Why the fundamentalist war on Yemen? [Archives:2007/1073/Opinion]
By: Nasr Taha Mustafa
Whether the Sa'ada war ended or not, those who read the real-life situation perceive that the Qatari efforts to mediate between the Yemeni government and rebels can achieve nothing more than a truce. The Houthis will exploit the truce time to take a deep breath and rearrange their capacities and political strengths following the great military pressure the Yemeni government exerted on them. Such pressure was about to end the fighting.
The extremist group joined the fighting on the basis of religious and sectarian motives, not political motives, despite the fact that its leaders seek to ultimately achieve a political goal. The extremist leaders understand that it is impossible for them to achieve their sought goals without ideologically instigating their followers, most of whom are young and their ages range from 15 to 25 years. They worked on motivating these youths, on a religious basis, to sacrifice all they have for the sake of their ideologies.
The war is likely to break out once again, particularly as the committee, mandated to supervise the way both parties abide by the truce, strongly agrees that the Houthis evade any implementation of the agreement terms listed by the Qatari mediation. In addition, there is a committee formed from members of parliament, Shoura Council, and major political parties, aided by the Qatari Ambassador to Yemen, to monitor how the conflicting parties respect the truce.
Regretfully, this committee gave the rebels more than one ultimatum to quit their positions on the tops of mountains and lay down their arms in order for the agreement to come into effect. The agreement stated that four of the rebellion leaders may reside with their families in Qatar and fighters must return home.
The evasive behavior of rebels and their leaders to remain committed to the agreement had left a negative impact on the committee, which stayed for more than three weeks in the restive governorate without any tangible result. This means that the fighting is likely to erupt once again, particularly amid rumors that the Qatari mediators stopped pursuing any efforts to settle the crisis. They had no hope realizing that a large Islamic state in the region requested Qatar, on the Houthis' behalf, to convince the Yemeni government to stop the war for tactical objectives, according to analysts, who read the situation.
While the government troops were still engaged in an open fighting with Houthis, the Yemeni community was shocked by the suicide bomb, which Al-Qaeda Organization carried out in the historic city of Marib, thereby killing seven Spanish tourists and two Yemeni citizens. The situation appeared as if there is a new front of clashes with another ideological organization, which is not less extremist than Houthis.
Since the very beginning, it seems that Spain is not a target by harming its citizens because the current Spanish government pulled out its troops from Iraq. Several people assume that such a decision makes Spain very far from Al-Qaeda's plots for the time being. Certainly, Yemen is one of Al-Qaeda targets in the meantime, particularly after the state and its president received threats last year, and these threats continued to be repeatedly announced by Al-Qaeda elements. Over the past few months, Al-Qaeda operatives declared more than once that they have been plotting to assault VIPs and vital installations. Ahead of last year's presidential and local council elections, Al-Qaeda operatives launched offensives on two oil installations in the governorates of Marib and Hadramout. Despite failure of both terrorist operations to achieve the sought goals, they attained media purposes. This is one of the primary goals behind Al-Qaeda terrorist operations.
No doubt that Al-Qaeda's confrontations with the Yemeni government in the current time deny all the allegations that spread over the last period of time. These allegations said that Al-Qaeda elements joined the Yemeni army in its war against Al-Houthi followers in the northern province of Sa'ada, providing that there is a huge difference between the ideologies of Al-Qaeda members as a Salafi and Jihadist organization, on the one hand, and Al-Houthi loyalists as extremists belonging to the Shia sect, on the other.
Here we question how the two opposites came together at the same time to target Yemen's security, stability, and economy, as well as its balanced international policies. The two opposites (Al-Qaeda and Shiites) wage the same criticism on the Yemeni government over its relations with the United States. They also similarly denounce Yemen's attitude toward the west, however they – intentionally or unintentionally – carry out their plots in the region and contribute mainly to weakening the stances of the Arab States to the advantage of Israel.
The Arab States found themselves engaged in domestic conflicts with such extremist organizations instead of working on fostering stability, development, prosperity and freedoms, and alleviating poverty. They turned to examine and detect objectives of the two extremist organizations. And, having a deep contemplation on the two organizations' war against Yemen, we will find that the two extremist organizations have nothing more than the ability to destroy infrastructure and spread terrorism.
Both the extremist organizations have no legal evidence, nor do they have clear policies and visions with specified goals or a future project that can survive and last for a longer period of time. Above all, they have no popularities or supporters to sympathize with them and listen to their talks about projects of their Islamic states they seek to establish. Reversely, the public strongly denounce and rejects their plots and offensives that directly damage citizens' interests but are unable to affect or overthrow any regimes.
In light of the above, we find that the wars waged by both organizations on Yemen merely aim to destroy the national economy, shake the country's political stability, and convey a bad impression about Yemen to other states and communities. The two organizations succeeded only in spreading terrorism and acts of vandalism.
Exerting hard efforts to prevent any renewal of Sa'ada fighting, the government faces difficulty implementing the agreement it reached with rebels in Sa'ada. Thus, the situation necessitates that the government takes new strategies to thwart any malicious plots by terrorist elements to pay harm to the nation and its stability and economy. The majority of people bear in mind that such terrorist elements become victims of the directions they receive from their leaders, who undervalue the human dignity.
Source: UAE Khaleej Daily.
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