Southern Yemen aflame

With all the focus on typhoons and earthquakes in the Pacific there has been scant media coverage of the unrest that is currently engulfing southern and northern Yemen. While much has been written about the armed conflict in the north by MECASR in recent months the southern issue has received only passing interest. Over the past three days southerners alligned to the Southern Movement, a group of southern parties and civil groups opposed to the continued economic and political marginalisation of southern Yemen by the north, have staged numerous demonstrations and protests, clashing with security forces in Lajhij and Abyan governorates on a number of occassions. Dozens of people have been wounded in the unrest. The protesters have also taken to attacking government installations and removing Yemen flags replacing them with the former Southern Yemen flag in places where the government has only a limited presence (the north and south fought a brief civil war in the early 1990s following unification of the two states). The central government has since deployed additional troops to the south to quell the uprising - focusing its efforts on the towns of Zinjibar and Habilyan, the worst affected centres. We can expect further violence in coming days. If the Southern Movement decide to proceed with their activities it will come at a particular good time as the central government is distracted by fighting rebels in the northern Saada governorate. Game on.

Afghan quagmire and solutions

NATO's recent offensive in southern Afghanistan has clearly failed. The Taleban have done what everyone, except the American commanders realised, they simply relocated to the mountains and in the timeless Afghan tradition will wait out the foreign invaders. The question for US-led NATO now is, now what? Numerous exit strategies have been presented such as defeating the Taleban militarily and co-opting local tribal groups; however, Obama summed it up recently when he said there was no quick fix and the US would need to spend a great deal of time in the country. Mecasr has been thinking about possible end-games of late and has come up with a few suggestions:

 

1. Divide the country up into three countries and cede some Pushtun areas along the Pakistan border to Pakistan. Too much investment has gone into Kabul while its extremities are racked by conflict, tribalism and ethnic distrust. Giving people their own state is the only solution. As we saw with Korea and Japan, homogenous societies are quite capable of developing - ethnic rivalries are the primary point of contestation in states from Africa to Asia where the democratic model has failed.

 

2. Centre all NATO forces on the three main cities, Kandahar, Herat and Kabul and the transport routes. Leave the Taleban in their mountain strongholds.

 

3. Reform the state. Corruption is rampant. Get rid of the riff raff and start again. Karzai must go.

 

4. Include Iran and other neighbouring states in the internal security of the state. NATO can't do it alone.

Major setback for rebels in northern Yemen

If the Shiite rebels based in the north of Yemen didn't know, they do now. There forces are superiorly inferior to the Yemeni army. An attack by hundreds of rebels supported by captured armoured vehicles against government targets in the embattled Saada City yesterday was a spectacular failure. It is believed that the rebels were aiming to catch the army off guard (the army having recently announced a ceasefire to coincide with Eid) and capture the presidential palace. Instead the rebels lost over 140 men in a major setback for the group. It is believed that as soon as the rebel advance was noticed Yemeni airstrikes were called in and quickly turned the battle. It is surprising that mere days after a Yemeni airforce airstrike killed 87 refugees in an Amran camp that the rebels would attempt to strike without air cover or support. A simple battlefield blunder has cost the rebels a real chance to swing the war in their favour and may lead to them accepting ceasefire terms soon.

Quds, Holocaust denial and unrest - Just another day in Iran

The annual al-Quds rallies in Iran in support of Palestinians have descended into a massive anti-government protest. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have used the events to indicate their support for one of the losing presidential candidates, Mousavi, in the recently held June 09 elections. The support has, however, been met with a swift police crackdown and there are unconfirmed reports of small scale clashes between police and citizens across Tehran - mirroring similar violence following the disputed June elections. Amid all of this fresh unrest President Ahmadinejad spewed the usual anti-Israeli rhetoric to a receptive audience of party apparatchiks at the Tehran University, claiming (again) that the Holocaust was a myth created by the West and Israel to justify the occupation of Palestinian lands. Mecasr are watching developments closely and with great interest. The question on everyone's minds now is "can the opposition sustain the protests?" The answer is probably not but one never knows. The 1979 revolution came as a surprise to the Shah, but then again only his mother and Jimmy Carter loved him. In Iran today there enough people to prop up the regime.

The Night of Power

Muslims across the world will commemorate the Night of Power or Laylat al-Qadr either today or tomorrow night. It is widely beleived that this is the night that the Angel Gabriel revealed the Holy Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. The Quran purportedly states that the night is better than a thousand months. For fundamentalists and extremists the occassion is (incorrectly) believed to increase the browny points you receive in the after life if you martyr yourself. Keep an eye on Middle Eastern states and US Embassies tonight.

 

Islamist group claims rocket "barrage"

The Ziad al-Jarrah division of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an al-Qaeda linked group, claimed responsibility today for the firing of two rockets into northern Israel last week. The rockets, which landed in an open area and did not cause any damage or casualties, stirred the IDF into action, which levelled a grassy knoll in southern Lebanon in violent retribution....stop press...The action is unlikley to lead to any serious deterioration in relations between Lebanon and Israel which are already at an all time low and it will take far more to stir the IDF into retaliating as it did in 2006. It will also require the IDF to be ready to retaliate. At the moment it may have the capability, but not the political backing. The action would need to be far more significant, perhaps a kidnapping or an incursion inside Israeli territory. Mecasr continues to monitor.

Rockets fired into northern Israel

Explosions have been reported near Israel's northern border with Lebanon. It is believed that militants fired two rockets from a village in Hezbollah dominated southern Lebanon into the Nahariya region. There have been no reports of damage or casualties. The Israeli army have responded with artillery fire towards the source of the rocket fire. This is the first time rockets have been fired into Israel since the beginning of 2008 and the 2006 Hezbollah - Israel conflict. Mecasr is monitoring.

1984 in 2009

It's a tough old time for reformists in Iran at present. Following the disputed presidential polls and anti-government unrest in June there were overly optimistic hopes that the Guardian Council or the Supreme Leader (yes you heard right...) would perhaps overturn the election or at least stage a show recount of ballots that officially declared incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as president for a second five year term. Alas, no. Ahmadinejad (pictured here pointing at and chastising members of the Tehran knitting club) was declared winner and last week had his new cabinet approved by the Supreme Leader (really cool name that) which has helped him regain his momentum to pursue his conservative policies (and chase down those that opposed him in the aftermath of the June poll). Yesterday some website reported that Alireza Hosseini Beheshti, a leading opposition figure and ally of the guy a lot of Tehranians think should have won the poll (Mousavi), was recently arrested by the authorities on orders from Tehran's prosecutor - no doubt a firm Ahmadinejad supporter. Former Tehran mayor, Morteza Alviri, has also felt the wrath of the local militia and is currently enjoying his Persian Pasti in a local gaol. Further arrests are likely. But what's behind it, really? Well, the guys arrested have been leading an opposition committee in investigating abuses by the authorities during the June/July unrest that they say left 70 people dead (the government say 26). They also accuse the security forces of abuse, ranging from the standard torture to rape. Clearly, these chaps haven't read Orwell's 1984 or have and are looking to supplement their diet with Iranian prison biscuits. What is clear is that the government will become more brazen in the weeks and months to come. They have the backing of the big wigs and the Supreme Leader (really cool title) and hold one enormous grudge. Reformists beware.

Yemen's decidedly bleak future - Cake and Armageddon

Yemen remains in the grip of a bloody internal power struggle. Since 11 August, Yemeni troops backed by their tribal allies have engaged the Shiite Zaidi Houthi rebels in fierce battles across the impoverished and mountainous northern Yemen in the aptly named Scorched Earth operation. The battles have claimed dozens of lives and displaced thousands more. In the primary urban centre, Saada City, thousands of civilians are without power and water and food supplies are running low - this state of affairs led the government to announce a ceasefire on Friday so as to allow aid groups access to the governorate and assist those worst affected. The ceasefire, according to state media, lasted only a few hours and was finally rejected on Saturday when Houthi rebels reportedly massacred a group of women and children in a remote northern village. The claim by the government should be taken with a pinch of salt of course and is most likely propaganda, used to stir up popular support for the army's war effort in the north. Then again the Shiite rebels are certainly not what one would call Peace Corps material and a massacre or two can not be put past them. Heavy fighting continued yesterday around Saada City with Yemeni armoured columns surrounding the Old City in Saada, a rebel stronghold. The fighting has raised concerns, yet again, that Yemen may be descending, yet again, into complete anarchy and failed state status. Such declarations of doom are made regularly when discussing Yemen. Separatist sentiment in the south, persistent tribal and clan violence and the growing presence of the routed Saudi Arabian al-Qaeda branch in the country's lawless eastern provinces are often mentioned as precursors to Armageddon in the southern Arabian Peninsula. We at Mecasr believe that these issues are secondary to the real problem in Yemen - the political system is the real issue. Racked by corruption and propped up by an unstable patronage system, the Yemeni polity is one disaster short of a complete collapse. The GPC, the ruling party, has dominated Yemeni politics since unification in the early 90s and is led by the iron willed but ageing Ali Saleh (sounds decidedly like North Korea, Libya, Niger, Zimbabwe…etc etc). This volatile mix of political exclusionism and rise of popular discontent have created a deadly mix of revolutionary cake of which Marie Antoinette would be proud. Naturally it is up to the people themselves if they wish to take a bite.

Settlements, peace and Benji

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "pull the wool over your eyes" Netenyahu has approved the building of a score of houses in the West Bank ahead of a potential freeze on settlements of 6-9 months to allow for peace negotiations. This has been done to ease the pressure he faces from those within his government to allow settlements and from the Americans and Palestinians (the Fatah lot, not Hamas) who want him to stop. Yet, any thinking person must agree that at the end of the day there will be more settlements not less just so that in a month's time the Israelis can say "look we have frozen all settlements". To any thinking person, this is an outrage. The settlements must be frozen immediately. Some if not most of them should be removed and the whole of the West Bank should be amalgamated into a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. It is only fair. Israel may be the chosen people in the bible, but the nation has long since given up any right to the land it currently occupies, in my opinion. Its people certainly should be allowed to live there, but if it wishes to be part of the great democratic world it must allow all of its citizens (including Palestinians in the Gaza and West Bank) to vote. If it doesn't want this it must leave these territories alone and remove all of its interests there. Agree/disagree? Post a comment.

Waving despots away, not this year.

Yet another African despot has banned term limits and set his goal on immortality; however, this time round our sub-Saharan banana republics aren't to blame. Tunisia, that jewel in the desert, the final resting place of Rommel's Afrika Korps and land of equal opportunity has sprouted yet another unsurprising declaration on the disinterested world by allowing its ageing and much loved ruler, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to to stand for another term in presidential elections on 25 October. Watchers of Tunisia politics (basically three guys at a college in Harvard) will remember that Ali won the previous elections with 95% of the vote. A remarkable figure even for a demi-god. Yet the win and the muted response from the Tunisians themselves is interesting. Do they in fact like Ali more than democracy? Has the West got it wrong? Perhaps democracy isn't for everyone...Recent events in Mauritania, Niger and Guinea uphold the strong belief that locals don't mind a strong man, in fact they encourage it. Or perhaps the fact that your family will be prosecuted and tortured is motivation enough for someone to support a strong man....all unanswered questions...Mecasr watches with interest.

The rise of Iran's proxy?

Succession politics seems to be the flavour of the month in the Middle East this century with yet another son taking over from a deceased Dad. Ammar al-Hakim (shown above sporting a spiffy black number), son of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, has taken control of the powerful Iraqi political party, Supreme Islamic Iraq Council (SIIC). The SIIC has close ties to Iran and is one of the most powerful political bodies in Iraq. It also leads a Shiite coalition in Iraq, which is being tipped to win the upcoming 2010 general elections, this despite the recent withdrawal of Nouri al-Maliki's (the current prime minister) Dawa party. If this were to happen, Iran would have a powerful stake in Iraqi politics - something it has yearned for since the creation of the Iraqi state. This would have deep implications for Iraq's Kurd and Sunni populations, particularly if any new Shiite coalition took steps to sideline them with regard to oil revenue. To date the SIIC has played ball and talk from Ammar is that unity and Iraqi interests will come first. Unfortunately for Ammar, such words are largely empty and have been used by dictators in the region for generations. Ammar's succession also hints at oligarchy and nepotism and as all us good democrats know, such things are bad, real bad.