3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page i 1 2 3 4 YEMEN 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 31 32 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page ii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 31 32 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page iii 1 2 3 4 5 6 YEMEN 7 DANCING ON THE HEADS OF SNAKES 8 9 VICTORIA CLARK 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 31 NEW HAVEN AND LONDON 32 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 1/23/12 2:12 PM Page iv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Copyright © 2010 Victoria Clark 10 The right of Victoria Clark to be identified as author of this work has been asserted 1 by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 2 All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright 3 Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from 4 the publishers. 5 For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact: 6 U.S. Office: [email protected] yalebooks.com Europe Office: [email protected] www.yalebooks.co.uk 7 Set in Janson by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd. 8 Printed in Great Britain by Hobbs the Printers Ltd, Totton, Hampshire 9 Map by Martin Brown Design 20 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 1 Clark, Victoria. 2 Yemen : dancing on the heads of snakes / Victoria Clark. p. cm. 3 Includes bibliographical references and index. 4 ISBN 978-0-300-16734-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Yemen (Republic)—History. 2. Yemen (Republic)—Religious life and customs. 5 3. Islamic fundamentalism—Yemen (Republic) 4. Jihad. 5. War—Religious aspects— 6 Islam. 6. Yemen (Republic)—Description and travel. 7. Clark, Victoria—Travel— Yemen (Republic) I. Title. 7 DS247.Y48C53 2010 953.3—dc22 8 2009047235 9 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 30 31 109 87 65 43 21 32 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page v 1 2 3 4 CONTENTS 5 6 7 8 List of Illustrations vi 9 10 Acknowledgements ix 1 Introduction 1 2 PART ONE 3 Chapter 1 Unwanted Visitors (1538–1918) 11 4 5 Chapter 2 Revolutionary Roads (1918–1967) 46 6 Chapter 3 Two Yemeni Republics (1967–1990) 89 7 Chapter 4 A Shotgun Wedding (1990–2000) 130 8 9 20 PART TWO 1 Chapter 5 First Generation Jihad 149 2 Chapter 6 A Tribal Disorder? 177 3 Chapter 7 Keeping Up With the Saudis 207 4 5 Chapter 8 Al-Qaeda, plus Two Insurgencies 235 6 Chapter 9 Can the Centre Hold? 260 7 Afterword 284 8 9 Notes 289 30 Bibliography 299 31 Index 305 32 33 3107_FM_US.qxp 1/23/12 2:02 PM Page vi 1 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 2 3 Rights were not granted to include these illustrations in electronic 4 media. Please refer to print publication. 5 p. xii Map of Yemen as it is today 6 7 8 PLATE SECTION 9 1. The old city of Sanaa (Dominic Clark, 2009) 10 2. Aden’s harbour (Dominic Clark, 2009) 1 3. Imam Yahya’s headstone (Dominic Clark, 2009) 2 4. Imam Ahmad, while on a visit to Rome in 1957 (David 3 Holden, 1957) 4 5. History jeep, Sanaa (Victoria Clark, 2008) 5 6. Statue of Queen Victoria, Aden (Dominic Clark, 2009) 6 7. Silent Valley cemetery (Victoria Clark, 2008) 7 8. Queen Elizabeth II knighting Abubakr al-Kaff, 1954 (Port of Aden 8 Annual, 1953–4) 9 9. Wadi Doan, Hadhramaut (Charles Foster-Hall, 2008) 20 10. Buqshan Palace, Wadi Doan (Charles Foster-Hall, 2008) 1 11. Sheikh Tariq al-Fadhli and Ahmad al-Fadhli ( Joan Baranski, 2007) 2 12. Leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, early 2009 3 (courtesy of Intelcenter) 4 13. Nasir al-Fadhli, with Mustafa and Ahmad al-Fadhli ( Joan 5 Baranski, 2007) 6 14. Qat-time for the barrow boys, Sanaa (Dominic Clark, 2009) 7 15. Marib desert (Victoria Clark, 2008) 8 16. President Ali Abdullah Salih (AP/Press Association Images, 2005) 9 17. Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar (RABIH MOGHRABI/AFP/Getty Images, 1997) 30 18. Hamid al-Ahmar and Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani (KHALED 31 FAZAA/AFP/Getty Images, 2009) 32 19. Nasir al-Bahri (Dominic Clark, 2009) 33 20. Aref Othman (Dominic Clark, 2009) 1 The old city of Sanaa, with President Salih’s new mosque visible in the background 2 Aden’s harbour, with a billboard poster of President Salih and the old Jewish cemetery in the foreground 3 Imam Yahya’s simple headstone, engraved with 4 Imam Ahmad, while on a visit to Rome in 1957 his long sayyid genealogy, Sanaa 5 Sanaa’s mobile history class, displaying images of Yasser Arafat and President Salih in his tribesman’s costume 6 A statue of Queen Victoria, removed during 7 Silent Valley, the half-filled last British the PDRY period but now back in the public cemetery in Aden garden at Steamer Point in Aden 8 Queen Elizabeth II in Aden in 1954, knighting the Hadhrami sayyid businessman Abubakr al-Kaff 9 Wadi Doan, Hadhramaut, ‘ancestral home’ of Osama bin Laden 10 Wadi Doan’s Indonesian baroque-style Buqshan Palace, the property of Abdullah Buqshan, a wealthy Saudi-Yemeni 11 Sheikh Tariq al-Fadhli (left), 12 Leaders of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Afghan War veteran and now in a video released in early 2009, from left to right: Qasim al- a leader of Yemen’s southern Raymi, Said Ali al-Shihri, Nasir al-Wahayshi, Abu al-Harith secessionist movement, and his cousin Ahmad al-Fadhli 13 The last sultan of the Fadhli tribe, Nasir al-Fadhli, flanked by his policeman son Mustafa (left) and his nephew Ahmad al-Fadhli 14 Qat-time for the barrow boys in Sanaa’s main souk 15 In the Marib desert, with oil-worker Ibrahim al-Harithi, friend and driver Walid, and Muhammad the Bedouin camel-breeder 16 President Ali Abdullah Salih arriving at a 17 Sheikh Abdullah al-Ahmar, paramount summit meeting in Qatar, June 2005 sheikh of the Hashid tribal federation, eminence grise and kingmaker until his death in 2007 18 Tribesman, businessman and politician Hamid al-Ahmar with Islamist cleric Sheikh Abdul Majid al-Zindani at an Islah party conference in Sanaa, March 2009 19 Osama bin Laden’s former bodyguard Nasir al-Bahri in conversation 20 Aref Othman in Aden, displaying a file of US-censored letters from his brother Othman Othman in Guantanamo Bay detention camp 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page vii 1 2 3 4 In memory of my father, Noel Clark, who died in December 2004, 5 while I was away in Yemen 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 31 32 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page viii 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30 31 32 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page ix 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 9 10 1 2 3 4 5 I have my parents to thank for the genesis of myself and this book 6 because I was born in Britain’s Crown colony of Aden in 1961, while 7 my father was the BBC’s South Arabia correspondent. A happy acci- 8 dent has therefore given me a ready-made reason to take an interest in 9 a place few people know about. 20 My warmest thanks, of course, go to all the Yemenis I encountered, 1 who were unfailingly generous with their time and suggestions, not to 2 mention their hospitality. Yemenis are not hard to contact and meet, 3 and mobile-phone technology seems to have made them uniquely 4 approachable. Khaled al-Yemani at the embassy in London and Faris 5 al-Sanabani in Sanaa were kind enough to set my research ball rolling 6 with plenty of contacts. 7 Stephen Day and John Shipman, both of whom spent much of their 8 youths in what is now southern Yemen in the 1960s as members of the 9 Colonial Service, were constantly helpful with contacts, expertise and 30 enthusiasm. Sarah Phillips and Tim Mackintosh-Smith in Sanaa and 31 Henry Thompson and Ginny Hill in the UK were all hugely generous 32 with their insights and suggestions. All passionately bound up with 33 3107_FM_UK.qxp 5/7/10 3:59 PM Page x YEMEN 1 Yemen and especially its people and fearful about its future, they 2 reassured me that a book about an obscure and impoverished country 3 was worth writing. Gregory D. Johnsen and Brian O’Neill in the US, 4 via their excellent blog Waq al-Waq, were constantly helpful. 5 James Meek has been a source of constant support as well as 6 constructive criticism.