept into Sanaa in the fall and effectively forced out the pro-U.S. government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi last month. The rebels recently seized a military base on the way to Marib, and they have taken over parts of the province to its south, heightening speculation that they might soon move on to the important oil-producing province.
Marib is a strategic prize. Yemen is a small petroleum producer compared with some of its neighbors. But the national government’s budget is overwhelmingly dependent on oil sales. Marib is also home to power plants that provide electricity to Sanaa and other areas of the country, giving whoever controls the province a chokehold over Yemen’s energy supply.
“Everybody’s bracing for a clash there. It’s about the resources,” said a Western diplomat who until recently was based in Yemen and who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The governor of
Marib, Sultan al-Arada, said in a telephone interview that the Houthis
had carried out an Iranian-backed “coup” against the Yemeni government.
He said his office is coordinating the defense of the province and its
oil installations with local tribes as well as military units that are
not loyal to the Houthis. He denied that the Saudis were pouring money
into the area to parry a rebel advance.
Tribesmen from neighboring regions have pledged to help the province hold off the Houthis, he said.“We have thousands of people from the tribes forming a security belt on the edges of the province, and the military is coordinating with us and preparing to defend us, too,” he said.
The Houthis have called on Arada to step down. Last month, before forcing the resignation of the national government, the insurgents’ leader, Abdulmalik al-Houthi, warned that his fighters could intervene in Marib. He said the potential operation might be necessary to fight al-Qaeda and “support the honorable people of Marib.”
An impoverished state
Located
about 75 miles east of the capital, Marib is poor even by Yemeni
standards. The government in Sanaa has long been accused by residents of
taking the area’s resources but offering few public services in return.
In the political void created by the government’s collapse, the role of
the area’s already powerful tribes appears to have been strengthened.Hussein Hazeb, 50, another leader of the Murad tribe, said that tribesmen in the Marib area had armed themselves in part by seizing weapons from a military unit that recently passed through the province.
Some tribal leaders have long received financial support from Riyadh, the Saudi capital, he said, but the recent influxes of cash have been noticeably large.
“All of a sudden you’re seeing people with brand-new pickup trucks and new guns, and you know that they’re getting this from Saudi [Arabia],” Hazeb said.
An official at the Saudi Embassy in Sanaa declined last week to comment on the issue. The embassy closed its operations in Yemen on Friday.
Houthi officials also say that cash is being smuggled from the Saudi border to Marib. The Houthis deny that they are backed by Iran.
Possible gains for al-Qaeda
Analysts,
diplomats and many Yemenis fear that the escalating violence could
strengthen al-Qaeda’s franchise here by enabling it to portray itself as
a champion of the Sunnis. Already, AQAP fighters may be moving from
other parts of Yemen into Marib in advance of a fight, diplomats and
analysts say.On Thursday, militants from the radical Sunni group stormed a military base about 60 miles from Marib in a southern province, saying that they wanted to protect it from Houthi attacks.
In Marib, some tribes have fought AQAP, but the extremist group’s sectarian rhetoric appears to be resonating even among those Sunnis who have been its enemies.
The Houthis “are Shiites and they reject Islam,” said Hamed Wahaed, a Marib tribal leader. He has been storing weapons in preparation for a Houthi assault; he boasted by telephone that he owns 10 Toyota pickup trucks mounted with machine guns, two artillery pieces, and rocket-propelled grenades.
He added that Marib has “to fight the Shiite Iranian terrorists.” Still, he said he opposed al-Qaeda and wouldn’t accept its support.
Some tribal officials have threatened to blow up power lines and oil installations in the province to deter a Houthi attack. That would be a serious blow to Yemen’s already weak economy.
“There is no doubt that such an attack on the oil and gas pipelines, as well as on the power plant, will cause a huge crisis for Yemen,” said Hassan Thabet, a professor of economics at Sanaa University.
Wills, the tribal leader, said he opposes damaging the oil and power lines, but he described the threats as a last-resort measure against the Houthis.
“Some of the tribes see this as something like, ‘You may try to take us down, but we’ll take down the whole country if you try,’ ” he said.
Hugh
Naylor is a Beirut-based correspondent for The Post. He has reported
from over a dozen countries in the Middle East for such publications as
The National, an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper, and The New York Times.
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7:41 AM PST
The
one constant throughout the Middle East is the conflict between various
Muslim sects and their conflict with non-Muslims. While democracy
might insure that the sect with the largest population will rule, it by
no means insures either peace or tolerance. Strongmen are removed
only to be replaced by different, more deadly oppression.
Our foreign policy needs to be practical enough to realize that the underlying tensions of the Middle East cannot be fixed by U.S. invasions or the imposition of our form of government. Before el-Sissi took control of Egypt. the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood, was talking about abrogating the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty. Would war have made the Egyptians better off than el-Sisi's rule?
I believe that the evolution of government in this region, will continue to require monarchs, tribal leaders and military strongmen. We should not attempt to impose democratic solutions on parts of the world that do not want them. We should help those nations who share our values by providing non-military and military aid. Otherwise, we should stay out.
Our foreign policy needs to be practical enough to realize that the underlying tensions of the Middle East cannot be fixed by U.S. invasions or the imposition of our form of government. Before el-Sissi took control of Egypt. the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood, was talking about abrogating the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty. Would war have made the Egyptians better off than el-Sisi's rule?
I believe that the evolution of government in this region, will continue to require monarchs, tribal leaders and military strongmen. We should not attempt to impose democratic solutions on parts of the world that do not want them. We should help those nations who share our values by providing non-military and military aid. Otherwise, we should stay out.
