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I AM WHAT IS - Egypt’s Insurgent Uprising

Anti-terrorism operations have failed to bring security to Sinai but could usher in the next great middle eastern bloodbath.

Summary

Egypt is facing what is shaping up to be the deadliest and most complex insurgency in its modern history. The military-backed ouster of Mohamed Morsi from the presidency in July 2013 fragmented Egypt’s Islamist landscape and set the stage for an unpredictable struggle between Islamists and the Egyptian state. In this environment, some Islamists, specifically the youth, have turned to violence, and the trend has continued. The pro-Brotherhood nonjihadi violent groups these youth have founded are slowly evolving into armed battalions. There are steps, however, that the government and the Muslim Brotherhood can take to head off this long-term insurgency in the making.

Fragmentation and Violence on the Rise

• The state crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest Islamist group, in addition to divisions within the organization have weakened the Brotherhood leadership and have paved the way for its loss of control over a growing number of members. • Various Salafists, ultraconservative Islamists, have rallied around the Brotherhood, framing the struggle with the regime as one between a secular state and Islam. • Two increasingly distinct Brotherhood factions have emerged. One embraces confrontational tactics and violence while the other emphasizes nonviolence. In reality, however, many leaders tolerate escalating levels of violence, stopping short of endorsing murder. • Brotherhood and Salafi radicals justify political violence as a legitimate tool of protest and encourage youth to adopt violence under the guise of self-defense, religiously justified retribution, and defending Islam. • Non-jihadi violent groups mainly composed of Islamist youth began to rely on anarchic violence starting in late 2013. Five years later, these groups have not only persisted but have also grown more sophisticated, conducting armed ambushes and improvised-explosive-device attacks against security forces. • Jihadi groups tirelessly attempt to tap into brewing anger and to recruit Islamist youth for their budding insurgency.

Lessons for Egypt and the Brotherhood

• Disavowing torture, investigating allegations of sexual abuse, ending forced disappearances, and generally improving prison conditions are critical steps the government should take to ensure that radicals cannot exploit such conditions for recruitment. • Understanding the new, fragmented landscape of violent Islamists is necessary to adequately formulate strategies to combat these actors and better “divide and conquer” disparate cells and groups. • Pragmatic senior Brotherhood leaders must rein in radicals who incite violence to ready their base for the eventual need for a settlement with the state. The current trajectory is eroding the group from the inside and may spell the end of the organization as it has long been known.

A Fragmented and Violent Landscape

Following mass demonstrations against his rule on June 30, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was ousted in a popularly backed military coup in July 2013 by then defense minister General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who would later become president. In retaliation for planned protests against Morsi, the Brotherhood and its supporters had established camps in two squares in Egypt’s capital that grew considerably following the coup, believing that a show of force would somehow reverse Morsi’s ouster or at least provide them with a better bargaining position. By August 2013, negotiations had collapsed, and the security forces moved in to violently clear the two Islamist camps, resulting in nearly 1,000 deaths in one day. In the ensuing months, tens of thousands of Islamists and Brotherhood members and their supporters were arrested, and the Brotherhood’s organizational capacity in Egypt nearly collapsed as a result, setting the stage for an unpredictable conflict.

The Brotherhood and the Egyptian government have both adopted a zerosum approach, offering no realistic political way to end the impasse. Instead, the government’s harsh crackdown on the Brotherhood and Islamist incitement have helped breed a cycle of violence with no end in sight.

The core Brotherhood leadership is scattered across Egyptian prisons and world capitals, with factions competing over the best strategic course. The leadership is losing control over younger members, many of whom are itching for outright confrontation. These youth, with other radical Islamist opponents of the government, are shaping events on the ground with or without the blessing of the senior leadership. There are advocates of true nonviolence in the Brotherhood leadership, yet they remain committed to their zero-sum strategy, while many other leaders are on a slippery slope leading to the justification of an increased use of violence.

Other Islamists have stepped into the void created by the near-absence of pragmatic Brotherhood leadership. Antigovernment Salafists have framed the current struggle as a war against Islam, and some Brothers who wish to rally Salafi support have opportunistically used the same rhetoric, pushing angry and violent youth closer to Salafi jihadism. The potential result is the creation of a haven of popular support for violence and jihadism in the Arab world’s most populous country. Indeed, since July 2013, a number of new violent actors who do not subscribe to Salafi jihadism—including members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists that target the security forces and infrastructure—have emerged. These groups are all part of Egypt’s changing insurgent landscape. It is made up of three broad categories: Sinai-based jihadists affiliated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State and with a limited operational presence in the mainland (the populous heartland of Egypt along the Nile valley), mainland-based Salafi jihadists who tend to be supporters of al-Qaeda or affiliated with al-Qaeda, and a new category of non-Salafi-jihadi groups made up of Islamist supporters and some members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

What distinguishes this last category is that its members fashion themselves as “revolutionaries” or “resistance fighters,” thus justifying the often-anarchic violence they deploy. Their objectives are also narrower than those of the jihadists, encompassing only retribution against security forces and toppling President Sisi’s government in order to reinstate Islamist rule in Egypt. These nonjihadi violent groups are often overlooked because they are made up of amateurs with no combat experience and have inflicted fewer losses than established jihadi groups. But their continued growth and resilience represents a significant challenge to Egypt’s security; they are embedded in their local populations along the Nile valley, a proximity that will compound the damage they can inflict if their numbers continue to increase.

Furthermore, as such groups become more sophisticated, the likelihood of cooperation with established jihadi factions that can provide both training and weapons increases. Jihadi groups, in turn, are actively seeking to connect with this deep reservoir of potential recruits and link up with their violent efforts in order to gain a foothold in the Egyptian mainland. If the jihadi groups succeed in establishing such a foothold by recruiting as-yet nonjihadi Islamists, the scenario of armed insurgency spreading to pockets of Islamist grievance in the mainland becomes increasingly likely.

The Precedent of Islamist Insurgency in Egypt

Islamist insurgency in Egypt is not unprecedented. A low-level jihadi insurgency against then president Hosni Mubarak played out in the 1980s and 1990s in the mainland along the Nile valley. Then, the government’s counterinsurgency efforts were complicated by the proximity of the violence to the major population centers and the fact that one of the major insurgent groups at the time had deep roots in Upper Egypt. It took the government more than a decade to put down the insurgency completely. There is no guarantee that the government will achieve even that slow success this time, particularly in view of young Islamists’ strong grievances and the rapid spread of jihadi groups in the Middle East. Many Islamists have vowed revenge against the government for the harsh crackdown and the toppling of their rule.

Further complicating efforts to quell the insurgents, the levels of violence since 2013 and the diverse composition of the groups taking part are unprecedented in Egypt’s modern history. Over the course of the thirteen most active years of the previous insurgency—from 1986 to 1999—an estimated minimum of 1,300 Egyptians lost their lives as a result of terrorist activity. Of those, approximately 391 were members of the security forces, 385 were civilians, and the rest were insurgents (see figure 1). Although far fewer civilians have been killed at the hands of the jihadists in the current insurgency, the state killed nearly as many Islamist protesters during the camp dispersals of August 2013 as all Egyptians killed during the decade-long previous insurgency. And as of August 2015, jihadists and other violent actors had killed approximately 700 members of the police and armed forces in just two years, nearly double the number of security personnel killed in the previous insurgency (see figure 2).

Origin: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Loss of Control

The turn to violence by some members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the proliferation of nonjihadi violent groups can be explained in part by the Brotherhood’s loss of control over members and deep internal rifts over strategy in the wake of an unprecedented government crackdown. Today, various antigovernment Islamist actors form a fragmented Islamist opposition with no one leader or overarching strategy.

The Muslim Brotherhood remains the dominant antigovernment Islamist actor, and while its senior leaders have publicly decried the steady march toward armed rebellion, some of them have openly endorsed “creative nonviolence.” This innovation attempts to justify any violent actions that do not involve killing, but it represents a slippery slope at best and has understandably resulted in serious, damaging organizational rifts and strategic dissonance. The effect is that the Muslim Brotherhood, which previously stood as the model of—and drew its strength from—unquestioning loyalty and strict hierarchical discipline, finds itself increasingly marginalized as its established leadership loses control of a violent, rowdy new generation of so-called revolutionary Brothers cooperating with like-minded Islamist actors.

Internal rifts in the Brotherhood both caused and continue to foster a chaotic state of affairs. The group had to restructure to adapt to the government’s crackdown. It had to decentralize to allow for greater dynamism and to replace the crop of detained or exiled senior leaders. Over the last two years, a series of internal elections gradually granted new powers to junior leaders and members who were already in a position of strength due to their protests on the ground and occasional use of violence, many of whom also resented the old leadership’s ineffective strategies.

The internal conflict following this shift was foreshadowed in an interview with a senior leader in exile in mid-2014: “Those inside have complete freedom in decisionmaking without following orders from the outside … some of our base are now looking to what is more effective beyond protesting, especially to non-Brothers.” In the summer of 2015, the cumulative impact of these changes exploded into the open when a number of senior leaders tried to check the rising influence of a largely youthful faction armed with “revolutionary strategies.” This attempt ultimately translated into more internal rifts, and the division in the group has helped the revolutionary wing further assert its position and decry its adversaries in the senior leadership as out of touch and irrelevant.

Some of the leaders in the revolutionary camp argue not only that retribution against the police and the army is justified as a tactic but also that the possibility of an armed insurgency is unavoidable if the current regime stays in power. To them this justifies a strategy of “managing and containing” radical elements as opposed to ostracizing them. But in reality this has meant not seriously challenging radicals’ positions head-on. As the strategy stands, it is more a policy of reckless appeasement than of smart containment.

The senior leadership may be seen by outsiders as more pragmatic, but only slightly. The real sin in the eyes of the revolutionary faction is that senior leaders continue to focus on street protests with little change in tactics, while hoping for some kind of deus ex machina (like a countercoup) to rid them of Sisi. They refuse to accept the political reality and exonerate themselves from any blame for the turn to violence—seeing no link between their zero-sum politics and the continued escalation. What has further exposed the Brotherhood to rifts is the leadership’s early decision to operate under the guise of the National Coalition to Support Legitimacy (NCSL), an ambitious but weak coalition of smaller Islamist factions that later broke down.

This coalition building started before the July 2013 coup as hardline Salafists were on the front lines defending Morsi’s regime. The sit-in at Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, set up on June 28, was in fact a preemptive protest camp to demonstrate the Islamists’ strength before mass protests on June 30 and Morsi’s ouster on July 3. The Salafists helped rile up the crowds at the protest camps with incendiary, sectarian, and uncompromising rhetoric. The decision to align with these factions had the unintended consequence of granting outsiders the power to lead and speak for the Brotherhood’s base at a very critical moment. Many of these Salafists have long held more radical views than the more mainstream Brotherhood, and they have helped strengthen the hand of the Brotherhood’s revolutionary faction as they both seek confrontation.

The Steady March Towards Jihadism

In this evolving landscape of repression and incitement, some radical Islamists seek to add an ideological compass to these new violent groups aimed at toppling the secular state and replacing it with an Islamic one. On the one hand, there are the traditional Salafi-jihadi groups that attempt to directly recruit ordinary Islamist youth into becoming hardened Salafi jihadists. On the other hand, there is also a new breed of Revolutionary Salafists that seeks to combine a populist and jihadi message to create a more appealing path for Egyptian Islamists who may have reservations about joining groups like al-Qaeda or the Islamic State.

As the Revolutionary Salafi message is largely indigenous to Egypt, it is more relatable to the native activists. The most notable group currently proselytizing this message is the Ahrar (Freemen) Movement, a radical Islamist youth group. Ahrar, formed in 2012, has attracted a curious mix of Salafists inspired by former presidential candidate Sheikh Hazem Salah Abu Ismail and violent soccer hooligans called ultras, who played a critical role in the street violence that plagued Egypt following the 2011 revolution. Ahrar’s significance lies in its ideological theorizing, found in the group’s manifesto, “Freemen’s Struggle,” and on its website, urging activism and violence in seeing through the implementation of Revolutionary Salafi ideas.

For Ahrar, the current battle is not about Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood. Though the group detests both of them for buying into the democratic process and working with the military during Morsi’s rule, it considers the true enemy to be the Egyptian state itself and its military. The group rejects national borders and highlights the United States and its world order as the enemy that colonizes the Muslim world through client regimes like Egypt’s. Under different circumstances, such views could be dismissed as the musings of disillusioned Islamist youth, but because of Egypt’s current climate, theorizing movements like Ahrar could inspire already violent antigovernment groups to become more violent. To dismantle the state, the group promises a two-phase campaign: first “raising awareness,”as the group puts it, and then mobilizing the masses toward armed resistance. In other words, its message is a reinvention of the core jihadi message of groups like al-Qaeda, though Ahrar packages its message in a polished, modern, quasi-intellectual way and delivers it through well-spoken activists. Radical ideas in Egypt are flourishing in new ways—radicalization should not just be associated with recruitment of youth into al-Qaeda or the marauding Islamic State. Revolutionary Salafism currently holds the potential to inspire a new strand of Islamist jihadism. The power of these ideas transcends the influence of the groups that try to spread them.

Jihadists’ Recruitment and Homegrown Jihadists

Several jihadi groups have emerged at the forefront of the insurgency. Though it has been active since 2011 and responsible for major attacks in the Egyptian mainland since July 2013, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis’s pledge of allegiance to the Islamic State in November 2014 cemented that group’s place at the center of Egypt’s ongoing jihadi insurgency. Since its rebranding as the Islamic State’s Sinai Province, it has undoubtedly been one of the Islamic State’s most active global affiliates and has become much deadlier. Al-Murabitun, another group (affiliated with al-Qaeda), is led by former special forces officer Hesham Ashmawy, who is believed to have been responsible for improving the combat effectiveness of ABM before he split from that group. Though potential al-Qaeda–Islamic State competition in Egypt over financing and recruits will undoubtedly create more violence, these groups as they are, whether the Sinai-based ABM or the still-small al-Murabitun, are unlikely to represent an existential threat to the Egyptian government unless they can successfully tap into the wider Islamist anger in the Egyptian mainland and thus establish a foothold in the major population centers. The true prize is the potential thousands of recruits from the current amalgam of thus-far nonjihadi violent youth and the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood and other antigovernment Islamists.

ABM has succeeded in continuously recruiting Egyptian men, young and old, from the Egyptian mainland. An armed confrontation with Egyptian security in March 2014 occurred only a fifteen-minute drive away from Cairo’s borders, in the village of Arab Sharkas, Qalubiya. There, fourteen militants— some of them armed with suicide belts—battled security forces for seven hours. The operation cost two officers their lives, and six of the terrorists died. A picture released by ABM showed the young faces of some of the terrorists, and a statement revealed that a father and son were members of the cell. The picture was then widely shared online by jihadists to show those who may have been on the fence that anyone can wage jihad.

ABM has continued strategizing to actively appeal to Egypt’s youth and to channel youth anger toward fighting through jihad. Only hours before the January 24, 2014, bombing of the Cairo Security Directorate, ABM released an audio recording of one of its leaders, Abu Osama al-Masri. In the statement, appealed to the disillusioned nonjihadi youth, whom he cleverly referred to as “revolutionaries”:

[Our message] is for our brothers the revolutionaries against tyranny: O revolutionaries rebel for the sharia of Allah, O heroes defend Islam. O heroic revolutionaries … may Allah accept who were killed from you… . My brothers the revolutionaries: know that your brothers the mujahideen suffer for your suffering … so listen to us.

Refraining from castigating these nihilist youth for not raising the banner of sharia in their protests, al-Masri instead appealed to them, saying: “The battle today isn’t against an individual, or figure, or group, the battle today is against Islam.” ABM’s recruitment efforts following the group’s pledge to the Islamic State have continued to focus on reaching out to disgruntled Islamists, and recent videos increasingly show fighters with distinctively mainland accents or noms de guerre indicating that they hailed from the mainland. One factor plays a particularly significant role in helping recruit youth: alleged police sexual assault of female detainees, which to Islamists is a redline. “I have personally documented twelve cases of girls getting pregnant [while in prison],” a pro-violence Islamist activist claimed. He explained that “most of those carrying weapons are doing so to confront a tyrant [Sisi] who has killed [thousands] of people in one day, destroyed entire villages … and now sexually assaults those detained.”

Jihadists exploit the specific issues of sexual assault and torture to tap into the rage of furious youth. They recognize that the issue of sexual assault may push activists sitting on the fence over the edge and have therefore tied attacks directly to these abuses. In March 2014, a jihadi group called Ansar al-Sharia in the Land of the Quiver (Egypt) took credit for the assassination of more than two dozen security forces. The Ministry of Interior later confirmed the deaths and said it had proof the group was created by ABM. Ansar al-Sharia specifically justified its killings by claiming they were done to “avenge the honor of our free women.” An Islamist activist interviewed said, “Ansar Beit al-Maqdis’s targeting of the security directorate in Mansura was in response to girls who were killed and others who were assaulted by the regime’s thugs.”

New recruits may initially set aside differences over ultimate ideological objectives and forge ahead with violence in order to participate in this type of revenge. These dynamics set the stage for radicalization and the rise of homegrown Jihadi groups in Egypt proper.

Can the Insurgency Be De-Escalated?

As of this writing, neither the government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi nor the Muslim Brotherhood is taking actions that could deescalate the insurgency and move Egypt onto a more constructive path. For its part, the Egyptian government has offered no convincing strategy to stem the tide of extremism. Instead, the government has continued to crack down severely on all Islamists, effectively betting on the utility of brute force to nip the insurgency in the bud.

The Brotherhood may share the blame for this turn toward violence, as evidence shows. But if the government dismantles the Brotherhood’s network and continues to accuse it of sophisticated violence perpetrated by jihadists, it cannot expect the group’s leadership to have the ability or willingness to rein in its members when needed. Although they are bitter enemies locked in a zero-sum struggle, the government and pragmatic senior Brotherhood leaders share an interest in neutralizing this budding jihadi insurgency, as unlikely as this may seem. Sisi’s regime naturally wants stability in order to proceed with critical economic reforms and regime security.

For the Muslim Brotherhood, jihadism in its ranks poses a threat to the survival of the group as a unified organization. Salafi jihadists reject the Brotherhood’s basic ideology of political participation and gradual change and deem it apostate, while many of the violent Brotherhood members increasingly view the group’s leadership as unrepresentative and incapable and, as recent events show, are willing to rebel against it. As there are no signs of either side abandoning its zero-sum approach to the ongoing conflict, talk of political reconciliation is at best premature. Yet there are certain steps that each side can take to deescalate the ongoing conflict and contain the violence.

The government needs to address the role it has played in the ongoing radicalization by fixing the deplorable prison conditions, releasing those in detention who have not committed criminal acts, and stopping practices such as forced disappearance, alleged extrajudicial killing, and sexual abuse that provide jihadists a prime recruitment tool.

At 1:50 PM EET on 24 November 2017 militants detonated a bomb inside a crowded mosque in the Sinai Peninsula and then sprayed gunfire on panicked worshipers as they fled, killing at least 305 people ( including 27 children) wounding at least 122 others. Officials called it the deadliest terrorist attack in Egypt’s modern history.

The scale and ruthlessness of the assault, in an area racked by an Islamist insurgency, sent shock waves across the nation — not just for the number of deaths but also for the choice of target. Attacks on mosques are rare in Egypt, where the Islamic State has targeted Coptic Christian churches and pilgrims but avoided Muslim places of worship.

As the attacks spread, the Sinai peninsula continues to bear the brunt of the uprising. The attack injected a new element into Egypt’s struggle with militants because most of the victims were Sufi Muslims, who practice a mystical form of Islam that the Islamic State and other Sunni extremist groups deem heretical. And it underscored the failure of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has justified his harsh crackdown on political freedom in the name of crushing Islamic militancy, to deliver on his promises of security.

“The scene was horrific,” said Ibrahim Sheteewi, a resident of Bir al-Abed, the small north Sinai town where the attack took place. “The bodies were scattered on the ground outside the mosque. I hope God punishes them for this.”

In a statement, Hamas denounced the attack as a “criminal explosion” that “violates all heavenly commandments and human values” because it attacked a mosque. “It is a grave challenge to Muslims worldwide,” the group said.

Recognizing the potentially devastating consequences of the growing radicalization of Islamist youth is critical, and government efforts to stem the tide of such a steady move toward armed rebellion are at least as important as defeating ABM in the Sinai. Otherwise, crises will continue to rock Egypt, inhibiting any hope for political progress and economic recovery. Due to its population, geography, and significance to Islamists worldwide, an inflamed Egypt could experience levels of devastation surpassing those already inflicted on the region by the conflicts in Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

As always, thank you for reading,

ILLANAKSANDRYES

If you would like a chronicle of attacks worldwide, visit here

*all research has been conducted by me using various sources, is independent, and is not meant to sway or endorse any political campaign or ideology*

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The Forgotten War, In The Unforgettable Country

How the Yemen Civil War; a proxy war between the Middle Easts two powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, has led to the 'Worst Humanitarian Crisis' in the World.

Preface

While the country’s unity is a relatively recent historical phenomenon (dating to 1990), the international community had widely supported the reform of Yemen’s political system under a unified government just a few years ago. In 2013, Yemenis from across the political spectrum convened a National Dialogue Conference aimed at reaching broad national consensus on a new political order. However, in January 2014 it ended without agreement, and the Houthis[1] launched a war. The situation in Yemen is considered one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), out of a total population of nearly 30 million people, 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian assistance. Since March 2015, the United States has been the largest contributor of humanitarian aid to Yemen.

The response to the humanitarian crisis in Yemen has involved a wide range of actors, from national and local authorities to nongovernmental and international humanitarian organizations to the private sector. These actors have confronted numerous obstacles to humanitarian access, including bureaucratic impediments, attempts to influence humanitarian operations, and security constraints, though these vary across the country. The level of humanitarian response also varies within neighboring countries to which Yemenis have fled— principally Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Djibouti. Because of its many complex and interlocking layers, there is no easy way out of the current crisis in Yemen. Nonetheless, there are ways to mitigate the humanitarian impact on the population while waiting for a political solution to the conflict. These include the following:

Enhancing respect for humanitarian law and principles: A strong and unified initiative aimed at enhancing respect for international humanitarian law by actors involved at all levels of the conflict could not only protect populations at risk but also ease tensions among different communities within and outside of Yemen. The UN Security Council could help in this area by playing a more proactive role. Humanitarian actors also need to strengthen the perception of their neutrality. 

Strengthening the humanitarian response: The many actors involved in the humanitarian response should improve coordination at the local, national, and regional levels, adopt existing tools for publishing and sharing data, and explore innovative uses of technology to provide solutions where more traditional efforts have failed. International humanitarian actors should also directly involve local private sector actors in humanitarian action and include local humanitarian actors in coordination and decision making. In addition, humanitarian organizations could push blockade authorities to facilitate access for both humanitarian and commercial shipments.

Looking beyond immediate humanitarian needs: While starvation must be averted by all possible means, and it remains critical to invest in and deploy sufficient operational emergency response capacity, the international community also needs to invest in prevention in order to stem humanitarian needs and prevent further deterioration of the humanitarian crisis. This includes supporting Yemen’s healthcare facilities to prevent their total collapse and addressing the economic and financial impact of the lack of liquidity. A gender-based approach to the humanitarian response is also needed, reflecting women’s roles as potential peacemakers.

Summary of the conflict

Now in its fourth year, the war in Yemen shows no signs of abating. On June 12, 2018, the Saudi-led coalition, a multinational grouping of armed forces led primarily by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), launched Operation Golden Victory, with the aim of retaking the Red Sea port city of Hudaydah.[2] The coalition also has continued to conduct air strikes inside Yemen.

The war has killed thousands of Yemenis, including combatants as well as civilians, and has significantly damaged the country’s infrastructure. According to the United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights, from the start of the conflict in March 2015 through August 9, 2018, the United Nations documented “a total of 17,062 civilian casualties – 6,592 dead and 10,470 injured.”

This figure may vastly underestimate the war’s death toll. Although both the Obama and Trump Administrations have called for a political solution to the conflict, the war’s’ combatants still appear determined to pursue military victory. The two sides also appear to fundamentally disagree over the framework for a potential political solution. The Saudi-led coalition demands that the Houthi militia disarm, relinquish its heavy weaponry (ballistic missiles and rockets), and return control of the capital Sana’a to the internationally recognized government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is in exile in Saudi Arabia.

The coalition cites international consensus for these demands, insisting that the conditions laid out in United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2216 (April 2015) should form the basis for a solution to the conflict. The Houthis reject UNSCR 2216 and seem determined to outlast their opponents while consolidating their control over northern Yemen. Since the December 2017 Houthi killing of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, a former Houthi ally, there is no apparent single Yemeni rival to challenge Houthi rule in northern Yemen. The prospects for returning to a unified Yemen remain dim. According to United Nations Panel of Experts on Yemen, “The authority of the legitimate Government of Yemen has now eroded to the point that it is doubtful whether it will ever be able to reunite (Yemen) as a single country.”

Since 2015, the conduct of the Saudi-led air campaign[3] against the Houthis, and U.S. support for its continual operation, has drawn widespread international scrutiny for targeting civilian infrastructure and killing thousands of Yemeni non-combatants. Critics charge that Saudi Arabia in particular should be held accountable for violating international humanitarian law by continually failing to distinguish between combatant targets and innocent civilians. According to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), since the conflict began in March 2015 through August 9, 2018, the United Nations has documented “a total of 17,062 civilian casualties – 6,592 dead and 10,470 injured. According to (UNHCHR), the majority of these casualties – 10,471 – were as a result of airstrikes carried out by the Saudi-led Coalition.” Since March 2015, some of the deadliest Saudi-led coalition air strikes include:

September 2015: Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a wedding party, killing at least 81 civilians;

March 2016: Saudi-led coalition airstrikes hit a market in northwestern Yemen, killing at least 97 civilians and about 10 Houthi fighters;

October 2016: Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a funeral hall in Sanaa, killing between 130 and 150 people;

December 2017: In one day, a Saudi-led coalition airstrikes hit a market in Ta’izz province killing 54 people while a second strike killed 14 members of one family in Hudaydah province;

April 2018: Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a wedding party in Hajjah province, killing more than 20 people;

August 2018: Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a bus in a market near Dahyan, Yemen, in the northern Sa'dah governorate adjacent to the Saudi border, killing 51 people, 40 of whom were children. 

The coalition claimed that its airstrike was a “legitimate military operation” conducted in response to a Houthi missile attack on the Saudi city of Jizan a day earlier that killed a Yemeni national in the kingdom. Saudi officials acknowledge that some of their operations have inadvertently caused civilian casualties, while maintaining that their military campaign is an act of legitimate self-defense because of their Yemeni adversaries’ repeated, deadly cross-border attacks, including ballistic missile attacks. Saudi strikes have focused on missile-related targets, suspected Houthi fighting units and locations, and senior Houthi leaders. At times, the coalition’s Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) has reviewed airstrikes in which civilian casualties were reported.

In February 2018, the Acting Department of Defense General Counsel wrote to Senate leaders describing the extent of current U.S. support, and reported that “the United States provides the KSA-led coalition defense articles and services, including air-to-air refueling; certain intelligence support; and military advice, including advice regarding compliance with the law of armed conflict and best practices for reducing the risk of civilian casualties.” In-flight refueling to the militaries of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is conducted pursuant to the terms of bilateral Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreements (ACSAs) between the Department of Defense and the respective ministries of each country.

In subsequent testimony before Congress, U.S. defense officials have noted that while the United States refuels Saudi aircraft and provides advice on targeting techniques, CENTCOM does not track coalition aircraft after they are refueled and does not provide advice on specific targets.50 U.S. refueling support may enable Saudi and coalition aircraft to remain over Yemeni airspace for prolonged periods of time. This may give coalition forces an opportunity to gather additional intelligence to improve the precision of strikes, but also may create opportunities to conduct socalled “dynamic” strikes against emergent, non-fixed targets for which detailed strike preparations and assessments have not been made. In April 2018 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Yemen, Robert S. Karem, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, responded to questions on the U.S. role in the Saudi-led coalition’s air campaign:

It's correct that we do not monitor and track all of the Saudi aircraft aloft over Yemen. We have limited personnel and assets in order to do that and CENTCOM's focus [sic] on our own operations in Afghanistan in Iraq and in Syria….I think the assessment of our Central Command is that the Saudi and Emirati targeting efforts have improved with the steps that they have taken. We do not have perfect understanding, because we're not using all of our assets to monitor their aircraft. But we do get reporting from the ground on what is taking place inside Yemen.

That same month, when faced with similar questions on Saudi targeting practices in Yemen, General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said:

I think mitigating the risk of civilian casualties with strikes is probably two issues. There's a cultural issue, and then there's a technical issue. And I think we've had a positive impact with the Saudis in both regards, by the advising and assisting we have been doing. We are co-located with them in their operations centers, to help them develop the techniques and tactics that will allow them to conduct strikes while mitigating civilian casualties. And I also think there's been a positive effect of the relationship that we've built with the Saudis over time, and the training, to effect the changes in the culture that would have them take that into account when conducting military operations. So it's a long, plodding process…. but I think it's paying dividends over time.

In August 2018, in response to a media inquiry on U.S. support for the Saudi air campaign, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said: <em>We do not do dynamic targeting for them, where they're in the air and they come under fire with missiles being fired, that sort of thing, and they're turning on late-breaking intelligence. We try to assist them in how they protect certain locations, that sort of thing.</em>

Several Members of Congress have written to the Administration seeking additional information regarding U.S. operations in the wake of the August 2018 coalition strike at Dahyan. Several Senators also have submitted an amendment to the FY2019 Defense Department appropriations act (H.R. 6157) that would prohibit the use of funds made available by the act to support the Saudi-led coalition operations in Yemen until the Secretary of Defense certifies in writing to Congress that the coalition air campaign “does not violate the principles of distinction and proportionality within the rules for the protection of civilians.” The provision would not apply to support for ongoing counter-terrorism operations against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Yemen.

Restrictions on the flow of Commercial Goods and Humanitarian Aid

One of the key aspects of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2216 is that it authorizes member states to prevent the transfer or sale of arms to the Houthis and also allows Yemen’s neighbors to inspect cargo suspected of carrying arms to Houthi fighters. In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition imposed a naval and aerial blockade on Yemen, and ships seeking entry to Yemeni ports required coalition inspection, leading to delays in the off-loading of goods and increased insurance and related shipping costs.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), out of a total population of nearly 30 million people, 22.2 million Yemenis are in need of humanitarian assistance. Although food is available to purchase in markets, the war has devastated the Yemeni economy. Government employees have gone unpaid, and the currency has depreciated significantly (losing 126% of its pre-war value). Food prices have skyrocketed, with the World Food Program reporting in May 2018 that the national average retail prices of wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil, and red beans were 60%, 42%, 39%, and 104% higher than in the prewar period, respectively. As a result of food becoming unaffordable for many Yemenis, UN OCHA reports that 17.8 million are food insecure and 8.4 million people are severely food insecure and at risk of starvation. Yemen also is experiencing the world's largest ongoing cholera outbreak.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that from late April 2017 to July 2018, there have been 1,115,378 suspected cholera cases and 2,310 associated deaths. Cholera is a diarrheal infection that is contracted by ingesting food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. Yemen’s water and sanitation infrastructure have been devastated by the war. Basic municipal services such as garbage collection have deteriorated and, as a result, waste has gone uncollected in many areas, polluting water supplies and contributing to the ongoing cholera outbreak. In addition, International human rights organizations have accused the Saudi-led coalition of conducting airstrikes that have unlawfully targeted civilian infrastructure, such as water wells, bottling facilities, health facilities, and water treatment plants. UN OCHA reports that 16 million Yemenis currently lack access to safe water and sanitation. In August 2018, Yemeni authorities launched an oral cholera vaccination campaign, which has vaccinated 375,000 people since it began.

U.S. Foreign Aid to Yemen Since March 2015, the United States has been the largest contributor of humanitarian aid to Yemen, with more than $1.46 billion in U.S. funding provided since FY2015. Funds were provided to international aid organizations from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), USAID’s Food for Peace (FFP), and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (State/PRM). The United States has provided a total of $321 million in humanitarian assistance in FY2018. (FY= Fiscal Year)

Where is the Yemen Conflict Heading? 

The Saudi and Emirati offensive against Hudaydah would seem to represent the coalition’s determination to deliver a decisive blow to the Houthis in order to allow for the Gulf monarchies to gradually wind down war operations. To date, the coalition is proceeding methodically, choosing a strategy of encirclement around the port city in order to bring the maximum pressure to bear on Houthi forces’ remaining inside Hudaydah.

At the same time, it also appears that the coalition is keenly aware of the international community’s broad desire to keep the port itself functional in order to stave off further humanitarian suffering. Whether the coalition can militarily isolate the Houthis in Hudaydah is unclear. Throughout the conflict, the Houthis have demonstrated a willingness to incur losses without compromising their goal to dominate northern Yemen. Nevertheless, the coalition appears to be positioning a range of land, air, and sea assets on the outskirts of the city, and if Martin Griffiths, the Special Envoy of the United Nations (U.N.) Secretary General for Yemen, is unable to convene negotiations for a cease-fire, the likelihood of an all-out assault on Hudaydah could increase. No end to the conflict appears imminent, either through total victory of one side or a compromise solution.

The willingness of parties to the conflict, including U.S. partners, to potentially accept less than fully preferred outcomes is not publicly known. Iran, now involved in Yemen in new ways, may prove unwilling to sever ties that vex its Saudi adversaries. Political and military compromise between the coalition and the Houthis could bring fighting to an end, but might also entrench a hostile Houthi movement as a leading force in a new order in Yemen. Further intransigence and aggressive pursuit of maximalist goals by the parties might eventually tip the balance in favor of once side or the other, but would likely impose chronic costs on U.S. partners and lead to continued humanitarian suffering. The United States has few good choices in Yemen.

For the Trump Administration, U.S. officials have supported the continued defense of Saudi Arabia against Houthi missile and rocket strikes, while also openly calling on coalition members to use air power judiciously to minimize civilian casualties. The Administration has argued against congressional attempts to block arms sales or condition U.S. assistance, arguing that continued U.S. assistance is more likely to achieve the objective of limiting civilian casualties and maintaining strategic ties to Gulf partners than a punitive approach. So far, the United States has refrained from providing direct support to the coalition’s offensive against Hudaydah. If, however, the coalition attacks inside the city, the Administration could find itself in the difficult position of having to choose between supporting the coalition’s attempt to combat the Houthis, an Iranian ally, or being seen as complicit in the further humanitarian suffering of the Yemeni civilian population at the hands of both the Houthis and Saudi-led coalition forces.

The war has been appropriated as a proxy conflict in a much larger regional struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran, making the prospects for millions of civilians bleak. Aid agencies have declared Yemen the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, compounded by the worst cholera outbreak in modern history. For those in remote rural locations on either side of this divided country, it adds up to a future of more hunger and disease.

“My wish is for the simple comforts and health for my husband, my children, and my family,” said Nama.

“And not to be worn out by this war any more.”

ILLANAKSANDRYDES

Interactive Yemen map If you would like to donate, visit the UNICEF site here [1] For more information on the Houthi's and Iran's involvement, click my PDF [2] For more information on the Hudaydah offensive, click my PDF [3] For more information on the Coalition airstrikes, click my PDF

*all research has been conducted by me using various sources, is independent, and is not meant to sway or endorse any political campaign or ideology*