Jason Law

Freelance Writer

Research Paper on the Yemeni Civil War

Jason Law
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With a focus on developments in the South

I wrote this research paper for my first client on UpWork. They worked at the American Centre for South Yemen Studies, a think tank based in Washington D.C. They asked me to write a comprehensive summary of the civil war in Yemen, with a focus on the Southern Transitional Council.
The brief from the client was rather vague, but they asked me to include all important events from the onset of the war until August 2022.
Prior to writing this my knowledge of the war was minimal.

Understanding the War in Yemen

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. The Houthis
  3. The Southern Movement
  4. The Southern Transitional Council
  5. STC and Arab Coalition infighting
  6. A Troubled Alliance
  7. The Riyadh Agreement
  8. A difficult year for the South
  9. Marib
  10. Escalation and ceasefire
  11. The Presidential Leadership Council
  12. The future of the conflict
  13. International Interests
  14. Conclusion

The Yemeni Civil War has been raging for almost eight years now, and the situation in the country and surrounding regions continues to grow more complicated. What began as an overthrowing of the Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi-led Yemeni government by the armed political Houthi movement in September 2014, has morphed into a complex humanitarian crisis involving many political factions and foreign interests. The conflict now involves numerous parties, each with their own backing and agendas, but the core dispute lies between the Houthi-held North Yemen and a fragile alliance of other factions who control the Southern and Eastern regions of Yemen. In order to better understand the multifaceted conflict, it is important to take a comprehensive look at the history, allegiances and support of the warring sides.

The Houthis

The Houthi movement, originally calling themselves Believing Youth, emerged in North Yemen in the 1990s. The youth network was made up of mostly Zaydi Shiite Muslims, a minority within the wider Islamic Shiite global population, who are already a minority sect within the Islamic world. The Zaydi’s name and beliefs are centered around historical and religious figure Zayd bin Ali, the great grandson of Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law, who led an uprising against the Umayyad Empire in 740AD. Zayd’s legacy forms the backbone of the Zaydi people’s socio-political beliefs; standing up against marginalization and corrupt regimes, and the rejection of foreign intervention in their own sovereignty.

A large portion of this Yemeni Zaydi Islamic sect morphed into a politicized movement, fostered by Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi, a political activist and former member of Al-Haqq party in Yemeni parliament from 1993-1997. He helped them to organize a movement under his name, and to spread religious education and social welfare. It’s worth noting that although Zaydis make up the vast majority of the Houthi movement, not all Zaydis are Houthis.

During the formation of the Houthi movement, a Zaydi republican general named Ali Abdullah Saleh was in charge of Yemen following a series of coups in 1978. He became the first Yemeni president in 1990 after uniting North and South Yemen, and was backed by Saudi Arabia and the USA for his stance against al-Qaida in the 1990s and 2000s.

The Houthis began to rebel against Saleh in the 1990s, charging him with corruption and the theft of Arab wealth for his own family and foreign interests. The group became radicalized in 2003 following the US invasion of Iraq and officially changed their name to Ansar Allah (supporters of God). Supported by Hezbollah and Iran, in part due to their common enemies Saudi Arabia and the USA, they began an armed resistance against Saleh, whose forces eventually killed al-Houthi in 2004. Spurred on by his death, the Houthis became increasingly armed and militant, and continued to resist government forces until Saleh’s resignation in 2012 following the Arab Spring protests of 2011.

Saleh was succeeded by Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. Hadi was no less politically divisive than Saleh, and in 2014, after enacting deep cuts in fuel subsidies to attract foreign funding, protests erupted – many of which were led by Houthi rebels. When Yemeni security forces opened fire in Sanaa, killing several, a series of escalating confrontations began in September 2014, culminating in the Houthi takeover of the capital city in January 2015. This marked the beginning of the current Yemeni war.

The unexpected seizure of power forced Hadi to flee to Aden in Southern Yemen, where he gathered support from multiple countries in the region, the most prominent being Saudi Arabia. Hadi’s internationally recognized government (IRG) were also backed by the USA, UK, Canada, Germany and France, who all supplied weapons to the international military intervention. Hadi soon fled to Saudi Arabia to rule from exile, while the Saudi-led coalition began their campaign against the Houthis. During this time, Saleh re-emerged as a quiet but important supporter of the Houthis. The Saudis expected the conflict to last a mere few months, but the Houthis proved themselves to be a formidable force after the Saudis suffered several humiliating defeats, resulting in the United Nations intervening to try and broker a peace agreement in December 2015, to no avail.

On December 4th 2017, Saleh unexpectedly broke ties with the Houthis and called for an end to their aggression and military blockades, calling on allies in neighboring countries to support the General People’s Congress resistance to the Houthis. His plea for help was largely ignored, and two day’s later, Yemen’s longest serving politician was killed in a brutal battle in Sanaa.

The Southern Movement

At the same time that the Houthis had been growing into a militarized force, the people of South Yemen were going through their own political struggles and organization.  Until the unification of North and South Yemen by Saleh in 1990, The South of Yemen, or the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) had existed as an independent state, with the strategic port city of Aden as their capital. Following the unification however, the South was largely used as a source of resources to enrich Saleh and his own family and allies. This led to an attempt by the South to separate in the 1994 Yemeni civil war – an attempt which ultimately failed, leading to further marginalization and oppression of Southerners by Saleh’s regime, and the formation of several Separatist groups.

The loss of the 1994 war resulted in the South being treated as “spoils of war”, with companies, land, and resources largely being appropriated by the North, especially in the vital port city of Aden which is integral to Yemen’s infrastructure and economy. This consistent plundering of the livelihoods of the former PDRY led to the formation of the Southern Movement in 2007. The Movement saw the unification of North and South Yemen as an occupation of the South by the North, especially after the 1994 war. The movement’s birth ignited peaceful protests, which were met with extreme force from Saleh’s military and over 2000 southerners were killed in the clashes – years before the larger Yemeni conflict even began.

The movement slowly gained momentum over the next several years, but the outbreak of the current Yemeni civil war created a new opportunity for the former PDRY to once again gain its independence. When Hadi left Sanaa after it fell to the Houthis, he spent his time in Aden gathering international support from multiple countries in the region and backing from Western powers, forming a Saudi-led coalition against the Houthis. As the Houthis began advancing on the South, Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia, but his time spent in Aden had placed the seeds of an alliance, since the Southern Movement and Hadi’s IRG had a common enemy in Saleh and the Houthis.

The Southern Transitional Council

The Saudi-led coalition began Operation Decisive Storm in March 2015, with military support from nine Arab countries and financial support and weapons from the West. Though initially intended to be a swift intervention to remove Houthi control over the North, it was met with fierce resistance and ultimately failed to regain territorial control, and so Operation Restoring Hope began in April 2015. This campaign mainly consisted of the Saudi Air Force bombing Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the next several years, which has decimated its infrastructure and people.

Although fighters of the Southern resistance fought beside the Arab coalition and had a string of successes in pushing the Houthis out of their territories, the people of the South were marginalized, shunned and not given sufficient political representation in the overall struggle.  As a result of the extreme deterioration of living conditions, the political persecution of prominent leaders in the Southern movement, social oppression against its people (Hirak), and lastly the removal of Aden’s governor Aidarous Qassim Al Zubaidi by Hadi in April 2017, mass protests broke out in the South. In May 2017, the Aden Historic Declaration announced the formation of the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist political body to represent the South under the leadership of Al Zubaidi as the  head of a 26-seat council, with the goals of uniting diverse secessionist groups across South Yemen and cementing themselves as an individual state.

STC and Arab Coalition infighting

The UAE had long been providing military and financial backing to the Security Belt, a 90,000 strong paramilitary Yemeni group holding the frontlines against the Houthis in what was now STC-controlled land. UAE support continued following the STC’s declaration, which raised some concern amongst some Hirak who felt foreign involvement stood against their ideals. In January 2018, full-scale street clashes broke out between Hadi-supporters and STC-loyal Popular Resistance fighters in Aden, over Al Zubaidi’s call for Hadi to nominate a new cabinet. The STC troops dominated Hadi’s forces and the latter were ordered to retreat from the city, to avoid stoking resentment in the South. Saudi Arabia, seeing the threat of regime collapse in Yemen amidst the infighting, committed two billion dollars to pay Yemeni civil servants, strengthen the economy and boost support for Hadi’s unpopular (in the South) government.

The UAE, though a partner in the Saudi-led coalition, has long had particular interests in the South. They have financed reconstruction efforts there, trained Southern troops and worked with Al Zubaidi to rid Aden of jihadist groups. Some Hirak argue that the UAE’s support is due to their sea route strategy to create a chain of significant port cities including Aden, so in this respect, the South Yemeni people’s views align with the rest of the country (even the Houthis) – that no foreign nation’s interests should take priority over the sovereignty of Yemen.

A Troubled Alliance

In 2018, the strained coalition of the Hadi government and the STC continued to push back against the Houthis. The STC were engaged in a drawn-out battle to retake the Western Red Sea port city of Al Hudaydah, which accounted for 27% of the Houthis income, making it an important strategic point of contention in the conflict. Seeing the UAE’s backing of the STC as an act of antagonization, the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on Abu Dabhi airport – which some sources purport to be false information. Though there was no credible source for the attack having even took place, the Houthis were openly declaring that they were engaging in attacks on the UAE as a response to their involvement in the STC’s battle for Al Hudaydah. The UN brokered a ceasefire in the port city in December 2018, as it played an integral part in supplying aid to Yemen’s people.

Following the ceasefire, fighting between the Houthis and STC settled down somewhat, and fractures within the anti-Houthi coalition began to deepen. In early 2019, Hadi called for a parliamentary meeting after pro-independence Southerners refused to host what they called “the occupying force” of the Yemeni government, an act which Hadi’s government insisted was incited and enforced by the UAE. Hadi’s own party, the General People’s Congress (GPC) was at the time fragmented, like many of the major players in the Yemeni civil war. Two sub-factions within the GPC were those supportive of the Houthis and the Hadi-allied Yemeni Reform Congregation or ‘Al-Islah’.

The STC and UAE strongly opposed Islah, due to their affiliations with the Yemeni Muslim Brotherhood and alleged connections to Al-Qaida, yet Saudi Arabia had in recent years rebuilt ties with the group to strengthen the coalitions efforts against the Houthis. In August 2019, several terror strikes killed dozens in Aden, for which the Houthis claimed responsibility, seeking to send a warning to Saudi Arabia and the UAE to cease their military operations in Yemen. The STC however, brought forward evidence that the attack had been orchestrated by Islah, and the Security Belt Forces initiated the forceful takeover of Aden and surrounding key military bases, expelling Union forces while reestablishing the port city as the capital of the South, as it had been before the 1994 civil war. The Saudis responded with airstrikes against the STC on the same day but failed to take back the territories. Their decisive eviction of all Hadi-allied forces across the South, including from Shabwah and Hadi’s home region of Abyan, highlighted the fragility of the Houthi-opposition coalition.

The Riyadh Agreement

The fracturing of allegiances within the coalition alarmed Saudi Arabia, who invited Hadi and the STC leadership to Riyadh in October 2019 to reach an agreement on working together to ensure security in the South. Lauded by the UN and Saudi’s Western allies, the November 5th Riyadh agreement finally provided the STC with international recognition and gave them legitimate representation and participation in the government delegation to find a political solution to the Houthi coup. The agreement covered several main points including the removal of STC and government forces from Aden, the reorganization of security and counterterrorism forces to ensure collaboration, and the creation of a new national cabinet made up of 24 ministerial positions equally divided between the north and south, amongst other conditions.

Unfortunately, the diplomatic agreement ended up being mostly a formality that led to very little actual change other than the return of the Prime Minister of the IRG to Aden. One condition of the agreement was the removal of all military forces (on both sides) from Aden (a condition which for the most part was not met), except for the Yemeni Presidential Guard. As the Riyadh agreement had so far shown little benefit to the South, the STC pulled out of the committees implementing it, announcing that the move was in protest of the Islah forces’ continued violence in the South’s Shabwa province.

On 18 January 2020, a Mosque in the central city of Marib was struck by a missile, killing 116 men serving Aden’s Presidential Guard. Hadi was quick to blame the Houthis, as were foreign observers, but the rebel group denied any involvement, prompting an internal investigation which was inconclusive but suggested Emirati or Saudi responsibility. Distrust was fermenting amongst the Saudi-UAE alliance as many of the deadlines proposed by the Riyadh agreement were not met and the conditions had not been sufficiently implemented. In April 2020, the STC announced they were to “self-rule”, breaking ranks with Hadis IRG and sparking clashes across South Yemen. However, in July, Saudi Arabia proposed the acceleration of the Riyadh Agreement’s execution, leading the STC to rescind their demands for self-governance and re-commit to the power-sharing deal they had originally struck.

2021 – A difficult year for the South

In late December 2020, Hadi swore in a new government under the supervision of Saudi Arabia, in accordance with the deal struck a year before. The 24-member cabinet included five members of the STC in an attempt to alleviate struggles between secessionists and those loyal to Hadi. Open warfare between the IRG and the STC largely quieted over the course of 2021, though the South’s distrust of the Islah party made it difficult for the new government to adhere to the conditions set out in their deal, leading to a rapidly deteriorating economic situation. The sharp decline of the Yemeni rial (in part exacerbated by the COVID pandemic) gave rise to mass protests across Southern and Central Yemen. The STC was attempting to balance the dissonance of pushing for independence as a Southern state while also remaining loyal to the newly formed government. If they appeared to favor one agenda over the other, they risked alienating either their domestic support or losing the international community’s backing. They openly supported some of the protests by their own people while quelling others.

Their difficulties in improving living conditions in the South caused a decrease in popularity amongst those who had been hesitant to fully support the STC, while their attempts to strengthen the power of local authorities in Aden risked antagonizing Saudi Arabia and international allies by undermining the government. In May 2021, the STC leader Aiderous al-Zubaidi returned to Aden to rule after being based in the UAE since 2019. Bolstered by this, the STC attempted to play a larger role in state institutions and Southern State Media in the lead up to July, which led to the furthering of tensions and the condemnation of Saudi Arabia in the same month. There were calls for parliament to reconvene and continue their work on solidifying the distribution of power and reconstruction of the economy, but disagreements on whether to hold the parliamentary meeting in Aden or Seiyun never reached a resolution.

Both the STC and Hadi-loyal sides of the fragile allegiance wanted to be seen as the legitimate power in the South, so their collaboration hit an impasse. The ongoing fight against the Houthis was the core goal maintaining any semblance of unity amongst the parties. As the Houthis had for years been strengthening their currently held positions militarily, socially and politically, the people of the South maintained faith in the STC out of fear, due to the Houthis steady and successful push towards the key city of Marib. The infighting amongst the government-allied South had weakened them in the face of the broadly united Houthi forces.

Marib

Marib had long served as the IRG’s last stronghold, situated right in the middle of the disputed frontlines in the ongoing war. As a key energy-producing region, control over the city and its governate is essential to the ability of either of the warring parties to maintain dominance. Throughout 2021, the Houthis had made significant advancements towards Marib, which serves as the only gas producing region and is home to one of Yemen’s largest oilfields. In March 2021, Saudi Arabia proposed a widely-appraised peace treaty (involving the removal of the blockade of Hudayah’s port and re-opening of Sanaa airport) between the Iran-backed Houthis and the IRG of Yemen, as the Saudi Kingdom and the UAE were hoping to gradually minimalize their role in the conflict. The proposals were quickly rejected however, and the Houthis continued to either strengthen their current positions or steadily take more territory. The USA had deemed the Houthis a terrorist organization under Trump, but this designation was rescinded under new president Joe Biden in early 2021 as it hindered the UN’s ability to supply aid to the country.

The USA and UN were in a bind at this point. By July 2021, the USA was debating whether to declare the Houthis a terrorist designation once again, due to the worsening of the humanitarian situation across the country as a result of the atrocities they had carried out in their attempts to take Marib, and their overall growing extremism. A terrorist designation however, would limit aid to the country and only exacerbate the situation. When the Houthis launched missile attacks on the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia in September, the USA again called for a ceasefire. In December of the same year, the governments of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom joined the USA in their condemnation of the Houthis and their actions in Marib. Their attacks continued nonetheless, and as the fight to take Marib dragged on, the Houthis began directing attacks on Saudi and the Emirati soil.

Escalation and Ceasefire

The Houthis started launching more attacks across the Yemeni borders on neighboring countries. In December 2021, they claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a fuel storage facility in Abu Dabhi, which killed three workers, and launched missiles at targets on UAE soil twice in January 2022. The Houthis had not launched a direct attack on the UAE since 2018, but were reigniting direct conflict in response to the Emirati support of the STC, who had recently retaken a key oil-producing district in Shabwa from the Houthis on January 2nd. This victory by the STC reflected the STC’s seriousness in fighting alongside the Hadi government, but also demonstrated to the Houthis that with foreign support, the STC were a legitimate threat to their expansion.

The Saudis hit back at the Houthis with extreme force. January was dubbed “the worst month for Yemen since the conflict began”, as the UN declared 1,403 coalition airstrikes, and 39 cross-border attacks against Saudi Arabia and the UAE in January 2022 alone. The most lethal attack was a Saudi airstrike on a rebel-run prison killed or injured more than 300 detainees. As the fighting grew more intense, the living conditions of the Yemeni people suffered heavily. Yemenis were still dealing with the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and seven years of non-stop war, and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February meant that food and fuel costs increased even more (in Yemen and most of the world).

The humanitarian crisis had reached its worst point since the beginning of the war. The decimation of healthcare and education facilities had left half of Yemen’s hospitals out of commission and over 2 million children out of school. Damages to water supplies and sanitation systems fueled the spread of diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, measles, polio, and dengue across the country. The World Food Programme put the number of Yemenis facing starvation at 17.3 million in April 2022. 70 percent of the country relies on humanitarian assistance to live, and 80 percent live below the poverty line.

Seeing the extreme hardship that the people of Yemen were facing and with estimations that the situation would only worsen, the warring parties in Yemen agreed to a two-month truce on April 1st, 2022, brokered by UN special envoy Hans Grundberg under Saudi and UAE tutelage. The Saudi blockade of North Yemen was lifted to allow fuel deliveries and alleviate the catastrophe, limited commercial flights to and from Sanaa were resumed and $3 billion was deposited by the two Gulf nations into the Central Bank of Yemen.  Of the 30 million Yemeni population, 24 million are under Houthi rule – the truce showed that the dire circumstances facing civilians were finally being prioritized over power by all involved parties.

The Presidential Leadership Council

By April 7th, President Hadi had transferred power over to the newly established Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), comprised of seven members and headed by Rashad Muhammed Al-Alimi. Al-Alimi is a leader of the Popular Congress Party, and has years of experience in politics. Another member, Sultan Ali Al-Arada is a leader of Southern revolutionary forces. Al-Arada and Abdullah Bawazeer are members of the Al-Islah party, and Aidarous Al-Zubaidi, the leader of the STC was also established as a member. The other members have all served as heads of groups that have fought back against the Houthis. Each council member represents a Yemeni region and most of them have military experience fighting the Houthis in direct combat. The main objectives of the PLC are to unite all of the social, political, tribal, military and security factions under the legitimate government while still resisting Houthi control.

At the beginning of June, the UN-brokered truce was expanded by another two months, and the Aden based PLC had been seeing positive progress. The council had been relatively successful in uniting the various factions, and indicated that the pro-government forces would not defy the PLC’s instructions. Forces loyal to the STC however have their own regional agendas and have been more resistant to unifying under the PLC. Around this time, there were fears that the truce might give the Houthis an opportunity to re-strategize and bolster their positions in their occupied land, turning the tide of the war in their favor. The unity shown by the PLC however, poses a threat to the Houthis not seen in the five years since infighting started between anti-Houthi forces – an allied front working together would be much harder to defeat than a fractured one.

The truce was once again extended on August 3rd, and the PLC appears to remain unified, establishing judiciary frameworks and driving living and economic stability in a positive direction. They acknowledge that reparation and rebuilding will take years, but they are committed to unity against coup militias. August 11th saw clashes between nominal allies in Shabwa, between the UAE-backed Giants Brigade and the Islah forces, to which leader Al-Alimi belongs. This has been the fiercest fighting seen since April, and will test the resolve of the anti-Houthi alliance, but their committal to peace in Yemen in the face of humanitarian catastrophe should hold strong.

The future of the conflict

Gregory D. Johnsen of The Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington writes about three possible outcome scenarios following the current truce. The first is a unification of Yemen, with the Houthis as prominent political players in the country’s governance. This, he deems the “dream Scenario” and is the most unlikely, given that the Houthis want full control of the North, if not all of Yemen. The South under the STC and formerly the Southern Movement, have also desired a separate Southern Yemen for decades, so a fully unified Yemen seems unlikely. The second scenarios he describes is the “division scenario”, which appears to be the most probably resolution given that years of disagreements have led to huge governmental differences, almost entirely separate economies, and allegiances and divisions formed within the Northern and South regions since the beginning of the conflict. The third and worst possible outcome he describes is the “Disaster Scenario”, in which Yemen dissolves into fractured “statelets” engaging in multipronged conflicts with no end in sight. He states that the USA should pursue the division scenario, though this would not be without its difficulties. The anti-Houthi coalition has suffered five years of infighting, so establishing an independent Southern State would no doubt prove to be difficult.

International Interests

There are the numerous international interests to be taken into account too, some of which serve as obstacles to peace while others are instrumental in furthering the peace process. Iran has purportedly been supplying weapons, training and intelligence to the Houthis for decades, though their support increased significantly following the Arab Spring protests and even more so once the Houthis took over Sanaa. The Houthis technological, military and strategic capabilities have become much more advanced with Iranian backing. The Hadi-government has been backed by the Saudi coalition since the beginning of the war, and have accused the Houthis of being an Iranian proxy rather than a native movement, which has largely driven Saudi involvement in the war. The UAE have been the most prominent supporters of the South since the STC established itself in 2017, though allegedly the UAE’s strategic desire is to control the maritime routes around the Arabian Peninsula. As the STC has exponentially grown its legitimacy as a governing body, it now has representations with the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada.

When the civil war began, only Hadi’s government were internationally recognized, but the South is moving closer to having equal footing on the global stage. Although much of the global community had declared they will never recognize the Houthis as legitimate rulers, they have expressed willingness to accept its leaders as members of a unified government. Many have described the Yemen war as a proxy war for dominance in Yemen and the surrounding region. Although the war began over political divisions, it now is largely described as a sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims.

As with almost any conflict in the world, warring parties are influenced by the most powerful Western governments. The USA has threatened to end support for Saudi-led coalition numerous times, over the civilian deaths and worsening living conditions in Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s military would be rendered obsolete if this happened, as two thirds of their Air Force would be grounded without the USA’s backing. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia is the USA’s biggest military sales customer, while Saudi Arabia is the largest source of petroleum imports from Persian Gulf countries. When the wealth of resources that exist on Yemeni territory, it is easy to see why so many foreign actors have a stake in the overall conflict. Whoever controls the various regions of Yemen stands to gain money, and with it, consolidate their power.

Conclusion

Overall, to describe the situation in Yemen as “complicated” would be a huge understatement. The almost eight-year war has seen roughly four million Yemenis displaced, nearly 400,000 dead, and half of the country facing starvation. The country has long been suffering what the UN described as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. Politically, Yemen has been divided, conquered, unified, and again divided further throughout history making governance of the country extremely tenuous. The conflict has created countless fractures and allegiances, with competing agendas influencing the actions of those on the ground. Understanding the desires of the warring parties and the multitude of factions and sub-factions within them is something that is proving difficult to navigate, even for those experienced in diplomacy or war. It is impossible to predict what events will develop in Yemen, and the Yemeni people are the ones who are paying the price, suffering horribly in their daily lives. For those in the South, the current ceasefire seems promising and their expanding international recognition points towards a possible resolution for their separatist goals. Whatever the outcome may be, most of the world simply hopes that the tribulations of Yemen’s people will come to an end.

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