0:01

Welcome back, dear listeners. You are

0:03

tuned in to another episode of Conflicted

0:06

with me, Thomas Small. And me,

0:08

Ayman Deen. And me, Baraa Sheyban.

0:10

Yes, that's right. We are back

0:12

again with our wonderful guest, the

0:15

Yemeni political activist, Baraa

0:17

Sheyban, as we continue our

0:19

long march through the tumultuous history

0:22

of Yemen. And for the next two

0:24

episodes with a bit of a difference. You

0:26

might not have realized, dear listeners, but

0:28

normally through the magic of audio production,

0:31

we record Conflicted remotely from

0:33

different parts of the globe. Me in the UK

0:35

and Ayman in...

0:36

I'm not saying. But today, we

0:39

have a rare treat. Ayman is in London

0:42

and we are all here together in the

0:44

studio.

0:45

Isn't it great, Ayman, to be in the same room

0:48

together for the first time in months? Absolutely.

0:50

So if you do any mistakes, I can always

0:52

throw something at you like in a perfect. And

0:55

Baraa, it's lovely to see you in person. It's been

0:57

a very long time. Indeed, indeed.

1:00

I mean, I'm glad to see actually both of you. We

1:02

are now entering the final stretch with

1:04

two episodes left to go of this epic series.

1:07

We're now on the cusp of Yemen's civil

1:09

war. The Arab Spring has brought

1:12

a new hope for Baraa and

1:14

those like him yearning

1:15

for democracy in Yemen. But

1:18

will they be able to found a new constitution

1:20

outside the reach of Ali Abdullah Saleh and

1:23

the insurgent Houthis? Or will it

1:25

all be doomed to failure? Let's

1:28

find out.

1:39

Right. The theme of today's story

1:41

really is that in Yemen, following

1:43

the Arab Spring, nobody trusted

1:47

anybody. It was a time

1:49

of great mistrust and a politics

1:51

of mistrust animated not

1:53

only Yemen,

1:55

but the regional geopolitical

1:57

actors as well. Baraa.

2:00

First, tell us, put yourself back in late 2011,

2:02

early 2012, after the Arab Spring, how optimistic

2:08

were you feeling at the time?

2:10

So, I remember at the time there were two

2:13

conflicting feelings at the same

2:15

time. The general,

2:18

I would say, atmosphere in the squares

2:20

of the protests and me, one of them, they

2:23

were very angry about the

2:26

deal that was brokered

2:28

by the GCC countries.

2:31

This deal is known as the GCC

2:33

initiative, and we'll describe it in a second. The

2:35

youth wing of the protest movement, they

2:38

didn't like the deal. They didn't like the deal. And

2:41

at the same time, there's a sense

2:43

of hope, because things were

2:45

starting to look different. Because

2:47

this is the first time that Yemen

2:50

would be coming out, ruling

2:52

itself without Ali Abdullah al-Sada,

2:55

and kind of a new political arrangement

2:58

is about to be set. So

3:00

a bit of hope, a bit of anger on the

3:02

streets, you know, maybe not the best combination

3:05

of feelings going into a new era, but still, things

3:08

were looking up because of the

3:10

GCC initiative. So

3:12

the GCC initiative, that's the Gulf Cooperation

3:15

Council initiative, signed on

3:17

the 23rd of November 2011. The

3:20

signatories were on the one side,

3:22

President Ali Abdullah al-Sada, who by

3:25

signing agreed to stand down, and

3:27

a group of other Yemeni political

3:29

figures, some from Ali Abdullah al-Sada's political

3:31

party, the GPC, others

3:34

from the opposition political party, that

3:36

big basket of parties,

3:38

the joint meetings parties, the JMP,

3:41

and a kind of co-signatory to the deal was

3:43

the Secretary General of the GCC

3:46

himself. It was signed in Riyadh. Now

3:49

Aiman, the GCC, that's a group

3:51

of Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia, the UAE,

3:54

Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar,

3:56

describe why the GCC should

3:59

have been the co-signatory

4:01

to this Yemeni deal? Several reasons.

4:03

First of all, the size of the Yemeni

4:06

expatriate community in

4:08

the Gulf is huge. So you're talking about three,

4:11

three and a half million people. So for them, that

4:13

is an important thing, like the stability

4:15

of one of the largest foreign

4:17

expat community living in the region.

4:20

And also the fear that if there is a greater

4:22

instability, that would reflect

4:26

badly on the GCC – terrorism,

4:28

refugees, narcotics,

4:30

weapons smuggling. I mean, Yemen's

4:33

stability is the stability of the

4:35

GCC. I mean, you can't separate the two at all.

4:37

Yeah, I mean, the GCC and I think probably

4:39

especially Saudi Arabia stood the most

4:41

to lose from a Yemen situation

4:44

that went completely out of control. But

4:46

it wasn't just a regional deal. The U.S.,

4:48

the EU and the UN have been very

4:51

actively involved in the drafting of

4:53

the GCC initiative, which

4:56

as I said was signed in November of 2011 and

4:58

was meant to solve a basic

5:02

problem in Yemen. So the Arab Spring

5:05

had revealed that the state

5:07

structure that had evolved in Yemen

5:09

over Saleh's 33 years

5:12

as president was not delivering

5:14

on the promises of the Yemeni revolution

5:16

of the 1960s. And

5:19

it was the promises of that earlier

5:21

revolution that people at Yubara

5:23

were agitating for. We want the Yemen

5:25

that we had been promised, which Saleh

5:28

had said he was going to give us but he didn't

5:30

give it to us. We want it now. So

5:32

just to explain the initiative,

5:35

it required Ali Abdullah Saleh to

5:37

stand down. And a new transitional

5:39

government was called into being – that was a sort of unity

5:42

government. So the government is

5:44

split 50-50 between the

5:46

GPC, Saleh's party and

5:49

the joint meeting parties but the

5:51

prime minister is chosen by the

5:53

JMP, the joint meeting parties, so the opposition.

5:57

And the presidency, both parties –

6:00

would agree to nominate Salah's

6:03

deputy as the new

6:05

president, but they insisted that the public

6:07

go and elect him. That's right. So

6:10

the long-time vice president of Yemen,

6:12

Abdu Rabbu Mansur Hadi,

6:15

from now on President Hadi, he was

6:17

the one that the GCC initiative said

6:20

would become president. And the initiative called

6:22

for new presidential elections with

6:25

Hadi as sole candidate simply to

6:27

give the Yemeni people the opportunity,

6:29

I mean, to rubber stamp the agreement.

6:31

So a new president, President Hadi,

6:34

overseeing a new government with

6:37

ministries shared equally between all

6:39

the political sides and with a

6:41

opposition prime minister. So

6:43

there was a sense of balance. And finally, the

6:45

third major dimension of the GCC

6:47

initiative was that President Hadi was

6:50

tasked with holding a national

6:52

dialogue conference. This

6:54

national dialogue conference would meet

6:56

to discuss Yemen's problems, come

6:58

up with a list of official recommendations

7:01

for the drafting of a new

7:03

Yemeni constitution. In general, that's

7:06

the initiative. Exactly. It's basically

7:08

political parties and Yemeni

7:11

social figures and the

7:13

wider Yemeni public can come together

7:16

to negotiate the framework

7:18

of the new constitution. So before moving

7:20

into the politics, President Hadi

7:23

is a new character in this story, even

7:25

though throughout everything we've said so far, he

7:27

was the vice president. Maybe that tells

7:29

you something already. What kind of a man

7:31

was Hadi? I mean, I had

7:34

the privilege of meeting a President Hadi

7:36

in 2015, and he was incredibly sweet,

7:39

quite on the ball, didn't strike me

7:41

as the sort of guy who would naturally

7:43

have been able to stand up to a guy

7:46

like Ali Abdullah Saleh, though. He

7:48

sounds like his name, Hadi. Hadi means

7:50

peaceful. Yeah. Yeah. So

7:53

quiet. Quiet. And this is actually what

7:55

I felt even when I met him later on. It was that he's

7:58

quiet for a president. And in

8:01

a way that did contribute to

8:03

people don't feeling that he's

8:05

that strong figure, strong figure head

8:07

that they kind of they

8:09

got used to. I mean I think it's

8:11

fair to say that Salah had accepted him

8:13

or had chosen him as his vice president knowing

8:16

that Hadi was so peaceful of temperament

8:18

that he wouldn't get in his way. And

8:21

so it's possible that right at the very

8:23

beginning, the beginning of the GCC

8:25

initiative and the New Yemen, it's possible

8:28

to think that there was already a slight

8:31

fly in that ointment. Would

8:33

this man be up to the job? We're

8:35

not going to answer that question now. We'll find

8:38

out. So the signing of the GCC initiative

8:40

in November 2011 and the presidential

8:43

elections in February 2012 confirming

8:46

President Hadi as president were

8:48

sort of the inciting events in

8:50

a new chapter of Yemeni history. They

8:52

were like the firing shot in a race

8:55

to dream up a new Yemen and draw up

8:57

a new constitution, making that dream

8:59

a reality. I don't think

9:01

it's a major spoiler when I

9:03

say the

9:04

Gulf initiative eventually failed.

9:08

And in order to understand why, we have

9:10

to turn our attention briefly at least to

9:12

the regional geopolitical scene. We mentioned

9:14

the GCC, the major players, the

9:17

real players in the story in terms of the GCC

9:20

are Saudi Arabia, the UAE,

9:22

and Qatar. Saudi more

9:24

than anyone else. So Yemen. You know,

9:26

the GCC wants a stable and secure

9:28

and peaceful Yemen that will not be a

9:31

source of trouble to its neighbors and which

9:33

will be integrated into the regional economy,

9:35

you know, more cynically

9:37

from which wealth can be extracted by,

9:39

you know, by powerful countries. Saudi Arabia

9:42

at the time, early 2012, what's

9:46

its political situation like when

9:48

it turns its attention to Yemen? What is it doing there? Well,

9:52

at the time, it was the twilight

9:54

years of the reign of King Abdullah

9:57

of Saudi Arabia. So from 2005 and... Until 2012,

10:01

we would say that King Abdullah was more or

10:04

less in charge, but being helped because

10:06

he was old. By 2012, he was already 91.

10:10

By the time he dies, he will be 94. So

10:13

it was the twilight of his years, and so he wasn't

10:15

in control. When we think of Saudi Arabia now,

10:18

because the crown prince of Saudi Arabia,

10:20

the notorious MBS, is so young

10:23

and so energetic and full of ideas,

10:25

we might forget that for many

10:27

decades, Saudi Arabia was seen in the exact

10:29

opposite way, very old men running

10:32

a state that was not unified,

10:34

that was divided between rival

10:37

princely brothers and factions within

10:39

the state. And that was certainly

10:41

the case as Abdullah, King Abdullah, was

10:43

nearing the end of his life in 2012. Indeed.

10:46

I mean, his son, Prince Mu'tayb,

10:49

was one of those people in charge. Another

10:52

son, Prince Abdullah Aziz, when Abdullah was in charge

10:54

of foreign policy, especially with the fact

10:56

that the long-term diplomat of

10:58

Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, was in

11:01

her body. He was also very ill. Indeed.

11:04

So the foreign policy at that time

11:06

was neglected, and it was weak. What

11:09

you see today as the assert of Saudi

11:11

Arabia was very

11:13

much Saudi Arabia in retreat at that

11:15

time. Because of the Arab Spring, they were

11:18

on the defensive rather than on the offensive.

11:20

And this is true of Saudi policy

11:22

in Yemen at the time. So the kind of general

11:25

sclerotic, non-unified nature

11:27

of the Saudi state apparatus and government

11:30

at the time was apparent in

11:32

the Yemeni situation, which may have contributed down

11:34

the line to the failure of the

11:36

Gulf Initiative. The one country that had the most to

11:38

gain from its success simply

11:40

wasn't powerful enough at the time to ensure

11:42

that success. That's one way of saying it. Now,

11:45

what about Qatar? I mean, Qatar

11:47

is a funny country. And in terms of Yemen,

11:50

Qatar at this time could be seen as

11:53

supporting the Islaq

11:55

Party, which if you remember, dear listener,

11:57

the Islaq Party is a political party,

11:59

very broad based associated to some extent

12:01

with the Muslim Brotherhood movement, to another

12:03

extent with some tribal, very powerful tribal

12:06

elements in the north of Yemen. The Islaq Party

12:08

was the sort of the main opposition party.

12:10

Qatar was backing that party. Why?

12:13

So, a couple of reasons, mainly because,

12:16

first of all, Qatar, in terms of their

12:18

foreign policy, fact, Muslim

12:20

Brotherhood parties across the region. Especially

12:23

during the Arab Spring. Especially during the Arab Spring. So

12:25

that was one factor. The other factor

12:28

is Hamid Al Ahmad, the son

12:31

of, and now he's the brother of,

12:33

the Sheikh of the Hashed Confederation tribe.

12:35

I mean, he managed basically to secure

12:38

ties in terms, literally family ties.

12:40

So basically, he became very

12:42

close to the royal family in Qatar.

12:45

I see. I think there's also, with

12:48

Qatar, a kind of Emirati rivalry,

12:51

always there on the ground. Is that right, Aiman?

12:53

Where's the rivalry in Yemen at that point?

12:55

At that time, the contradicting

12:58

foreign policy objectives between the UAE

13:01

and Qatar stems from two aspects

13:03

here. The Arab Spring, which was raging at that time,

13:05

and the Qataris

13:07

were absolutely,

13:10

let me use, you know, I'm trying

13:12

to make it more polite, but actually they were pissing off the

13:14

Emiratis so much for their support

13:16

of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Even how angry

13:19

the Emiratis were, I think that was polite. Yeah. So,

13:23

that's the first thing. And the second thing is that they felt,

13:25

the Emiratis in particular felt that

13:27

the Qataris are playing with fire.

13:29

They are being, you know, the little

13:31

arsonist, you know, in the Arab

13:34

Spring, going from one country to another,

13:37

stalking the fires, you know, of

13:39

Islamist revolutionary atmosphere, especially like

13:41

in, I mean, a Muslim Brotherhood revolutionary

13:43

ideas. And the last thing

13:45

that the Emiratis wanted is for Yemen to

13:48

turn into yet another Egypt, where

13:51

the Islamic party would gain significant

13:53

hold on power that would then

13:56

threaten the stability of the GCC

13:58

because it will become a new Turkey,

14:01

as they say, or a new Egypt, a

14:03

magnet for Islamists to flock

14:06

into. And what could go wrong? I

14:08

mean Yemen has a lot of weapons,

14:11

has a lot of mountains, has a lot of — A lot

14:13

of al-Qaeda members. Al-Qaeda members. So

14:15

that's the sort of way in which the GCC was

14:18

arranged at the time in early 2012. Now

14:21

going into the local politics, you

14:23

know, protesters like you at the time, along

14:26

with the GCC, after the instability

14:28

of the Arab Spring era,

14:30

which had seen intense fighting on the

14:32

street, assassinations and

14:34

attempted assassinations, and

14:37

growing unrest, you wanted Yemen to

14:39

emerge stronger, stabler, more progressive,

14:41

more socially just. However,

14:45

to some extent, as you would find out,

14:47

standing in the way of that vision were

14:50

the same cast of characters from the last

14:53

episode, you know, the military men, the

14:55

tribal leaders and the political parties

14:58

that had governed Yemen for decades.

15:01

So very, very briefly, because

15:04

dear listener, go back and re-listen to the last episode

15:06

if you need to know who these people are. Let's just

15:08

remind everyone, we have Ali

15:11

Abdullah Saleh, of course, no longer

15:13

president and saying he supported

15:15

the transition. But also,

15:17

Ali Abdullah Saleh now have, due to the

15:19

GCC initiative, have immunity. So

15:22

one massive point of the

15:24

GCC initiative was that Ali Abdullah

15:26

Saleh and his family were

15:28

immune from any prosecution, for any

15:30

corruption, any crimes from his

15:33

time of everything. And that didn't

15:35

basically set well with the protesters. Ali

15:37

Abdullah Saleh was making official

15:40

statements when he meets, for example,

15:42

the UN envoy, when he meets

15:44

ambassadors, that he supports the transition.

15:47

Yet when he meets his party

15:49

members and followers, he's

15:51

saying, I'm going to teach them

15:53

how an opposition works. Now

15:56

in addition to the former president Saleh, there's

15:59

Ali Muson, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Ahmar Ali Musan,

16:01

a military man, longtime ally

16:03

of the president who had then fallen

16:06

out spectacularly with the president, fought

16:08

the president's forces during the Arab Spring. He's

16:10

definitely around. What

16:13

did the GCC initiative give him? What

16:16

was his political power in early 2012? Well,

16:19

Ali Musan al Ahmar was viewed as

16:21

the person who managed to bring Gadi

16:23

Abdullah Salah down. So

16:25

he is an influential figure. Although

16:29

the GCC initiative did require him

16:31

to step down from his military post,

16:33

but he was

16:36

appointed as the president's military

16:38

advisor. So we have Ali Musan, we

16:40

have the former president, and then the third

16:43

power sort of block the al Ahmar

16:45

family in general. This is the head of

16:47

the Hashe Tribal Confederation, a very

16:49

complicated family. And right now,

16:51

I just want to zero in on one member

16:54

of that family whom we didn't mention in the previous

16:56

episode, Hossein al Ahmar, because

16:59

there is an amazing story involving Hossein

17:01

al Ahmar that just really brings

17:03

to life what Yemeni politics

17:06

was like behind the scenes at the time

17:08

when people like Yubara were trying to create a

17:11

new and democratic Yemen. So Hossein

17:14

al Ahmar, he was rich, powerful,

17:16

and also in the north. So

17:18

Hossein al Ahmar is the family

17:21

member of al Ahmar who actually is

17:24

based in the north. He's based in

17:26

the highlands between

17:29

Amran and Saada, kind

17:31

of like this big figure who can actually

17:34

pose a counterbalance

17:36

to the growing influence of the Houthis in the north.

17:38

Yeah, this is Houthi country. So this is the other

17:40

side, I see. However, at the same time,

17:42

he was a parliament member, and

17:45

he's representing the GPC

17:47

out of all parties. But

17:50

an important factor about him, Hossein

17:52

al Ahmar tried to establish his own political

17:54

party that's even before 2011. And

17:58

in one of his many trips, he was a political party. in the

18:00

region, he went and visited your

18:03

friend, Qadhafi. Oh, Haman, your

18:05

best friend, Muammar Qadhafi, president

18:07

of Libya, who was... No, he was the leader

18:09

of Libya. Oh, I beg your pardon? He

18:12

was the most beloved, you know, leader of Libya.

18:15

Hossein al-Ahmar, who had

18:17

been bankrolled to some extent by

18:19

the Saudis for a long time, deciding

18:22

he wanted to be a political player in his own right, goes

18:24

to the Saudi arch-enemy Qadhafi.

18:27

So the Saudis quickly

18:29

find out, Saudi intelligence quickly

18:31

find out that actually Hossein al-Ahmar came

18:34

back from Libya with

18:36

a plane full of cash. A hundred million

18:38

dollars. A hundred million dollars, literally.

18:41

And he told Qadhafi that

18:43

he would split this money with Salah. He

18:45

didn't. And

18:49

he started to establish his basically

18:51

own political network, which basically

18:54

attracted all opportunists who

18:56

wanted a little bit of cash. When the Saudis

18:58

found out about the money that Qadhafi had given to

19:00

Hossein al-Ahmar, they offered him a deal of their

19:02

own. So they basically told him, whatever

19:05

Qadhafi is giving you, we'll give you the same.

19:07

Just don't go to Qadhafi again. Now

19:10

he promised them that he wouldn't. However,

19:12

later on when Qadhafi actually was toppled

19:15

and the rebels literally stormed

19:17

into the Libyan

19:19

intelligence headquarters, it

19:21

was revealed that actually the payments and

19:23

cash continued flying between Qadhafi

19:26

and Hossein al-Ahmar. And that angered the

19:28

Saudis. So Hossein al-Ahmar was taking the Saudi

19:30

money and the Libyan money, angering

19:33

the Saudis, who cut

19:35

ties with Hossein al-Ahmar? Exactly.

19:38

And this is incredibly important to this

19:40

story. And we're just going to leave it here, but bear this in mind.

19:43

The man who was the chief sort

19:45

of muscle on the ground resisting

19:48

the Houthis had just been cut out

19:50

by the Saudis. Finally, this

19:53

brings us up to the sort of fourth major

19:56

power player in Yemeni politics, although

19:59

in retrospect, we...

21:11

same

22:00

old kind of tribal partisan

22:02

war going on. It's nothing really to worry

22:04

about. And in fact, in the end of 2011,

22:07

early 2012, the Houthi assault

22:10

on D'Amaj kind of failed. It failed

22:13

due to basically, again, Husayn al-Ahmar.

22:16

He basically succeeded in mobilizing

22:18

the tribes up north and literally

22:21

that forced the Houthis even to recognize

22:23

him as a mediator, which basically

22:25

meant that they had to withdraw

22:28

from D'Amaj. So that's Saleh.

22:30

That's Ali Musun. That's the al-Ahmar situation.

22:33

Those are the Houthis. The last great

22:35

player was Saleh's political

22:37

party, the GPC, the Party

22:39

of Power in Yemen. And

22:42

if you remember, dear listener, the GPC

22:44

during the Arab Spring had split. Some

22:46

people had stayed loyal to Saleh. Other people

22:48

had decided that he needed to go. And that

22:51

split remained. So the GPC

22:53

was also embroiled in an inner party dispute,

22:56

which was not going to create

22:59

good conditions for a new Yemen to be born.

23:01

And this is why in that post 2012 political

23:04

environment in Yemen, nobody trusted

23:07

anybody. I mean, Hadi is the president.

23:10

He's trying to rally the people around

23:12

him. He has to work closely with Ali

23:15

Musun, who doesn't trust him. So

23:17

he doesn't trust him back. Both of them have

23:19

to work with the al-Ahmars, but nobody

23:21

trusts them. Nobody trusts

23:23

Saleh and the GCC partners

23:26

don't trust each other. And in

23:28

the midst of all of this mistrust, the

23:30

Houthis are doing

23:32

stuff up in the north and no one is really paying

23:35

attention. So, Bara, at this

23:37

point, you are not so

23:39

aware of the intensity of the culture

23:42

of mistrust because you haven't yet been

23:44

invited into the inner circles of Yemeni politics.

23:47

You're still down on the street,

23:49

in the square, with the youth

23:52

who were angry about the GCC

23:55

initiative. And you, yourself, were

23:57

not happy with the GCC initiative. us

24:00

with the youth, with also the Houthis

24:02

who have now by this

24:04

time we've come close to each

24:06

other. We know their leaders and they're

24:09

like acting as this, we

24:11

can be the supporters of this

24:14

new political movement that is emerging

24:17

angry of the establishment and angry

24:19

of this new deal. angry because

24:21

it gave Salah immunity,

24:24

angry because it

24:26

gave Salah immunity from prosecution

24:29

and it's not clear where

24:31

is Salah heading to. Yeah, I

24:34

see. So you just thought the GCC initiative

24:36

is not going to give us what we wanted

24:39

when we were chanting those chants during the Arab

24:41

Spring. And as a result, we started

24:43

calling to boycott the

24:45

presidential elections alongside

24:48

the Houthis. Alongside the Houthis. If

24:51

you're finding yourself a lockstep with the Houthis,

24:53

you need to be careful. The

24:56

Houthis you need to question. So

25:00

what happened then in we're talking end of 2011, beginning

25:02

of 2012, the Houthis are saying,

25:05

okay, listen, guys, how

25:08

about we start hosting a series

25:10

of workshops and conferences

25:13

that's going to bring

25:15

together the youth revolution. It was called the

25:18

Youth Revolution Conference, the

25:20

Yemeni Youth Revolution Conference hosted by

25:23

your friends, the Houthis. Exactly. But

25:26

they said, we will give you tickets

25:29

to Lebanon, which there

25:32

is another group emerging who

25:34

are going to be the hosts of

25:36

this conference in Lebanon.

25:39

Well that sounds suspicious at all. I

25:43

mean, for all the wonderful places

25:45

that one could go to, you know, like in Turkey,

25:48

Maldives, Malaysia, goodness,

25:50

Dubai, you know, no, go to

25:52

Lebanon. South Lebanon, especially. Yeah.

25:55

I wonder why. Who's there? So,

25:58

surprise, surprise. many

26:01

youth did respond and started to

26:03

literally go in batches and

26:05

I was invited a couple of times say

26:07

okay you didn't go in the first one let's go you

26:09

can go in the second one you didn't go in the second you still

26:12

have the third many conferences many

26:14

workshops are being organized in Lebanon now

26:17

in Lebanon it turned

26:19

out to be obviously Ayman's

26:22

best friends Hezbollah so Hezbollah

26:25

operatives were hosting receiving

26:28

Yemenis coming from the revolution

26:31

basically what was happening was literally a vetting

26:33

process they go out and

26:36

they introduce Yemenis

26:38

to Hezbollah operatives and then

26:40

who's willing to play along with them who is

26:43

actually buying into their message of

26:45

this is an Islamic awakening similar

26:48

to the Iranian revolution the Islamic

26:50

revolution they go on into

26:52

the next phase which is they meet IRGC

26:55

officers who are also stationed in Lebanon

26:57

so political organization is happening

27:00

with the Houthis recruiting other Yemenis

27:02

and integrating them all politically to Iran's

27:05

larger kind of regional

27:07

political nexus that happening

27:09

for sure exactly and on the ground eventually this

27:12

leads to the creation of a

27:15

specific kind of political party or something

27:17

in Yemen so it's called the political

27:20

office of the Houthis in Sana'a they

27:22

call it the Ansar Allah's political

27:25

office in Sana'a and it's basically combined

27:27

this is what made it interesting and appealing for

27:29

many Yemenis it has this diverse

27:31

group it has young

27:33

liberals it has some women it has

27:36

lefties it has also

27:38

some Islamists it has a combination

27:40

of many different people but it does not

27:42

have Barat Shaban because you smelled

27:45

a rat and as you're

27:47

watching the Houthis organized and

27:49

and sort of peel off some of your liberal

27:52

colleagues you're also seeing the

27:54

other people that you marched alongside during the

27:56

Arab Spring who had been affiliated with that

27:58

more traditional long-standing political parties

28:01

return to their partisan affiliations.

28:04

And you, Barat, were worried that independent

28:07

liberal voices like you were

28:09

going to be shut out of the conversation

28:11

going forward in Yemen. So you changed

28:13

your view on the GCC initiative

28:16

and decided to work with it. So

28:18

what I felt strongly was after

28:21

the elections that actually despite

28:23

our protests, we can continue being shouting,

28:26

shouting in the streets. That's not going to work.

28:29

We need to form a political bloc

28:31

and we start to, we have to be

28:33

engaged if we want to influence things.

28:36

What a mature and rather conservative view,

28:39

Barat. So this is the first time that liberal

28:41

Barat is being mugged by reality and inching

28:44

towards a more realistic perspective.

28:46

So you thought that, you know, Hadi, President

28:49

Hadi needed allies. He

28:51

was invested in the success of the GCC

28:54

initiative. He was invested in

28:56

the new constitution that that initiative

28:59

was meant to result in. So you thought I

29:01

must unite with fellow independents and

29:03

participate in this process. And we

29:05

worked closely with a guy who a lot

29:08

of Yemeni observers and

29:10

even foreigners who worked on Yemen know

29:12

now very well. His name is Ahmed bin Mubarak.

29:15

Ahmed bin Mubarak. Keep that name in

29:17

your head, dear listener, because at the end of this story,

29:19

he plays a very key role. There's

29:21

a moment featuring him. It's very important. And

29:23

what happened was basically Hadi decided

29:25

he's going to form a technical

29:28

and steering committee to start preparing

29:31

for the national dialogue. It has the

29:33

traditional players and said, OK, so what is

29:35

missing is the people who do not have

29:37

a political party. And we started

29:40

literally mobilizing and meeting people

29:42

from Sana'a, Taz, Aiden,

29:45

Hodeida, and doing many,

29:47

many trips to try and bring a

29:50

block of independent youth

29:52

and women and civil society together and

29:55

then communicating with the technical

29:58

and steering committee of the National

30:00

Dialogue, that actually we can present

30:03

representatives that can actually

30:06

participate in the International

30:08

Dialogue. Well, at the same time, your confidence

30:10

in Hadi was growing because,

30:13

you know, and this is another aspect of the scene

30:15

in Yemen at the time that we have to be very quick about,

30:18

but Al-Qaeda was running rampant

30:20

at the time, and Hadi had successfully

30:23

brought together all the different political

30:25

players, Ali Mohsen and all the others, to

30:28

crush Al-Qaeda in 2012, which

30:31

was a mark of success for him. You thought,

30:33

well, maybe this guy is more than his reputation

30:36

says. So with that kind of success now,

30:38

that sort of quiver in his bow, you know, President

30:40

Hadi, by the end of 2012, was moving

30:43

confidently into the National Dialogue.

30:46

And because you had so successfully with your allies

30:48

organized yourselves, you had presented

30:51

your own names as a list of possible

30:53

members to the National Dialogue. And through

30:56

your work with Bin Mubarak, your

30:58

liaison within the Hadi camp, it

31:01

turned out you were indeed chosen and you joined

31:03

the National Dialogue. Yeah, and actually, the

31:05

National Dialogue is announced. It has 565 candidates. Amongst

31:10

them, of course, is all the political parties

31:13

and representatives of the tribal figures

31:15

and social figures of Yemen. But within

31:17

it, a very important component is the

31:19

youth, the women, and civil society,

31:22

who actually, amongst the 565, has 120 seats combined. The

31:27

youth, which is us, we have 40 seats. At

31:30

first date, the 18th of March, 2013,

31:32

the National Dialogue begins.

31:34

It's not an auspicious beginning to this because

31:37

the Houthis are in the National Dialogue.

31:39

Now how the hell did that happen, Barat? They

31:41

had not signed the GCC initiative. They had said

31:43

they were going to remain pure. They weren't going

31:46

to sully themselves with the imperialist ambitions

31:48

of the GCC initiative. So it was

31:51

the political office

31:53

in Sana'a amongst... There's

31:55

one important character and he's kind

31:58

of... He was, in a way, a default. facto

32:01

tribal leader or leading the tribal

32:03

faction of the Houthis. His name is Salah

32:06

Habra and he was the head of

32:08

the Houthi block in the national

32:10

dialogue and he went to Abdul

32:12

Malik al-Houthi. Abdul Malik al-Houthi initially

32:14

refused. He said he's not going to join because

32:17

in his words, this is an admission

32:20

to recognize America and

32:22

Israel. Which the Houthis did not want

32:24

to do because remember, death to America,

32:27

death to Israel, that's their chant.

32:29

Which is obviously nonsense but anyway,

32:31

the Salah Habra with his kind of tribal

32:34

wise mindset tells him that you need

32:36

to join. We cannot be an outcast

32:39

out of all of the Yemeni

32:41

factions and tribal groups who are coming together

32:44

to negotiate the future and

32:46

he tasked him to form alongside

32:48

the political office in Sana'a the

32:51

Houthi block and they join. That

32:53

in a way did give some huge amount of confidence

32:56

in the success of the national dialogue because

32:58

it actually brought a lot of factions

33:00

together. Including

33:03

the Houthis and really honestly, what could

33:05

go wrong? So we're going to stop

33:07

now. We're going to take our first break. This is a long episode,

33:09

dear listener, but it's a great story. We're

33:12

leaving Barat there on the first day of the national

33:14

dialogue conference with everyone sitting

33:16

around a table including the Houthis and

33:19

as we will find out, the former president,

33:21

Ali Abdullah Saleh, behind the scenes,

33:24

dancing on the heads of snakes and forming

33:26

secret pacts with the

33:29

Houthis. Stay tuned.

33:43

We're back. Let's get straight back in. We

33:46

left you Barat, a member of the national dialogue

33:48

conference where you're networking with

33:51

other politicians, political players, activists

33:53

inside Yemen trying to brainstorm a new

33:56

Yemeni constitution. Your

33:59

knowledge of Yemen is expanding, not

34:01

only because of the National Dialogue Conference,

34:03

but also because of your day

34:06

job at the time, which was to

34:08

investigate drone strikes

34:10

against al-Qaeda. I mean,

34:13

their listener honestly, we people in the West, we just

34:15

don't know what sort of job opportunities there are

34:17

in the Middle East. So, as

34:20

you said, after President Hadi

34:22

crushed al-Qaeda earlier in 2012,

34:25

al-Qaeda members sort of dissolved,

34:28

embedded themselves into society,

34:30

which coincided with a renewed

34:33

drone campaign against them by the United

34:36

States. People might remember that this

34:38

was very controversial at the time. Many civilians

34:41

died during the prosecution of these

34:43

drone attacks. And you were there

34:45

on the ground visiting strike sites

34:47

to gather evidence and to advocate, I guess,

34:50

on behalf of those civilians and their families? Exactly.

34:53

So, I remember the first drone

34:55

strike that kind of caught my attention that was late

34:58

in 2011. But specifically

35:00

after al-Qaeda was crushed in Abiyen,

35:03

I felt like the US has

35:06

gone mad. They started

35:08

conducting a numerous

35:10

number of drone strikes, but this time it's

35:13

not in remote and very far away

35:15

places. It's starting to hit in local communities,

35:17

in places that we are familiar with in

35:20

some towns and villages. And

35:22

this did anger the public and

35:24

people were very, very angry. Aiman, I

35:26

mean, I'm not asking you to justify America's

35:28

drone campaign. Really, I'm not asking that. I'm asking

35:31

for you to explain it from that, from their perspective.

35:33

So, the Americans at the time, why are they, why have

35:35

they upped their droning against al-Qaeda

35:38

in Yemen, even if it meant attacking neighborhoods

35:40

and killing civilians? Well, there was

35:42

the worry that al-Qaeda is going to take advantage

35:45

of the Arab Spring. And especially

35:47

the rising anger over

35:50

the Syrian war and the

35:52

civil war that's happening there.

35:54

So, they wanted, and you know, the Obama

35:56

administration in particular, they wanted to weaken

35:59

al-Qaeda. significantly in

36:01

order to avoid Yemen becoming

36:04

yet again a safe haven. That

36:06

led them, of course, to conduct

36:08

significant in a number of operations in

36:11

places that are really

36:13

like, I mean, full of civilian population. And

36:16

sometimes kids were killed, women

36:18

were killed, people by standards, they have nothing

36:20

to do with Oqaida. And as usual,

36:23

this

36:24

obsession with Oqaida at the time made

36:27

them lose sight of other

36:29

far more threatening realities in Yemen. Oh,

36:31

gosh, how is that resonant with

36:33

things happening in the Middle East at the moment? Honestly,

36:35

guys, Barra, back to you. So the upshot

36:38

of this work you were doing, investigating

36:40

drone strike sites in Yemen, was

36:42

that you were actually encountering members

36:45

of Oqaida. Exactly. So while

36:48

I was now a member of

36:50

the national dialogue, out of all of the

36:52

working groups I was working in, I was

36:54

the rapporteur of the counterterrorism

36:57

working group. And one of the

36:59

first things we did as a group, we requested

37:02

to meet the Yemeni intelligence who actually were

37:04

very cooperative to their credit at the time. And

37:07

they allowed us to meet members of Oqaida,

37:09

who were actually sitting in their prisons

37:12

and had been apprehended in several

37:14

operations. So there you are getting to know the

37:17

reality of Al-Qaeda controlled areas

37:19

on the ground, you're meeting Al-Qaeda members,

37:22

you're getting a sense of what kind of a person an

37:24

Al-Qaeda member is. You're also in the

37:26

national dialogue, working alongside

37:29

Hadi's ally Bin Mubarak to do the

37:32

national dialogue's work. At this point,

37:34

Bin Mubarak asks you to return

37:37

to your hometowns, if

37:40

you like, your ancestral villages,

37:42

to hold workshops and to get a

37:44

sense of what those local communities wanted for Yemen.

37:47

It was an interesting time. So what

37:49

many people kind of tend to forget

37:51

about those years between 2000 and then

37:53

until the beginning of the conflict

37:56

is for many of us, it was like the golden

37:58

era of Yemen, where meeting, there is a

38:01

dynamic and activist civil society,

38:03

there are workshops. So in that

38:06

general environment, we're still like very, very

38:08

hopeful. It's heartbreaking to hear, it's heartbreaking.

38:11

I know what's happening next. And

38:13

in the midst of that, when Mubarak asked me to go,

38:15

and not just me, he asked several members who

38:18

actually come from Hajjah. And Hajjah

38:20

is this beautiful place in the

38:22

northern part of Yemen, and it sits literally

38:24

between Amran and

38:27

Sa'dah. So it's right between

38:29

Houthi country and Ali

38:32

Masnid country, and al-Ahmar country. For

38:34

Hajjah, okay. That's a shit sandwich

38:37

I don't want to be a part of. And we have

38:39

an interesting discussion with the

38:41

members of the local community, and discussions about

38:44

transitional justice and so on,

38:46

until a young, I would say very brave

38:49

journalist came to me. And

38:52

I still wonder where he is until today.

38:55

I wish I could see him again. He came to me and

38:57

he asked, can you stay until tomorrow,

38:59

instead of leaving with the convoy,

39:02

with the whole delegation tonight, can

39:04

you stay until tomorrow? I would like to show you something

39:07

very important. It's more important

39:09

than the superficial discussions

39:11

that you're having, because it actually touches

39:13

reality on the ground. And

39:16

at the beginning, I was hesitant, and I said, fine,

39:19

let me say it's just one day, nothing's going to happen.

39:22

And the next day I went to a village

39:25

with all Yemenis would later on know

39:27

it very well. It's called Hajur. Hajur.

39:30

It's a very mountainous area, but literally

39:32

a very poor tribal village,

39:34

don't have much resources. And

39:37

they have been surrounded, they've

39:39

been fighting the Houthis for many months

39:42

now, actively being shelled,

39:45

bombed. A lot of their farms had literally

39:47

been invested literally with

39:49

landmines planted by the Houthis. Did

39:51

you know that the Houthis had proceeded

39:54

that far towards the south in the Hajjah?

39:56

Did this come as a surprise to you that they were even there?

39:59

It was kind of a surprise. a surprise because the

40:01

representatives at the National Dialogue were

40:04

assuring us that they are

40:06

invested in this process as

40:09

much as us. The Houthis are telling you down

40:11

in Sana'a, oh, we want a big unified happy

40:13

Yemen. But then you go to Hajjah and you're like, well, you're

40:16

laying landmines in farmers' villages.

40:19

Exactly. I mean, it was a horrifying

40:21

image. You see snipers

40:23

surrounding this literally small tribal

40:26

village and people are

40:28

left with no option. They can go to fights

40:31

or they can hand over their lands, homes

40:34

and all their properties to

40:36

the Houthis. But what about the Houthis? Did

40:38

you manage to meet any Houthis?

40:40

Of course. So I walked in and

40:42

the first thing why we encountered the Houthis is because

40:44

they are literally besieging this area. And

40:47

the first thing that struck me when I had the

40:50

discussions with them is those are not

40:52

the Houthis we are meeting inside Sana'a.

40:55

Those are like Al-Qaeda

40:57

operatives that I have met and have interviewed

41:00

inside the Yemeni prisons. Those

41:02

are jihadists with jihadi mindsets

41:05

who are actually filled with anger and

41:07

rage towards anything that is not them.

41:10

Amen. It's that radical mentality

41:12

that we talked about at the beginning of this season

41:14

of conflicted. Indeed. You just immediately notice

41:16

that when you see it, these people are not open

41:19

to compromise. And they are living

41:21

in this world of prophecies.

41:23

They have the belief that actually there

41:26

is something coming in. And the only thing that

41:28

is preventing this prophecy, this break prophecy

41:30

from happening is those infidels

41:32

in Sana'a, those people who are meeting at the

41:35

national dialogue. And which was an interesting

41:37

kind of conflicted narrative

41:39

because we are discussing the future

41:41

of Yemen. We are kind of in a way in their

41:43

eyes the enemies. Yet at the same time,

41:46

they're saying we are part of the national dialogue, but

41:48

they're actually fighting against that. Yeah, exactly.

41:51

You see, you see, again, this is what we said at

41:53

the beginning of the season, Thomas, when

41:55

we talk about eschatology and how

41:57

eschatology and prophecies in our world.

41:59

are

42:01

the opium of the

42:03

masses. This is how

42:06

they drug these people into believing

42:08

that they are God's instruments

42:10

for change. Change

42:13

could only happen if they are the

42:16

vanguard to fulfill the

42:18

prophecies. So they are God's

42:21

soldiers, and therefore they

42:23

set themselves high above everyone else,

42:26

and they look down on everyone else. God's

42:28

soldiers, I mean when the Houthis decided to rebrand

42:31

themselves, what did they say? Anfar

42:33

Allah. Yes, God's helpers.

42:35

The helpers of God. And you saw that playing

42:37

itself out there on the ground in Hadjah. I mean

42:40

it was like proper fighting, a real war,

42:42

wartime conditions there. So in

42:45

a way, though we think war broke out

42:47

in Yemen in March 2015, it was already there. It

42:51

was already there, and it was a frightening scene. And

42:54

I remember I immediately without hesitation

42:56

decided to, I felt it was nonsense

42:59

to continue discussing and negotiating

43:01

with those militants up in the mountains

43:04

of Hadjah. And I decided we need to

43:06

go and educate the politicians

43:09

in Sana'a. So you went back down to Sana'a

43:11

and you sort of said, guys, you

43:14

won't believe what I just saw. Exactly.

43:17

And that's not just me. Also there were other members of the National

43:19

Dialogue who were saying actually this is serious shit.

43:22

And how was that met? What response

43:25

did you get? I mean really from the Houthis in Sana'a.

43:27

So the Houthis first thing they accused

43:29

me that my trip was funded by Ali

43:31

Muslim al-Ahmar. And

43:36

then they kind of starting

43:38

to shed doubt and saying like all of the delegations

43:40

that have gone to the north, they were saying those

43:43

have drank the Kool-Aid of the Isla,

43:46

of al-Ahmar, of al-Ahlimusin. This

43:48

gaslighting you, classic gaslighting. So

43:51

I mean obviously you must have thought, I mean

43:53

the National Dialogue is in peril here.

43:55

We must confront the Houthis. But

43:58

sadly, as was seen... a couple

44:00

of years earlier during the Arab Spring, the

44:02

truth is, Barat, that at the time, very

44:05

powerful political forces in Yemen

44:08

were benefiting from the Houthis

44:10

rampaging in the north. Now,

44:12

not just that. So, also around

44:15

the same time, we have meetings

44:18

with President Hadi. And the first

44:20

meeting, I say remember it very well, the

44:22

first thing he started to mention to us is

44:24

this shipment of weapons

44:26

that the Yemeni coastal guards have

44:29

seized going to the Houthis. And

44:31

he talked about five shipments, three,

44:33

I think, have already managed to go through.

44:36

But the Yemeni coastal guards with the help, even

44:38

of the US, had managed to seize.

44:41

Wait, so these are boatloads of weapons

44:43

going to the Houthis from where?

44:47

Well, according to Hadi, it was from Iran.

44:49

And actually, I didn't have any reason

44:52

to doubt him because I was seeing all

44:54

of the signs around there. I mean, you don't need

44:56

to be an expert

44:59

or some genius to add things

45:01

together. So, President Hadi knew that the

45:04

Houthis were a threat and that

45:06

they were being supported by Iran as

45:08

early as 2013? As actually,

45:10

I think, even before that. So why didn't he do

45:12

anything about it? Well, that's the

45:15

coming back to the environment of

45:17

mistrust that he

45:19

was feeling and the environment

45:22

amongst all of the main traditional

45:25

political actors in Yemen. In

45:27

order to do that, he needs to support

45:29

the quest of guys

45:31

like Hussein Al-Ahmar and

45:34

the cause of Ali Masin that they need

45:36

to support the military units

45:38

in the north, which are still

45:41

strongly affiliated with Ali Masin, to

45:43

counter the Houthis. And while you're

45:45

doing that, then you're actually also strengthening

45:48

their influence. I see. So

45:50

if President Hadi comes out openly

45:52

and says, the Houthis are a threat and in order to combat

45:54

the threat, I must empower Ali Masin's

45:57

brigades, then Ali Masin

45:59

is politically empowered and then people like

46:02

President Salah won't be happy

46:04

with Hadi. So he's kind of caught between

46:06

two stools. And I think also at the same

46:08

time, Sahar Swit said, but I

46:11

think he thought that he can play the same dance.

46:13

He can dance on the heads of snakes.

46:15

Oh no, you never embark

46:18

on a dance-off with Ali Abellassala. There

46:22

should be a Yemeni dancing with the stars, but dancing

46:24

with the snakes. We should listen. Well,

46:27

that's the thing. If you see someone dancing

46:29

with the snakes, do not do that. So

46:32

you went to President Hadi, but then you

46:34

must have also gone to Ali Masin.

46:37

When I meet Ali Masin, I see him

46:39

literally conducting the official

46:42

duties of the state. He is kind

46:44

of unofficially the vice president.

46:47

He's doing the stuff that Hadi was supposed to

46:49

be doing. I see. So

46:52

your eyes are opening now to the GCC

46:55

initiative era that things aren't exactly as

46:57

they seem. Ali Masin did not have any

46:59

formal role in the government, but he is performing

47:02

the duties of a vice president. Exactly. And

47:04

all of the duties that I think Hadi was supposed

47:06

to be doing, but for a

47:09

reason he's not doing, has left

47:11

it to him. So he is kind of running those

47:14

meetings and meeting tribal

47:17

figures, politicians, and so on, and

47:19

also meeting, including mediations, like

47:21

the one I wanted him to be

47:23

involved in. But then eventually you

47:25

must have brought the conversation around to what you'd seen

47:28

in Hadjah and your worries about the Houthis. So

47:30

what did he say? He said that he was aware

47:32

of and he was trying to

47:35

mobilize Hadi and the people around

47:37

Hadi. And he was saying if Hadi

47:39

gets his act together, he will

47:41

pressure the other factions to join

47:44

force like he did with Al-Qaeda in

47:46

the south, but this time against the Houthis.

47:49

Well, I mean I guess that the sad

47:51

truth of the matter is that more or less

47:53

half of the Yemeni army remain

47:55

loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the

47:57

former president of Yemen. and

48:00

he was working behind the

48:02

scenes. Exactly. Ali Abdullah Saleh

48:04

was actually blind by revenge at that time.

48:07

He didn't want to hear anything about what

48:10

is the threats of aligning

48:12

himself with the Houthis would look like and endanger

48:14

his future. He wanted to get revenge

48:17

on all of the military commanders, politicians,

48:19

tribal leaders who had defected

48:22

from him in 2011. And

48:24

he wanted them to pay a heavy, heavy

48:26

price. So the military

48:28

units that were still affiliated

48:31

with him were literally handing over their

48:33

posts and positions in the north to

48:35

the Houthis. When working

48:37

on Saleh's orders. Exactly. And

48:40

mainly trying to counter the 310 military

48:42

brigade. Which

48:44

was Ali Mohsen's brigade. This is the

48:47

formidable force in the north of Yemen

48:50

composed of the most professional officers,

48:52

military officers who are well-trained, well-equipped,

48:55

and know what they're doing. And they've been fighting

48:58

the Houthis all along. So

49:00

heavy fightings are happening with the 310

49:02

brigade. But they're actually losing

49:05

a lot of the support they're supposed

49:08

to be having from other military factions.

49:10

And for the roughly two years before

49:13

this realization that you

49:15

had, that Saleh is really working behind the scenes. Saleh

49:18

had to play the game very

49:20

carefully. Obviously he wants to

49:22

be president again. He wants to get his

49:25

revenge. He's going to ally with the Houthis

49:27

to help him achieve that. But it

49:29

was an event in Syria in 2013 that

49:33

really changed the rules

49:35

of the game in Yemen. When President

49:38

Obama refused

49:40

to respond to Bashar al-Assad's

49:43

crossing the red line, Obama

49:45

had said, if you use chemical weapons, that's a red line.

49:48

If you do that, Bashar, America will

49:50

respond. And in 2013, Obama

49:53

actually didn't. He didn't live up to

49:55

that threat. And from then on, everything

49:58

in the Middle East really changed, because America was America was signaling

50:01

it's not willing to go the whole way. On

50:03

that day, actually, a senior aide of Saleh

50:06

told me that Saleh said, now

50:08

I can come back. And that signifies

50:11

how important the other

50:13

regional factors are affecting

50:16

also the transition in Yemen. Exactly,

50:19

because why? The problem,

50:22

you see, with the Americans

50:24

during the post-9-11 era,

50:26

the Republicans in particular, George Bush and his

50:28

administration, was their over-commitment

50:31

in the Middle East. And Obama's problem was

50:34

their under-commitment in the Middle

50:36

East. Obama just wanted

50:39

peace with Iran at any cost.

50:41

And that involved emboldening

50:44

Hezbollah to enter into Syria, emboldening

50:47

the Syrian regime to continue killing

50:50

their own people, allowing Hamas

50:52

to continue rearming, and we can

50:54

see what is happening. And even

50:56

stopping the DEA in

50:59

America, the Drug Enforcement Agency, from pursuing

51:02

an investigation into Hezbollah even, all

51:05

of this signaled to the Iranians

51:08

that you can do whatever you want in the Middle East.

51:10

And it didn't only signal it to the Iranians, it

51:12

signaled it to Ali Abdullah Saleh, who

51:15

realized now I

51:17

can come back. So to make a long story

51:19

short, Saleh was playing this game,

51:22

dear listener. He thought, I'll allow

51:24

the Houthis to destroy Ali Musun

51:26

and his forces, and to destroy the

51:29

forces of the Al-Ahmar tribal family. And

51:31

then once the Houthis are so strong,

51:34

the Saudis will have no choice

51:36

but to back me and my forces to

51:38

defeat the Houthis, and I

51:41

will be president of Yemen again,

51:43

and my son will be president after

51:46

me. That's Saleh's game. And

51:48

that game began to be played out in the

51:51

open by the Houthis beginning in the end

51:53

of 2013, when their

51:55

forces enter the Dhammaj again.

51:58

This is the town, dear listener. where

52:00

that Salafi school was and which

52:02

two years before the Houthis had attacked but

52:05

the forces of Hussein al-Ahmar had repelled

52:07

them. Well now Hussein al-Ahmar was

52:10

very weak because the Saudis had

52:12

been pissed off with him taking money from Gaddafi

52:15

and this time the Houthis won. They

52:17

didn't just win, they demolished his house.

52:20

So they went into the match, they blew

52:23

up the school, that Salafi school,

52:25

and then they marched basically embarking on

52:27

revenge against all of the tribes

52:30

who did support Hussein al-Ahmar to make an

52:32

example of anyone who's going to fight

52:35

them in the future that you know you're

52:37

going to meet a similar fate

52:39

and they filmed that. They filmed the blowing

52:42

up of houses and that's important

52:44

and significant for tribal and local

52:46

communities. So this continues

52:48

the Houthi advance southward from

52:51

Saada, Damaaj, Sheikh after Sheikh,

52:53

tribe after tribe, village after village.

52:56

Fear is spreading throughout the north, more

52:58

people in Sunar are thinking what the hell is going

53:01

on, more and more people realize

53:03

the game that Salah is playing but

53:05

those political actors at the top because

53:07

of the culture of mistrust cannot

53:09

unite against him and his chickenery.

53:13

And so by June 2014 the

53:15

temperature is very high when

53:18

the Houthis make the really phenomenal

53:21

achievement for you know militarily speaking of conquering

53:24

Amran, an important military

53:26

garrison city not too far from Sana'a.

53:28

It's only 50 kilometers away from

53:30

Sana'a and that Amran was

53:32

where the 310 military brigade

53:35

was stationed. They were the protectors

53:38

of the northern gate of Sana'a. Yeah

53:40

so that's the main point that the brigade in

53:43

Amran is associated with Ali Mohsen,

53:45

he was ultimately their commander and Salah

53:49

then must have thought wow my

53:51

plan is working brilliantly. The

53:53

Houthis have just crushed the main

53:56

force of Ali Mohsen. So you know

53:58

now they're heading on their way to Sana'a. That's okay.

54:00

They'll keep crushing more and more of Ali

54:02

Massan's forces because at the end of the day I

54:05

know the Saudis will swoop in support

54:07

me to throw off the Houthis.

54:10

That's his plan. That summer,

54:12

the summer of 2014, the Houthis

54:14

advance to outside Sana'a where

54:17

they sit. And then

54:19

some very interesting politics

54:21

begin to be played out, politics

54:24

that resonate with sort of Hassan

54:26

Nasrallah and Hezbollah style politicking.

54:30

So what happened is in summer

54:33

of 2014, the Yemeni government decides

54:35

to remove oil subsidies. So

54:38

as a result oil prices, petrol

54:40

prices gone up in

54:42

Yemen and Adun Malik al-Husi

54:45

now pose himself as the voice

54:48

of the people. He wants to bring the

54:50

prices down and saying this is actually

54:53

not a result of because the oil

54:56

prices worldwide are going up. This

54:58

is due to the corruption of this government,

55:00

this American

55:04

supported and funded government. They're

55:06

very corrupt and we need to

55:08

bring them down. We need to bring the prices

55:10

down and we need to start implementing

55:13

the national dialogue outcome. Abdul

55:15

Malik al-Husi's reputation was

55:18

growing in a way and it wasn't just

55:20

the Saudis in this case. The US had also

55:22

contributed to his growing reputation amongst

55:25

activists, revolutionary liberal activists

55:28

in Yemen because of that droning

55:30

campaign which the Yemeni people were

55:32

so angry about and which Abdul Malik al-Husi was

55:34

able to twist and use to his political

55:36

advantage saying you see the evil Americans, they

55:39

are evil, death to America. And even

55:42

more of your former sort of colleagues

55:44

on the squares during the Arab Spring saw

55:46

Abdul Malik al-Husi as a revolutionary

55:49

in sympathy with them. Exactly. I

55:51

literally was trying to go and meet them and saying

55:54

you idiots, you don't understand what's

55:56

happening because I've seen what the Houthis

55:59

were doing in the North of Yemen. Yemen. And in my

56:01

mind, I was saying, this is just an

56:03

excuse to conquer Sana'a. The

56:05

Houthis want to take over Sana'a. They're just using

56:07

all of this as an excuse. And what about President

56:10

Hadi? What about other people in the national dialogue?

56:12

I guess they're thinking, if there's any fighting,

56:15

it's between the Houthis and Ali Mohsen's people.

56:17

This can benefit us. Or is it still it's

56:19

just a partisan squabble? It's not

56:21

an existential threat. You must have been

56:24

so frustrated. I was. It was

56:26

very strange. I literally, in those

56:28

final days, I went to meet President Hadi

56:32

numerous times, many, many times. I go and

56:34

talk to him. He would tell us something, but he's

56:36

not willing to say that publicly. He

56:38

say that Saleh is plotting with the Houthis,

56:41

but he's not willing to call

56:43

for the mobilization. And I remember

56:46

in that week before the Houthis

56:48

conquered Sana'a, I met with a

56:51

top Islamic leader who was

56:53

literally just done with his meetings

56:55

with Hadi. As he's walking out of

56:57

the presidential palace, I tell him, what did you guys

57:00

discuss? And he said he asked us

57:02

to basically bring our people to

57:05

fight the Houthis. And this Islamic

57:07

leader asked Hadi to go out

57:09

on national TV and call for

57:12

popular mobilization against the Houthis.

57:14

And Hadi refused. Hadi refused.

57:17

Unfortunately, I don't know what

57:19

he was thinking, but I think at that time he

57:21

thought that actually if they just pressured

57:24

Ali Mohsen enough, that would weaken

57:26

his position. They're not actually coming after

57:28

me. That takes us to 21st of September 2014. This

57:34

is when probably with

57:36

less shock really by this stage, but certainly

57:38

a lot of worry, concern,

57:40

anxiety, despair, you watched

57:43

the Houthis conquer Sana'a.

57:45

And one week of fighting, that's all what the fighting

57:47

did. It did kill many people. A lot of people

57:49

don't know this. It killed over 300 people,

57:52

including civilians. And

57:54

eventually the UN envoy

57:57

literally flew to Sa took

58:00

representatives and they flew back into

58:03

Sana'a. All of this while the fighting is happening

58:05

at the outskirts of Sana'a. There

58:07

on the 21st of September, he, the

58:10

UN envoy, is in the presidential palace with

58:13

some Houthis negotiating an

58:15

agreement, a peace agreement, while,

58:17

unbeknownst to them, the

58:19

Houthis are conquering the city. It was an unbelievable

58:22

scene. The Houthis are literally taking

58:25

government institutions, they're taking the

58:27

TV station, the military

58:29

camps in Sana'a, the police stations, while

58:32

those officials are still negotiating the

58:34

draft of like, this article, put this article

58:37

before that. And only when the minister

58:39

of defense leaves the presidential palace

58:42

and literally his guards tell him, what are you guys

58:44

doing? The Houthis have took over

58:47

the capital. Well, the Houthis did indeed take

58:49

over the capital. Al-Imassan al-Ahmar

58:51

was extracted from a conquered

58:54

Sana'a by the Saudis who flew him

58:56

eventually to the kingdom. The Houthis

58:59

signed what's called the Peace and Partnership

59:02

Agreement, very ironic name,

59:05

with hindsight, with the UN to

59:07

help form a new government and

59:10

set openly, the basic plan hasn't changed,

59:12

the national dialogue results. We

59:14

will live up to those results, we will implement

59:17

those results, the new constitution, it's on its

59:19

way, we're going to implement it. They pretended,

59:22

really, to be the stewards of

59:24

the GCC initiative. But

59:26

meanwhile, their troops continued

59:29

to conquer southward from Sana'a. And

59:33

I remember I went immediately to

59:35

a province in central Yemen called Beida,

59:37

and it was a very frightening scene. The

59:39

Houthis politicians are in Sana'a,

59:42

promising that they will not attack any more village

59:44

or town. When you arrived there,

59:47

I saw literally two villages,

59:49

it's something out of a movie. Thousands

59:52

of people, including women, children,

59:55

elderly, and literally normal locals,

59:57

villagers, leaving their homes. as

1:00:00

the Houthis are blowing up their houses and

1:00:03

flattening them to the ground. You're witnessing this with

1:00:05

your own eyes. Exactly. It's a

1:00:08

very surreal moment and saying

1:00:10

like, what is happening? And

1:00:12

from that moment, I decide actually this

1:00:14

is not going to work. The Houthis need

1:00:17

to be met by

1:00:19

some form of military force that is formed

1:00:22

of those national political

1:00:24

players to unite themselves

1:00:26

to counter the Houthis because the Houthis' ultimate

1:00:29

aim is to take control over the whole

1:00:31

of Yemen. By this time, I think more and more

1:00:33

people were realizing what you had

1:00:35

already realized, Bara, because into

1:00:38

October, November 2014, the Houthis began changing

1:00:40

their message a bit, right? I

1:00:44

mean, when they conquered Sana'a, they'd say, don't worry,

1:00:46

we'll be the stewards of the Gulf Initiative. We're going to see

1:00:48

this new constitution through. But then

1:00:51

more and more, they were saying, you know, this new

1:00:53

constitution, this is another, you

1:00:55

know, U.S. plot to divide and conquer Yemen. We

1:00:57

don't like this federal system. I mean, we now

1:01:00

know that's because they

1:01:02

wanted a very unitary system with

1:01:04

them in control. So you

1:01:06

and other people realizing what was up, you started to protest.

1:01:09

We started to arrange

1:01:11

protests similar to those of 2011, arranging

1:01:14

them calling university students

1:01:16

to mobilize and start protesting. And

1:01:19

the Houthis brutally and heavily

1:01:21

cracked down on those protesters,

1:01:25

literally chasing people down the streets. I

1:01:27

remember they arrested one journalist

1:01:30

whom they beat until death. Another

1:01:32

journalist, he literally went missing. And until

1:01:34

today, we don't know where he is. And

1:01:37

the general environment in Sana'a has changed. So

1:01:40

that period of activism

1:01:42

and civil society, that environment

1:01:45

is over. It's no more. And

1:01:47

what about the Houthi political office

1:01:50

that was set up and all those liberal,

1:01:52

you know, revolutionary fellow travelers

1:01:54

of yours who had decided to work with

1:01:57

the Houthis inside the Houthi political

1:01:59

office in Sana'a? What happened to those

1:02:01

guys? I mean, are they? They

1:02:04

must have felt like they'd been hoodwinked. So

1:02:06

they actually split. There are the people

1:02:08

who then felt like actually they've been betrayed

1:02:10

by Abdul Malik al-Husi. And the others were

1:02:13

saying actually it might be a good political

1:02:15

move to now aligning ourselves with the Husis.

1:02:18

Now the Husi ideologues in the political

1:02:20

office are now coming up and

1:02:22

now it's threatening messages.

1:02:25

They are kind of revealing their true

1:02:27

identity. Well, I'm afraid

1:02:29

now, dear listener, I'm going to have to zoom over a

1:02:31

few months so that we can reach the

1:02:33

climax of this very interesting, quite

1:02:36

long story. In January

1:02:38

of 2015, your old ally

1:02:41

in the national dialogue, Ahmed Bin

1:02:43

Mubarak, who was close to President Hadi.

1:02:46

By that time, he's the President's

1:02:48

Chief of Staff. So Ahmed Bin Mubarak,

1:02:50

the President's Chief of Staff, as

1:02:52

arranged, is going one day

1:02:54

to meet with national dialogue members

1:02:57

to approve the new constitution. This was

1:02:59

supposed to be a great day of triumph.

1:03:02

Sadly, this didn't happen. On the way,

1:03:04

on his way, Bin Mubarak was abducted

1:03:06

by the Husis. The Husis wanted to prevent

1:03:09

the formal kind of ratification

1:03:11

of the constitution. At this point,

1:03:14

finally, President Hadi decides

1:03:16

to fight back. Sana devolves

1:03:18

into fighting. For three days, there's lots of fighting.

1:03:21

Hadi is captured. He's placed under house

1:03:23

arrest. The Houthis now formally

1:03:25

take over. It's an actual coup.

1:03:28

For three and a half, four weeks, everyone is wondering

1:03:30

what's going to happen. Hadi's there in the

1:03:32

presidential palace in Sana'a under house

1:03:34

arrest until, surprise,

1:03:36

surprise, on the 21st of February 2015,

1:03:40

Hadi pops up in Aden

1:03:42

on the south coast. Somehow,

1:03:45

some friendly country, I don't know which

1:03:47

one, Amen, do you? I had smuggled

1:03:50

Hadi out of the presidential palace in

1:03:52

Sana'a to the presidential palace in

1:03:54

Aden, where he stated openly, This

1:03:56

is now the capital of the real Yemen.

1:04:00

the real president of Yemen and

1:04:02

the Houthis say, get

1:04:06

him! They've already been rampaging

1:04:08

down to the south alongside forces

1:04:10

loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh and

1:04:12

that's where, because you know, you always

1:04:15

turn up in the most unlucky places of Iraq,

1:04:17

you're actually in Aden by this

1:04:19

point. When

1:04:22

President Hadi says, I'm here and the Houthis

1:04:25

say, we're coming to get you. I'm

1:04:27

just walking a few weeks before this event.

1:04:29

First of all, we were in Sana'a, we're arranging

1:04:31

for those protests, but actually

1:04:34

I then meet with other

1:04:36

young activists who actually say, actually,

1:04:39

we need another move. We need to bring

1:04:42

now a national bloc against

1:04:44

the Houthis that its sole purpose is

1:04:47

to counter the coup. We

1:04:49

actually managed to bring all of the political parties

1:04:51

and we make the official announcement for this national

1:04:54

bloc, but actually we cannot

1:04:57

meet in Sana'a. Sana'a is run by the Houthis.

1:05:00

So you went to Aden? We go

1:05:02

to Aden. I'm literally joking

1:05:05

with Thomas. I was smuggled by

1:05:07

a tribal leader who was a fellow

1:05:10

colleague at the National Dialogue who said, don't worry,

1:05:13

I'll help you to get into Aden.

1:05:16

This time I'm with literally a combination

1:05:19

of multiple groups who in

1:05:22

normal times would not meet

1:05:24

with each other or trust each other. You have

1:05:27

secessionists who

1:05:29

are now kind of ready because they know that Salah

1:05:31

and the Houthis are

1:05:33

now aligning themselves for this

1:05:35

coming attack on Aden. You have

1:05:38

tribal leaders who are saying, let's come

1:05:41

together and support Hadi and the

1:05:43

traditional political parties, all of us having

1:05:45

this meeting in Aden. And

1:05:48

quickly as soon as we arrived,

1:05:50

the Houthis arrived right

1:05:53

after us and they're fighting starts around

1:05:55

the outskirts of Aden airport. They

1:05:57

take the airport. the

1:06:00

street, it's proper fighting. And then,

1:06:03

sort of most shocking of all, there is

1:06:05

an extraordinary air force

1:06:07

strike on the presidential palace

1:06:10

in Aden. I mean, that must have been very strange.

1:06:12

It's like, the Houthis are now flying.

1:06:14

They have, you know, jets. They're Salah's

1:06:19

jets. So it's now like not an open

1:06:21

sea. Everyone knows Salah is working with the

1:06:23

Houthis. He's using the military

1:06:26

officers and now the Yemeni

1:06:28

air force to bomb President Hadi.

1:06:30

We actually think on that day that actually Hadi

1:06:32

is dead. That's right. So the presidential

1:06:35

palace in Aden is attacked by

1:06:37

the Yemeni air force, loyal to

1:06:39

Salah. And everyone thinks Hadi

1:06:41

is dead. Let's put a pin in it there. Amen.

1:06:44

At this point, Amen, you've

1:06:46

been so quiet listening to this thrilling story

1:06:48

from our friend Bara. At this point, Ali

1:06:51

Abdullah Salah's son, Ahmed

1:06:54

Salah, goes to

1:06:56

Riyadh. Now, we

1:06:58

have overlooked a very important sort of event

1:07:01

that happened in the last two months of

1:07:03

the story, which is that King Abdullah died,

1:07:06

was replaced by his brother Salman,

1:07:09

King Salman, who immediately appointed

1:07:11

his relatively little-known,

1:07:14

quite young son, Mohammed bin

1:07:16

Salman, as Minister of Defense.

1:07:20

Ahmed Salah goes to visit

1:07:22

MBS, Minister of Defense, because

1:07:25

Salah's thinking, this is where I

1:07:27

cash in. This was my plan.

1:07:30

I was going to give the Houthis a

1:07:32

lot of power. They've now conquered

1:07:35

half the country. The Saudis

1:07:37

will have to intervene

1:07:39

on my behalf, helping me to fight

1:07:41

the Houthis and put me back in power.

1:07:44

So how did MBS respond to this conversation

1:07:47

with Salah's son? In a sense,

1:07:50

if I want to condense the whole thing, well,

1:07:52

we don't do deals with foxes. So

1:07:55

it didn't go well for Ahmed? It didn't go well. What's

1:07:57

the word on the street in Yemen about this conversation?

1:08:00

between Ahmad Saleh and MBS. So, Saleh

1:08:02

loyalists are feeling very confident. Their

1:08:05

guy is now soon is going

1:08:07

to be back in power. Had

1:08:09

the no one knows where he is right now

1:08:11

and we are basically left in the

1:08:13

streets of Aden. I remember the fighting

1:08:16

is happening from one street to another. Suddenly

1:08:18

there is no checkpoints, there is no security

1:08:21

officers, no police stations, nothing

1:08:23

except Houthis and members

1:08:26

of a combination of tribal factions

1:08:28

and secessionist group and some slahis

1:08:30

and salafis and kind of combined

1:08:33

together in this weird moment fighting

1:08:36

the Houthis in the streets of Aden. And this is literally

1:08:39

from one street to another, a street to

1:08:41

street fighting. And Ahmad Saleh

1:08:43

in his meeting with MBS

1:08:45

feeling very confident, he delivers

1:08:48

a very threatening message to

1:08:50

MBS and at the same time

1:08:52

the Houthis alongside Saleh

1:08:55

are deploying a military maneuver at

1:08:57

the border with Saudi Arabia. And basically

1:09:00

what he was threatening him is that either you back

1:09:02

us up or we are going to unleash hell

1:09:06

on Saudi Arabia. Well, I

1:09:08

believe that MBS

1:09:10

responded with some pretty saucy

1:09:13

language and told him to

1:09:15

go fuck himself frankly I think. I

1:09:17

think that is a good summary of how that meeting went down. Yeah,

1:09:20

yeah, yeah, he told them we don't entertain foxes. So

1:09:22

Saleh was sent packing and on the 25th

1:09:25

of March 2015 out

1:09:27

of the blue Saudi Arabia intervened

1:09:31

in the Yemeni civil war. The important

1:09:33

thing to stress is the civil war

1:09:35

had then been raging for six months and

1:09:38

more. It was a proper civil war. Ahmad

1:09:40

Saleh had threatened Saudi Arabia with

1:09:43

attack from the Houthis if he didn't intervene

1:09:45

in the war on his behalf. So

1:09:48

Saudi Arabia said actually no, we are going to intervene

1:09:50

on the side of the UN supported

1:09:53

President Hadi, the official president of Yemen. And

1:09:55

as you said Thomas, I always pop up at

1:09:57

the interesting places. I

1:10:00

remember very well the airport

1:10:02

was shut down for several days. I

1:10:04

was stuck because I wanted to fly to London

1:10:07

to meet my wife. And then suddenly

1:10:09

I get a call from a friend who was at

1:10:11

the airport saying, I can actually book you in. This

1:10:14

is the last flight leaving Aiden. And

1:10:16

when I start to try to negotiate with him, he said,

1:10:18

this is it. You're either on this flight or

1:10:21

you're stuck. I go to the airport

1:10:23

and I meet the Yemeni foreign minister

1:10:26

at the airport. And we have a discussion. He tells

1:10:28

me he is now flying to Cairo,

1:10:30

to the Arab summit. And

1:10:33

he is calling in officially the

1:10:35

Arab intervention. He actually doesn't believe

1:10:38

that the Arab countries will respond or

1:10:41

actually agree to intervene

1:10:43

on the Yemeni government's behalf. Well, he was wrong

1:10:45

about that. And as your plane took

1:10:48

off from Aiden airport, Saudi

1:10:50

planes backed by a large

1:10:53

coalition of Arab countries, which would then

1:10:55

over the next few days get larger. And over the next

1:10:57

few weeks would get you in backing. Operation

1:11:00

Decisive Storm was launched. And

1:11:02

another chapter in Yemen's long

1:11:05

and complicated history opened. The

1:11:08

chapter of the great war

1:11:10

in Yemen, which continues to rage

1:11:12

to this day. This is where we're going to

1:11:15

stop. Barat, thank you so much.

1:11:17

I mean, I'm sure the dear listener knows

1:11:20

more about Yemen than he ever thought he would.

1:11:22

And can make sense now of

1:11:25

all of those headlines he's seen off

1:11:27

and on for the last eight years.

1:11:31

Dear listener, we will be back for

1:11:34

one final episode with Barat and

1:11:36

Aiman for sure this time, bringing us

1:11:39

up to the present day in Yemen and showing

1:11:41

how events in Yemen are linked to

1:11:44

the events, sadly, tragically,

1:11:47

ominously playing out on the ground right now in

1:11:49

Palestine and Israel. So stay

1:11:52

tuned for that. A

1:11:57

reminder that you can follow the show over on

1:11:59

Facebook and... and Twitter at mhconflicted.

1:12:02

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1:12:04

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1:12:15

out over conflicted related topics. Conflicted

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is a message heard production. This episode

1:12:20

was produced and edited by Harry Stott. Sandra

1:12:23

Ferrari is our executive producer. Our

1:12:25

theme music is by Matt Huxley and

1:12:27

Tom Biddle.

1:13:23

Thank you very much.