Wednesday, August 5, 2020

Yemen's Multilayered War: Al Qaeda in Arab Peninsula

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Anant Jani

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Yemen's Multilayered War: Al Qaeda in Arab Peninsula

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Global Views 360

Publication Date

August 5, 2020

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Sailors render honors at the USS Cole Memorial

Sailors render honors at the USS Cole Memorial | Source: Flickr

This is the 4th part of a short explainer article series on the current crisis in Yemen. To read the earlier parts of the series click on the following links.

To read the 1st part of the series click on the link.

To read the 2nd part of the series click on the link.

To read the 3rd part of the series click on the link.

The unification of Yemen in 1990 was a direct result of the military defeat of South Yemen at the hand of North Yemen forces. This military defeat and coerced unification implied that Unified Yemen could not achieve real cohesion, preventing the functioning of the nation as a democratic unit.

Meanwhile, newer elements were added to the dangerous mix of sub-nationalism, intra religious division, and tribal loyalty in Yemen. These were the Yemeni veterans of Soviet-Afghan war who fought with the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet army backing the Afghan government.

These were hardline Wahabi and Salafi fighters, following an idealogy that mandated a strict interpretation of Islam. The fighters returned to Yemen in the early 1990s, after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. The local Yemeni, both the Zaidi Shias or Maliki Sunni have traditionally followed a more liberal version of Islamic and social practices. Unlike the local Sunnis who were living in peaceful coexistence with the Zaidis Shia, these hardliners were antagonistic to the Shias.

Their arrival was followed by a forceful realignment of the local residents’ religious practices, mandating the local population to strict interpretations and social practices. Osama bin Laden, who had family roots in Yemen, was a conveniently placed ideological mentor. This led to a pushback from both the government forces as well as Shia groups, especially the Houthi-led Ansar Allah movement. In time, these former mujahideen, who were battle hardened and well versed in guerilla warfare, allied themselves with Al-Qaeda to start a low level insurgency in Yemen.

The Gulf war and subsequent stationing of American forces in Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries provided another impetus for the growth of Al Qaeda in Yemen. Consequently, they demanded that coalition forces leave Arabian land, failing which would result in more terror attacks.

Al-Qaeda affiliated groups attacked many installations associated with the US-led coalition forces in Yemen and nearby countries. The most successful of those was the famous bombing of USS Cole in Aden, in 2000. It was followed by a series of attacks leading up to  9/11.

Al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP) is also known as the Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen is fighting to set up an emirate amidst the lack of leadership post the Houthi rebellion. It was this outfit that claimed responsibility for the attack on the French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, in 2015 and is now considered the most dangerous al-Qaeda outfit by the US.

The CNN reported that “AQAP set out its objectives in a May 2010 statement as the "expulsion of Jews and crusaders" from the Arabian Peninsula, the re-establishment of the Islamic caliphate, the introduction of Sharia, or Islamic law, and the liberation of Muslim lands.”

The full list of attacks and places captured by terrorist insurgents in chronological order can be accessed here.

One of the outcomes of continual terrorist attacks has been a reduction in Hadi’s popularity. He is also seen as weak for not being able to stop al-Qaeda from terrorising Southern Yemen, as well as for not being able to alleviate them from their feeling of marginalization ever since the unification.

To read the 5th part of the series click on the link.

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February 4, 2021 5:06 PM

Civilian Trials In Military Courts in Al Sisi’s Egypt

With President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in power, Egypt is currently in the throes of a near-complete reversal of democracy. Under his rule the military has intruded into almost all aspects of public life, in a very explicit attempt to instill fear in Egyptians.

One of the most pervasive examples of this has been the military’s disruption of judicial process, with interference turning to encroachment as more and more civilians continue to be tried and sentenced by the army, through various nefarious means of expanded military jurisdiction.

Mohammad Morsi at XVI Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit, in Tehran, Iran on August 30, 2012 | Source: Government of India via Wikimedia

While a military judiciary has been present in Egypt since the 1960s, their power continued to grow after then Defence Minister Sisi overthrew the democratically elected President, Mohammed Morsi in a coup and became Egypt’s new leader. Since then he has worked towards removing tenure limits to his term, virtually guaranteeing him power for another decade or more.

The Egyptian government, like many others across the globe, has used the pandemic and the limited mobility of citizens due to it to tighten their chokehold on dissent and opposition. In April 2020, the Egyptian Parliament passed amendments to its Emergency Law. The law already prohibited demonstrations and protests, and now allows the military to arrest and confiscate assets of citizens without requiring permission from the special prosecutor, and investigate civilians without the right to appear before a judge.

Egypt has seen more time under Emergency Law than not in the past few decades, and President Sisi has not strayed from this pattern. The law has been used in many ways to normalize the military trespassing into the civil judicial system, such as having military judges on civil judicial councils and declaring the military judiciary as “an independent judicial entity” no longer under the command of the armed forces.

Public facilities have been placed under military jurisdiction, in conjunction with a law that allows anyone who directly or indirectly “assaults” an army base to be tried in a military court. In these courts defendants do not have common legal rights such as being informed of their charges, access to a lawyer or being brought before a judge soon after arrest.

Late Shaby Habash, a young filmmaker who died in prison August 2020 | Source: Shaby Habash Facebook

Additionally, there have been multiple reports of torture, sexual assault while placed in detention. In prison too, detainees face inhumane conditions, not being allowed to see family, exercise or get sunshine and fresh air. Thousands of student protestors, journalists and political dissidents have been tried in these military courts, and hundreds more have been killed extrajudicially. At the same time, citizens’ tools to criticise these steps are undermined, such as by limiting the domain of NGOs, censoring news and social media, and blocking around 600 websites.

The arrest, incarnation and trial of the deposed President, Mohammed Morsi is a glaring example of what is wrong with Egypt’s military trials. Morsi, who was in jail for over 6 years since the coup in 2013 and was under trial in military court collapsed and died during a hearing in the military court itself.

The constitution, the parliament, the law, and the abuse of these pillars of democracy has been instrumental in Sisi being able to give the military and himself the extreme power that they now possess. But despite restrictions on assembling and protesting, Egyptians continue to make their voices heard in the streets and worldwide, hoping that where institutions betray them, their community won’t. Hoping against hope, hoping against tyranny.

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