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00:00Now, to break down what these developments mean for Yemen and in the wider region,
00:04we're joined here in the studio by Mohamed Al-Bashar, founder of Bashar Report, a U.S.-based risk advisory firm.
00:12Hi, Mohamed. Thank you very much for joining us.
00:14Good afternoon. Thank you for hosting me.
00:15Now, let's first go back 10 years to 2014 and set the context.
00:21How did this war in Yemen begin and what were Saudi Arabia's original objectives?
00:26Yeah, so the war started with the Houthi takeover of the capital, Sana'a, in September 21st, 2014.
00:35Months after that, they beseeched the president and then they moved into the south.
00:38Saudi, at their behest and their request of the president, started a Saudi-led intervention
00:43and he carried out numerous airstrikes and moved in the military to dislodge the Houthis.
00:50But eight years within the war, they were not able to dislodge the Houthis from north of Yemen,
00:55but they were able to secure the south of Yemen.
00:59And so over the years, how did this conflict evolve from a fight against the Houthis into a much more fragmented conflict?
01:08Yeah, sure. I mean, the one thing I always argue is that the Houthis are powerful today,
01:13not because of their divine intervention, like they like to call it,
01:18but it's because the anti-Houthi coalition is fragmented.
01:20You have the Southern Transitional Council, which is looking for declaring an independent Southern Arabian state.
01:27You have the internationally recognized government of Yemen that's lobbying for a united republic.
01:33And then you have, you know, eight different armies, half backed by Saudi, half backed by UAE,
01:40that just have competing values, competing interests and competing aspirations.
01:44So this created this vacuum that led us to today.
01:48And can you tell me, when did Southern separatist groups like the Southern Transitional Council become central players in this?
01:56Yeah. So the 1990 unity between the North and the South ended in an unfortunate war with 1994,
02:04the summer of 1994, where the North was able, according to the Southern narrative, to take over the South.
02:11And then in 2007, the Hiraq, which is the movement for secession in the South, started in 2015,
02:18with the intervention of the Saudi and UAE coalition and other countries.
02:22The Southerns became a very effective player.
02:262017, backed by the UAE, the Southern Transitional Council was formed.
02:31And within a couple of years, the group has become the most cohesive Southern political group that has a military and security wing.
02:41Indeed. And how did the involvement of regional powers like Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, reshape Yemen's political landscape?
02:51Do you think their interests have been aligned?
02:53Yeah, I think this is a very good question, because there's two scenarios of why we ended up in this position today,
03:00where we could be hours, if not days away, from another Saudi-led military operation,
03:05but it's now against their former allies in the Southern Transitional Council.
03:09So after the Gaza war, there's consensus among Yemen observers that there's going to be most likely de-escalation,
03:17if not a path forward with peace with the Houthis in Saudi Arabia.
03:20That made the STC and other anti-Houthi coalition members feel nervous,
03:24that they're going to feel left out, that they're going to have a piece of the pie.
03:27And so this mobilization that they did, it's kind of like fighting over the rebels,
03:31what's the day after scenario.
03:33And so by controlling Hadramot and Hamahara,
03:36they're able to control the wealthiest and largest oil field in Yemen.
03:41And they're going to be able to have more power to sit down and negotiate with the Houthis and stuff.
03:47And so the divergence happened is that Saudi, while it was focused on the Houthi and de-escalations,
03:55you have the United Arab Emirates focus on the Southern Transitional Council,
04:00which had a complete different agenda from what the Saudis and the government that they backed.
04:05And this divergence reached this month where the STC decided to expand military and capture the rest of the East of Yemen
04:14so that the whole of South, pre-1990 South Yemen, are now in control of it.
04:19But that's created a clash because Hadramot, which is Eastern Yemen, has its own strong identity.
04:25And it's rejecting the STC because they want to have their own federal setup.
04:33If not, they want to have their own calls to be their own state.
04:37And so we're seeing the fragmentation of a fragmented South.
04:41And the fear is that we're going to end up in a South-South civil war.
04:44And would you say that Yemen's internationally recognized government, backed by Saudi Arabia,
04:50has gradually lost authority on the ground? And how?
04:55So the internationally recognized government of Yemen, you know, started at a very tough place.
05:01The Houthi takeover in September 21 took over the conventional military force.
05:05So they had to start from scratch.
05:07They had to start from building military reinstitutions, government buildings.
05:13And that challenge during wartime was difficult for them to comprehend and to really stabilize the country.
05:20And especially when you're operating in the South and the South wanted its own independence.
05:25So the STC, you know, and their mindset is like, we're going to support you to fight the Houthis.
05:29But now if the Saudis want to reach a peace agreement to fight with the Houthis, so the war is over.
05:34So this is going to be our prize.
05:35Our prize is going to be, we're going to be moving forward to announce our independent state.
05:40And I think the Saudis and the Omanis are pushing back against it because this is very similar to what happened in 1967
05:48when the South got its independence from their bits.
05:51You had the Wadiya'a war in 1969 with the Saudis.
05:53And then you had the South also supporting the Dhafa rebellion in Oman.
05:57So this is bringing in all history, all trauma between the Saudis and the Omanis facing the STC.
06:03And I think the STC is at a tough position.
06:06I mean, so far right now, all the signaling coming from them is that they're not going to withdraw
06:11or listen to the demands of the internationally recognized government of Yemen or the Saudis.
06:16And I think the Saudis today started for the first time in a couple of years announcing military statements
06:22and, you know, clearly signaling that an air campaign is coming next.
06:26So fast forward to today, Saudi Arabia launched strikes on the Southern Transitional Council forces in the eastern provinces
06:36bordering the Saudi-Yemeni frontier.
06:40These were, as you mentioned, the provinces of Mara and Hadramaut.
06:44And they served as warnings to the STC to withdraw from these territories.
06:49Why are these specific provinces, you touched on it briefly, why do you think they are a red line for Riyadh that justifies an intervention?
06:59And how far do you think Riyadh is ready to go in order to dislodge the STC?
07:04Yes, I think Riyadh is ready to go all the way.
07:06And just to echo what I said earlier, that these are governorates that border Saudi Arabia.
07:14So the STC's core base of support is in southwest Yemen, which doesn't border Saudi Arabia.
07:20So when you start moving to Hadramaut and Mahara, now you're bordering not only in Hadramaut, Saudi,
07:25but also in Mahara, you're bordering Saudi and Oman.
07:27And so, you know, this is, in their mindset, this is the same group that also had linkage to the 1969 wars with Al-Wadi'a and Al-Dhufar.
07:38But this is not a different group today.
07:40But the understanding is that the STC cannot just move ahead with a military expansion without reaching some sort of an agreement for the path forward.
07:50But from the STC's position is that there is a vacuum in what the policy was from Riyadh towards what's going to happen to the south.
07:58And they just, you know, they took their shot.
08:01I see.
08:01And so this coalition between the internationally recognized government backed by the Saudis and the STC backed by the Emiratis was originally formed to fight the Iran-backed Houthis back in 2015.
08:14So do these latest strikes risk tearing apart this alliance?
08:20Unfortunately, this is something that a lot of people don't talk about.
08:24But Saudi and UAE have been in diversions for a couple of years now.
08:27They don't see eye to eye on Gaza.
08:31UAE went ahead and did normalize with Israel, tried to normalize with Assad against the Saudis, willing and different positions in OPEC plus and also now in Sudan.
08:42And so what's interesting, we're 2,000 kilometers apart between Sudan and Yemen.
08:47But in the same week in Sudan, you had the rapid support forces backed by UAE capture the 22nd Infantry Division and the largest oil field, the Hijlij.
08:58And also 2,000 kilometers in Hadramot, you had the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council capture the first military region and the Petro Masila oil field, the largest oil field in Hadramot.
09:10So a lot of people are saying, you know, this was in sort of a retaliation to, you know, President Trump, when Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited D.C.
09:21during an investment conference, said that Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince, requested their assistant in Sudan.
09:28And then the rumor mill started in Washington and said, oh, that the Saudis are calling for sanctions against UAE.
09:35And 22 days later, you have sanctions on a Colombian mercenary group.
09:41And so the sense was that this was a retaliation from UAE because of the Saudi push to the U.S. to de-escalate in Sudan.
09:49So it's entangled in Sudan, in Yemen.
09:52And then we're seeing today also in Somaliland and the declaration of Israel recognizing Somaliland and how Israel could use it to also start attacking the Houthis in Yemen.
10:02So I think President Macron was in Abu Dhabi.
10:05It's not a public readout.
10:07But my understanding is that he is also, along with D.C., are now trying to de-escalate between President Mohammed bin Zayed and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
10:16And the tone in the past 24 hours from UAE regarding this situation is definitely a de-escalatory tone.
10:24And so hopefully there's not going to be more bloodshed.
10:28And could today's developments affect the Houthis in the northern regions and how?
10:35Yes. I mean, the Houthis are the biggest winner in this and not just the Houthis.
10:39It's also Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
10:41Me being here in Paris, there is a long history for AQAP with the Charlie Hebdo attacks and Frenchmen that went to get recruited in Yemen.
10:51And also there's Total Energy's investments in LNG in Yemen.
10:56And it's in an area now that's going to be part of this ongoing conflict.
11:00So there's a lot of interest also for France and not just for UAE and Saudi in the region.
11:06Plus you have the whole maritime corridor in the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea.
11:12So, yeah, it's tough days ahead.
11:15And after 10 years of war, would you say that Yemen is closer to stabilization or is it facing a new phase of fragmentation?
11:24This is a tough question.
11:27I think the upcoming days will tell us where we're headed.
11:31Scenario one is that STC will backtrack and they're going to reach some sort of a political settlement of how to move forward with the southern question.
11:40That's what the politically correct term that the GCC country is using, the southern cause.
11:45Scenario two will be a continuation of the status quo, a low intensity conflict.
11:50Scenario three will be a full-on war, which will create the vacuum for AQAP and Houthis to move in.
11:57So whatever the situation is, I think we are in this position today because the status quo is no longer feasible and the actors on the ground are making their own moves.
12:09But the Houthis are suspiciously quiet.
12:11Even the leader yesterday spoke for the first time in 49 days and he did not mention the South.
12:16He doesn't want to mention the South because if he's seen as supportive of the secessionist and separatist movement, it will backfire on him.
12:24And if he attacks the southerners, it's also backfired on him.
12:26So I think they're just hoping that things will fall apart for them just to walk in and take it all.
12:32Thank you very much, Mohamed, for that analysis.
12:35That was Mohamed El-Basha joining us in the studio.
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