• War over power in Yemen  - Nasser Arrabyee
An almost all-out war erupted when opposition protesters decided to take what they called "revolutionary action".

• On the brink  - Bernard Haykel
If civil war were to break out, the negative effects on Saudi Arabia, the Horn and beyond are certain to be of geostrategic significance.

• Three hugely ambitious men  - Brian O'Neill
The West, particularly the US, is still far more concerned with battling al-Qaeda than with aiding a transition.

• Dodging ultimate chaos: Yemen's destiny on the ropes  - Mohamed Qubaty
It looks certain that events in Yemen have crossed the point of no return.

War over power in Yemen
 Nasser Arrabyee

After more than eight months of rival protests, Yemen is getting closer and closer to either a civil war or--at least--the failure to create a democratic state that would achieve the aspirations of Yemenis.

Earlier this week, an almost all-out war erupted when opposition protesters decided to take what they called "revolutionary action" and control the government offices by force in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. About 60 protesters were killed and hundreds of others injured, including soldiers and security people, during three days of fierce confrontations in the heart of Sanaa between defected troops supported by opposition armed tribesmen, and government forces also supported by loyal armed tribesmen. A fragile truce sponsored by a visiting United Nations envoy was reached on Tuesday, September 20th.

Three main groups (or rather three persons) were and are behind the political conflict, with all opposition and ruling parties and protesters in the streets divided among these three figures.

These men are the current President Ali Abdullah Saleh, defected general Ali Muhsin, and billionaire tribal leader Hamid al-Ahmar. All three men are from the same tribe, Hashid, Yemen's most powerful tribe, and Saleh and Muhsin are cousins from the same village and the same extended family.

Muhsin has been the second most powerful military commander during Saleh's 33-year rule. But about six years ago when Saleh's eldest son, Ahmed, started to build his own army as the commander of the Republican Guards, Muhsin's power started to decline. Almost the same thing happened to the smart and ambitious businessman Hamid al-Ahmar, with him feeling that Ahmed Saleh had begun to control and obstruct his large international commercial deals and political ambitions.

When the two men began to sense that Saleh was preparing the way for his son to succeed him, they separately decided to prevent that from happening. In 2006, when Saleh won the presidential elections over Hamid's candidate, Faisal Bin Shamlan, Hamid threatened to lead a popular revolution against Saleh. General Muhsin, on the other hand, waged six unsuccessful wars against the Shiite rebels, the Huthis, in the northern province of Saada. This week, the two men ignored a world-supported proposal to end the eight-month crisis and turned to war or "revolutionary action" to overthrow Saleh by force, despite the arrival of two international envoys to defuse the conflict.

UN envoy Jamal bin Omar and head of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, Abdul Latif al-Zayani, arrived only to see bloodshed and hear explosions in the capital Sanaa almost around the clock.

Both of them were a little bit late. They were supposed to arrive before the outbreak of fighting to help the conflicting Yemeni parties reach an agreement on a mechanism previously suggested by Bin Omar for implementing a Saudi-led GCC deal and transferring power from President Saleh through democratic elections. The war erupted while the opposition leaders and the ruling party were in talks about a decree issued earlier this month by President Saleh to his deputy, preparing to elect a new president by the end of this year.

Ali Muhsin and Hamid al-Ahmar were not directly involved in the talks because Hamid is officially only a member of the Islamist opposition party and Muhsin is a military commander. The two men subsequently felt that they had become less important, especially after the arrival of the two international envoys. Speaking arrogantly, through his satellite television station, Hamid said that the two envoys "must leave" the country immediately if they sought to bring Yemenis back to dialogue. As for General Muhsin, his defected troops are now in direct confrontation with Saleh's forces in many streets around the sit-in square at the gate of Sanaa University for the first time since Muhsin defected last March.

In a secret document leaked to the media this week, Hamid al-Ahmar asked General Muhsin to arm 3,000 young men from among the protesters to protect the "revolutionary end" demonstrations that began Sunday, September 18 and led to the current armed clashes. In May, accompanied by his armed tribesmen and ten brothers, al-Ahmar himself led a two-week war against Saleh's forces around his palace in the al-Hasaba area, in which about 150 people from both sides were killed.

Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz then imposed a truce on both sides after President Saleh arrived in Riyadh for treatment from injuries he suffered in a failed June 3 assassination attempt, which Hamid al-Ahmar and Ali Muhsin were accused of being behind.

Both Saudi Arabia and the United States are doing their best to contain the situation and stop the seemingly uncontrollable war between the two armies and armed supporters of both sides. In a statement, the US embassy in Sanaa called upon all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from actions that provoke further violence. "We reject actions that undermine productive efforts underway to achieve a political resolution to the current crisis," said the statement. For his part, the Saudi king, who met President Saleh in Riyadh earlier this week immediately after the war erupted in Sanaa, has expressed a great deal of support for Yemen's security and stability and unity, according to the Saudi news agency.

Although the opposition currently is publically refusing any dialogue or initiatives and insists only on what it calls "revolutionary action and end", its leaders are involved in the talks now underway despite the war. "Talks are still going on with all parties, and a solution will be reached in less than a week," said a senior official involved in the talks. "There will be no civil war. What's happening now is still under control and is meant to create good negotiations [positions] for some parties," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Independent protesters, however, say they have been squeezed out by artillery and tanks firing between the major players. "We have no room now in this war. Our revolution was peaceful before Hamid and Ali Muhsin kidnapped it," said the leading independent protester Najib Abdul Rehman as he fled explosions near his tent in the sit-in square in Sanaa on September 19.

"Our revolution will never succeed as along as these three big guys are still here. They all should leave," Abdul Rehman added, referring to Saleh, Muhsin, and Hamid.-Published 22/9/2011 © bitterlemons.org

Nasser Arrabyee is a Yemeni journalist and writer.

As I write this, gun battles are raging in Sanaa between military units loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and other units that have joined the opposition. Yemen now teeters on the verge of civil war.

During the last nine months, a significant populist movement has formed and has demonstrated peacefully in Sanaa and elsewhere with the aim of ending Saleh's 33-year rule over Yemen and bringing about genuine political and economic reforms. This movement has been joined by some of Saleh's former close allies, including General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar and the sheikhs of the Hashid tribal confederation, Sadiq and Hamid al-Ahmar (no relation). The commitment of the latter to genuine reform remains an open question, given their long complicity with Saleh's corrupt rule, but the demonstrators need their armed protection from the regime's thugs who kill with impunity.

To further complicate matters, a southern opposition movement has coalesced with secessionist tendencies and a northern group, called the Huthis, who are also bitterly opposed to Saleh, has been revitalized and is now in control of much of the far north of the country. Al-Qaeda also has a small presence in various towns of the east and south, and it too wishes to seize control of parts of the country. In short, the central government, always a rather weak presence, has virtually ceased to exist and Yemen is riven by a diversity of political actors all of whom have ready access to weapons of all calibers.

In the recent fighting, at least 70 civilians were killed by the Republican Guard troops and internal security forces that remain under the command of Saleh's sons and nephew. These are units that were trained by the United States as part of the global war on terror but are now clearly being used for the sole purpose of keeping Saleh and his family in power.

For his part, Saleh is convalescing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where he has been since June because of a bomb attack on his palace in which he was badly injured. Thus far, Saleh refuses to resign his office or delegate any power to his hapless vice-president, Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi. This is because Saleh, like so many other heads of state in the Arab world, is an authoritarian dictator who desperately clings to power despite a generous offer made to him and his family by the Gulf Cooperation Council of a life of luxury with immunity from judicial prosecution. Saleh's record of deliberately keeping his country weak, underdeveloped, divided and without institutions is indicative of the type of leader he represents. And the persistent insistence of the opposition on his immediate resignation is because Saleh has no credibility given his past record of mendacity and subterfuge. He is seen as trying to temporize with the aim of outwitting or exhausting his opponents, and he appears willing to drag the country into a civil war so as to stay on in power.

In itself, the situation in Yemen is a tragedy. But what gives it urgency is that if civil war were to break out (i.e., a Somalia-like situation), the negative effects on Saudi Arabia, the Horn of Africa and beyond are certain to be of global and geostrategic significance. At 24 million people, Yemen is the most populous nation in Arabia and perhaps one of the most heavily armed in the world and it is quickly running out of underground water and oil reserves. In other words, the effects of a civil war cannot be contained within its borders, and the fact that al-Qaeda is regrouping there is indicative of this.

The only country that has the resources and influence to halt Yemen's slide into chaos is Saudi Arabia. Yet it appears unable or unwilling thus far to do much about the situation. Why is this?

First, there are no easy or ready solutions for Yemen's problems, and even the Saudis with their deep pockets and long and intimate connections throughout Yemen are at pains to find an alternative to Saleh. The obvious candidates, the Ahmar tribal sheikhs or General Ali Muhsin, represent a continuation of the Saleh system of rule and not a break with the past. Hence these alternative candidates, even though now in opposition, are unlikely to prove acceptable to many of the forces arrayed on the ground such as the southerners, the Huthis or the youthful demonstrators. Second, no single person or institution within the Saudi government is in charge of policy towards Yemen. This is because Crown Prince Sultan, who historically was in charge of this file, is very ill and no one has fully taken over his role.

The Saudi leadership appears divided over what to do in Yemen, with the interior ministry, under the control of Prince Nayef and his son Muhammad, focusing exclusively on the threat from al-Qaeda, and King Abdullah looking at Saleh's prospects vis-a-vis those of the Ahmars. No one appears to be looking at the full picture by, for example, taking stock of the various possible scenarios that may unfold. One of these is the breakup of Yemen, and not necessarily into the neat division of north and south as was the case before unification in 1990.

Saudi Arabia will eventually adopt a coherent policy; there are inklings that this is beginning to take shape. One such indication is a revision of Saudi Arabia's views regarding the Huthis, with whom the kingdom fought a war in December 2009-January 2010. The Huthis have impressed the Saudis by controlling the Yemeni side of the border and stopping all contraband and illegal infiltration into Saudi Arabia. Time is short, however, and it is crucial that Saudi Arabia arrive at a policy that brings some stability to Yemen before it is too late--which unfortunately might already be the case.-Published 22/9/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Bernard Haykel is professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and director of the Transregional Institute for the Study of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.

The Yemen revolution, born in the flush of Arab spring optimism, has descended into a body-strewn battleground pitting three sides that are entirely divorced from the hopes and fears of the protestors on the streets. Increasingly, the voices calling for freedom, democracy and an end to corruption and nepotism have been overshadowed and overtaken by powerful factions vying to maintain the status quo, with the only likely change being a different face on the ubiquitous Arab iconography.

Before we get into these factions, it is important to remember how we got here. Even prior to the Arab spring, Yemen had been boiling with three separate revolutions--the southern movement, the Huthi rebellion and the pervasive menace of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Only the first of these could be described as a democratic revolution, but even that was threatening to fundamentally reshape the geography and territorial integrity of Yemen as it shifted--largely in reaction to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's brutal suppression tactics--into a full secession movement.

Then came the thrilling cascade of toppled tyrants in the Arab world, led by Tunisia and Egypt. Yemenis joined in, forcing the government to alternate between crackdowns and time-buying face-saving gestures, none of which fooled the people on the streets. But the movement was not successful in toppling Saleh, who, while popularly delegitimized, still controlled the loyalty of important factions--and a not insubstantial percentage of the citizenry.

These factions are driven by family, tribal and institutional ties, and it is these ties that are now driving the violence. One faction is led by Ahmad bin Ali Abdullah Saleh (referred to as Ahmad to avoid confusion), the son of the president, trying to maintain the regime in the absence of his wounded and exiled father. Ahmad seeks to preserve the cohesion of the GPC, the leading political party, and controls the Revolutionary Guard. In addition, President Saleh's nephew runs the counter-terrorism unit, an elite force of approximately 20,000, whose definition of "terrorist" is broad enough to include anyone opposed to the regime.

The second faction is that of Hamid al-Ahmar, one of Yemen's richest men and one of the heads of the Hashids, the largest tribal federation. Al-Ahmar commands many loyal tribal fighters, many of whom have always chafed at the control coming from Sanaa. He has long had his eye on the presidency and even before the revolution had openly split from Saleh.

The third faction is comprised of soldiers loyal to Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar (no real relation, and referred to as Ali Muhsin). Ali Muhsin has long been Saleh's top general, but defected to the opposition in March. It is not widely believed the defection came from a deep love of democracy, but rather from spotting an opening to take the presidency for himself.

What you have is three hugely ambitious men, none of whom are averse to violence, using the honest aspirations of protestors as cover for their own goals. There are three related problems here. The first is that it is unlikely any of them can score a decisive victory. It is unknown how much loyalty they command, but it is fair to say at this point that no one has overwhelming strength. Even if one does triumph quickly, none of the three are popular. Ahmad is hated, a spoiled and violent scion of an unpopular president. Hamid is not terribly trusted--a billionaire in a land of immense poverty. And Ali Muhsin has a justified reputation as a cruel and blood-thirsty general. It is the author's opinion that Saleh gave Ali Muhsin difficult assignments to undercut his popularity and take the legs out of a competing power center.

The third and probably greatest difficulty is that these men are competing over Sanaa, and the capital doesn't carry much weight outside its own bounds. There are protests in all the major cities, many of which might be more important economically than Sanaa. Whoever takes over, assuming someone can do so, will have a restive capital and a burning country. They will have to contend with an emboldened Huthi population that has used the distraction to gain more autonomy, and a southern population that will be unlikely to accept any of the three men.

The West, particularly the United States, is still far more concerned with battling al-Qaeda than it is with aiding a transition. The US wants a transition, and has cut off Saleh, but still thinks the regime is the best bet for defeating AQAP. This may be correct in the short-term, but it is a blinkered, parochial and narrow-minded view of the situation. The West needs to work with the protestors and stop mouthing democratic slogans, instead of empowering a military complicit in the murder of civilians and the perpetuation of the status quo. Even if AQAP is all the West cares about, it isn't going to be defeated by supporting the creators of discontent.

In a way, though, the US perspective is partially understandable. It is doing the only thing it feels it can do. The situation in Yemen is fluid and blood-colored, and the chances for a decent outcome are waning by the hour. This is a desperate battle over the last slice of an increasingly stale and desiccated pie, and the tragedy is that the people who most deserve it are the ones least likely to get a piece.-Published 22/9/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Brian O'Neill is an independent analyst specializing in Yemen and security issues in the Horn of Africa.

For the past seven months, Yemen has been trying to resolve the dysfunction it has fallen into over the past 17 years. It looks as if many evasions have not helped in staving off chaos. For millennia, anarchy has been the enemy of Arabia Felix, especially when a tyrant tried to rule it without sharing power with the constituent parts of its mosaic structure.

The revolution for change of February 11 has articulated the demands of a total revision and complete overhaul of the political system in Yemen. These demands for inclusive participatory politics, federalism and moving towards a parliamentary system emanate from months of dialogue that culminated in the signing of the Agreement of Accord and Reconciliation in Jordan in February 1994.

Instead of shifting towards decentralization and a parliamentary system, however, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh became more arrogant following the capture by his northern forces of the south after the 1994 civil war. After only serving as chairman of the Presidential Council of the Unified Yemen from 1990 to 1994, he moved towards a questionable and ostentatious presidential system that made him omnipotent. These totalitarian powers formed the basis for the patrimonial system created gradually by Saleh following the 1994 civil war.

It is fair to say that, unlike other parts of the Arab world, the recent revolt in Yemen was not directly instigated by the events of the 2011 "Arab spring". Nonetheless, these regional changes added a new momentum and dimension to the long-standing instability and upheavals in Yemen, giving them their current form. The Southern Movement, or Hirak, which erupted in 2007, has been a manifestation of these widespread upheavals.

The important geostrategic position of Yemen and its 1,500 km of shared border with Saudi Arabia seem to have been a liability rather than an asset in the stance taken by Yemen's global and regional partners towards the Yemeni revolution. The group, The Friends of Yemen, formed in London in January 2010, committed itself to the objective of preventing Yemen from sliding into a failed state. Unfortunately, this objective has not produced positions similar to measures taken against the tyrants of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria. Unlike Saleh's counterparts, the dictator and his regime have not been subjected to any punitive measures, such as United Nations sanctions, embargos on importing arms, a freezing of assets, travel bans or a referral to the International Criminal Court for the perpetration of war crimes and atrocities against humanity.

For the past three months, the regime has been launching airstrikes against supporters of the revolution in Arhab, 30 km north of the capital, where these supporters have managed to block the entry of three brigades into the capital. These three brigades were attempting to join up with other brigades of the Republican Guards, who have been positioning themselves over the surrounding hills and mountains and threatening an overall assault against the eight-month long sit-in of peaceful protesters in the capital.

By any norms and all standards, the brutal crackdown on peaceful unarmed protestors on September 18-20 amounts to indiscriminate genocide. Perpetrators committing such crimes with impunity are obviously relying on a controversial article in the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative that offers the president and his entourage amnesty and immunity from future prosecution.

In a letter dated September 18, addressed to the president of the UN Human Rights Council, the Yemeni National Council, a broad umbrella organization of opposition parties and revolutionary forces, called the international community to meet its obligations and respect the Yemeni people's choice. The letter concluded that: "Without international intervention, Yemen will explode and disintegrate. This explosion will spill over into the neighboring region and international trade routes. Action must be taken now to prevent the crisis from spreading and reaching a point far beyond repair."

Six months following the indiscriminate killing of 60 peaceful protestors during the "Friday of Dignity" on March 18, last week's massacre of 80 peaceful protestors with heavy and medium-range weapons has taken Yemen past a turning point in the trajectory of its revolution.

It looks certain that events in Yemen have crossed the point of no return. The question is: a point of no return towards what destination? Is it towards the grip of anarchy as the usual history of Yemen entails, or has it crossed a threshold towards inclusive participatory politics? I am inclined to bet on the latter. However, the true answer can only be known over time.-Published 22/9/2011 © bitterlemons.org

Ambassador Mohamed Qubaty is an opposition political activist and the spokesman on international affairs for the Yemeni National Council. He served as ambassador of Yemen to Lebanon and Cyprus and as senior political advisor to the last two Yemeni prime ministers.