Saudi Arabia’s determination to lay waste to Yemen has reached new heights over the past few weeks, adding to an already deplorable litany of war crimes. Faced with the possibility of a new war front, in that the Houthis directed their ire directly at the United Arab Emirates after Riyadh called on their help to precipitate the fall of Mareb – the last northern bastion of the internationally-recognised government, which was driven from the capital Sana’a by the Houthis in 2014.

The one battle which could determine the fate of the War on Yemen and very much dictate the terms of the peace all parties will eventually have to abide by should they hope to restore any modicum of regional stability. Sitting just 120 kilometers east of the capital, Sana’a, Marib stands at a crossroads between Yemen’s southern and northern regions, commanding not only a highway to Saudi Arabia, but an economic powerhouse by the riches of its soil. Before Yemen was plunged into the fires of war, Safer oil refinery produced between 10,000 and 20,000 barrels of crude per day.

Saudi Arabia’s fury towards Yemen in the wake of the Houthis’ attacks on both the UAE proper, and Riyadh’s coalition forces in Mareb speaks loudly of the importance of this one region of Yemen and the need for both parties to gain the upper hand.

If governments, and in this particular case, the Kingdom may well harbour cold ambitions, there are rules one must follow, even in war … Needless to say that Saudi Arabia has seldom felt it needed to abide by the rules of international law! And yet it’s latest stunt might prove one too many for any of its international sponsors to wash away, or better yet ignore.

At least 70 people were killed in an air raid commandeered by Riyadh against a detention facility at the heart of Houthi territory in late January, prompting rights organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and Save the Children to raise the alarm, underlying the dramatic escalation of Saudi Arabia’s aggression against its impoverished neighbour.

An MSF spokesperson told the AFP news agency at least 70 people were killed and 138 others were wounded in the attack.

Taha al-Motawakel, health minister in the Houthi government was rather stern in his criticism when he noted:

“We consider this a war crime against humanity. The world should take responsibility at this critical moment in human history.”

Right about the time of the raid, the Saudi military carried out a second attack, this time on Hodeidah, a strategic seaport overlooking the Red Sea further south – the target: a communication hub. The attack led to a national internet blackout.

The Norwegian Refugee Council condemned the attack as

“a blatant attack on civilian infrastructure that will also impact our aid delivery.”

The last blow of Riyadh’s campaign hit Sa’ada, not too far from the Saudi border with Yemen. This time the target were civilians – a move not only unwarranted but quite definitely undefendable.

Gillian Moyes, Save the Children’s country director was rather clear in his comments to the press when he noted that

“The initial casualties report from Saada is horrifying.” and, “Migrants seeking better lives for themselves and their families, Yemeni civilians injured by the dozens is a picture we never hoped to wake up to in Yemen.”

Before such hostilities not even the United Nations could choose to look the other way. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was forced to remind Saudi Arabia that despite many great efforts over the years to downplay Riyahd’s war crimes, such brutal attacks against civilians could not simply go unanswered, let alone unaddressed.

“I remind all parties that attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law”.

That statement was quickly followed by that of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“The escalation in fighting only exacerbates a dire humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the Yemeni people.”

For the past 5 months of so, and due to much political apathy on the part of not only the United Nations but the international community as a whole the Kingdom has made a habit of targeted civilians and civilian facilities, a move destined to inflict maximum pain on a population already exhausted by war, famine and deteriorating living conditions across the board.

As noted by Save the Children, the escalation of the conflict has resulted in a 60 percent increase in civilian casualties in the last three months of 2021, with 2022 already poised to have wider consequences for civilians. If we take into consideration that Yemen’s debilitating humanitarian crisis, one of the worst in modern history, has been solely architected by Riyadh to force Yemen to bend a knee to its will, any further escalation could be classified as a crime against humanity.

While many will argue that Saudi Arabia will get away with it, as it has done since late March 2015 when it unilaterally declared war on Yemen, it is evident that the world is running out of patience, and maybe more to the point excuses.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

If Yemen remains an indecipherable puzzle for even the most astute of analysts, the Houthis’ decision of late to bring fire and brimstones to the UAE – a player who so far averted the ire of the movement by limiting its meddling to the southern part of the country, a region the Houthis have long decided to abandon to better consolidate their hold in North Yemen, now signal a profound change in dynamics, pushing once more Peace’s goal post.

Although Yemen’s war was always Saudi Arabia’s game, a move aimed to exert control over Sana’a politics so that Riyadh could rest easy as the region’s grand patron, time and ever-changing alliances and interests have turned what was once a clear cut agenda into a maze so complex it is unlikely even its main players have complete visibility over it all – Saudi Arabia least of all. For all Riyadh’s calls for regional military cooperation and lobbying for international support, the kingdom’s agenda no longer aligns with that of its partners … needless to say that it’s showing.

Earlier this January the Houthis launched a series of drone attacks against the UAE, which attacks claimed a reported 3 lives. Speaking to the Arab media Fahmy al Yousifi, Deputy Information Minister of the Houthi government administration, warned that the Houthis would “continue to retaliate against the United Arab Emirates so long as it remains involved in supporting combatants inside Yemen.”

Mohammed Bakhiti, another Houthi advisor in Sanaa, told Qatar’s al Jazeera TV that the group had so far “abstained from attacking the UAE for a long time because it appeared that Abu Dhabi was in the process of pulling its forces out of Yemen … Now, the situation has changed, again.”

The move marks a significant break in military policy unheard of since 2018, when the UAE chose to dial back its incursion into Yemen’s northern territories to concentrate instead on turning South Yemen into an Emirati hub. Historically Abu Dhabi has always been keen in asserting its influence on Yemen’s southern region – for both geo-political and commercial reasons. While Yemen may not figure among the highest producers of energy in the region, its geography offers oversight over the world oil route – something the Emirates very much covet to push against not only Saudi Arabia’s regional influence but other players such as Iran, Qatar and Egypt … not to mention Turkey and the ever sprawling Muslim Brotherhood.

It stands to note that since 2016 the Emirates have siphoned Yemen’s natural gas resources in return for their military cooperation alongside Saudi Arabia – a quid pro quo many Yemenis have taken umbrage to in the light of the devastating poverty which has befallen them; not only that but the simple fact that such activities stand in clear contravention of Yemen’s sovereign rights.

Balhaf seaport which now sits under UAE control (Eastern province of Shabwa) was once upon a time Yemen’s economic lifeline. With an annual income of about $4 billion per annum the seaport was instrumental in ‘plugging’ Yemen to the world energy market and thus allowed for much economic development.

Abu Dhabi’s ambitions now lay far beyond Balhaf …

Under clear instructions from the Emirates to seek control over Yemen’s energy fields troops from the Giants Brigades – a force largely made up of southern Yemenis who once challenged Yemen’s internationally government to establish the STC (Southern Transitional Council), moved units towards both Shabwah and Marib, directly threatening Houthi strongholds in view of gathering into one powerful hand Yemen’s most valuable riches.

As of today, the various UAE-backed Yemeni forces fighting the Houthis seem to be referred to using the interchangeable umbrella names of “Joint Forces” and “National Resistance Forces” (NRF) – the latter of which was initially used to define the forces led by Brigadier General Tareq Saleh. These forces are made up of three major components: the Giants Brigade, the Guardians of the Republic, and the Tihama Resistance.

The Giants “Al Amaliqah” Brigade is the largest component of the NRF, gathering between 20,000 and 28,000 fighters according to ground sources.

Such intervention in Marib, the last major city in northern Yemen under full government control, a reality the Houthis have fought tirelessly to change, completely flipped the narrative of war, putting the UAE in the Houthis’ direct line of fire.

Sana’a message is clear, for the Emirates to withdraw their efforts away from Marib or face the wrath of further drone attacks and acts of piracy such as the seizure of their ships when crossing the Red Sea – on January 2sd, the Houthis boarded a UAE-flagged vessel off the coast of Hodeidah.

Yemen’s war developments exist far beyond the field! Indeed Abu Dhabi’s move, although somewhat in the benefit of Riyadh in that it seeks to weaken the Houthis’ positions to eventually suffocate their ability to adequately govern through economic starvation, also betrays a political regional rift between the two powers – notwithstanding the security risks that will accompany any further ground escalation.

Now, and this might be a wild guess, amid such uncertainty lies an opportunity – as it is often the case.

Unlike Saudi Arabia whose agenda in Yemen is mainly ideological and thus slightly irrational, the UAE’s ambitions are more pecuniary, and naturally more subject to negotiations.

Should the Houthis chose to strike a bargain with the Emirates to one, see gone the Muslim Brotherhood and two share in Yemen’s natural resources through some economic joint-venture, Saudi Arabia may just be forced to resume peace talks or stand to see its military coalition dissolve.

Evidently such an outcome is far more easier to lay on paper than it would in reality but one could see how Sana’a may wish to play the carrot and the stick to inch Abu Dhabi closer to the negotiating table.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Earlier this September media outlets close to Saudi Arabia announced with much fanfare that Yemen’s intelligence services had scored a massive victory in arresting the man they dubbed the ‘Khomeini of Yemen’, and that thanks to such efforts the Houthis had had the wind taken off their sail.

“Houthi leader Hassan Ali Al Emad was arrested while entering the land port of Shahn heading from abroad two weeks ago,” Colonel Ahmed Arfeet, the director of the Criminal Investigative Unit, Al Mahrah police, told the press late September.

Born into a prominent family of North Yemen, Hassan Al Emad’s name once commanded much authority – not only for the friendships he kept but for the ties his family held to some of Yemen’s most powerful tribal leaders, clerics, politicians and state officials. Once a close friend to late President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Hassan Al Emad is now being accused of plotting his assassination so that his master, aka Iran, could have its revolution.

Held incommunicado since September the fate of Hassan Al Emad lies solely within the hands of Saudi Arabia, the very power that called for his arrest on the basis of a political grudge that bears little ties to the allegations leveled against him. As it happens I know Hassan. I’ve known him for about 20 years actually, and though I cannot bear witness to his personal ambitions, what his accusers are claiming reads too much like the plot of a bad spy movie.

Knowing how Yemen settles a tribal or political score I am strongly inclined to believe that Hassan is but a pawn in someones’ chess game. Actually not just someone but Yemen’s very own ‘transitional’ president, Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi. Grant you the man deserves some praise. How many heads of state have managed to outlive their mandate by several years while in self-imposed exile?

Made a scapegoat so that someone could claim a made-up victory against a movement no party is getting closer to get a handle on, nevermind actually understands, Hassan Al Emad had to be turned into the reason why Riyadh could not bring North Yemen to kneel. History teaches us that no one man can ever claim to have such power and affluence. Revolutions, if inspired by strong figures, are never the product of just one will and one mind – rather the product of a great conversion.

A report published in one of Hadi’s media outlets read on the matter:

“Al-Emad is classified as one of the most dangerous ideological leaders of the Houthis, and the most prominent Twelver authority. He is married to an Iranian woman and has a house in Tehran. His father, Yahya Al-Emad, is one of the most important religious authorities that originated in Iran, and is considered one of the most important founders of the Houthi movement and the Iranian project in Yemen.”

The plot appears simple: Al Emad, sold to Iran’s religious school of thought some decades ago and following in the family tradition he became the architect of Yemen’s Houthi Movement and thus posed an inherent threat to Yemen’s future.

If most people may accept such propositions at first glance, the implications made by the above summary do not hold.

To start with the Houthi Movement does not abide by Twelver Islam – and though Zaidis identify as Shia Muslims it does not mean they understand themselves as an extension of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Any experts on Yemen will actually tell you that ideologically the Houthis and Iran often do not see eye to eye. If they are on friendly terms today it is more over their respective rejection of Saudi Arabia than a common vision of the future, religious or otherwise.

Iran and North Yemen’s alliance is only skin deep. It is with Iraq that the Houthis entertain a greater friendship with … Tehran I’m afraid long lost that battle.

More to the point, to imagine that the Houthis leadership would entertain losing religious ground to any one element on the pretext that such an individual carried Iran’s trust is preposterous.

Again, if the Houthis happily claim themselves to be Shiites, their Shia Islam is not that practiced in Iran … or even that of the Shia Islamic World. Zaidis are but a minority within a greater whole, very much like the Alawites in Syria.

To automatically assume feudality to Iran on the basis that North Yemen’s religious traditions somewhat echo with that of the Twelvers would be sheer ignorance of the region’s history.

Yemen’s Houthi Movement is very much home-grown. And though evidently the Houthis found friends throughout the region, they remain the architects of their political fate … to much of Iran’s disappointment I would argue.

Hassan Al Emad was likely targeted and taken out of the chess game on account of his support for those communities in Yemen most affected by war and poverty. His efforts to grant the most vulnerable a voice annoyed more than a few of his countrymen. And so he had to be vilified and his ambitions criminalized.

The Founder of the Future of Justice Party, Hassan Al Emad has been critical of the Houthis at times, something his detractors have been keen to ignore in their desire to present him as the grand mastermind of all things Houthis.

Today his freedom is at the core of a prisoners-exchange bargain. So that he could walk free, Saudi Arabia, via President Hadi, is calling on the Houthis to liberate several high profile war prisoners – among whom Hadi’s relatives.

Sana’a answer was a resounding NO!

So much for the man who allegedly did it all!

If Hassan Al Emad has been instrumental in Yemen’s defection from its former patron, Saudi Arabia, he is not a grand revolutionary figure and his work in no way, shape or form aligns with that of figures such as Ayatollah Khomeini.

A rather reserved man, Al Emad is not in the business of tape recording, he’d rather build schools and offer children free meals so that they could carry on their education.

The fact that his arrest made such little waves in western media speaks volumes to the threat he poses. I would like to think Washington or at least London would have loved to claim some ownership in such a catch … especially after Afghanistan’s debacle.

A little Veni, Vedi, Vici I’m sure would have been much welcomed.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Sounding the alarm this December Nicholas Papachrysostomou, MSF head of mission in Yemen made clear that well beyond the many casualties War claimed over the past seven years, famine weighs much heavier on the war-torn nation, a fate Afghanistan unfortunately shares.

“A nearly seven-year long conflict has badly affected the country’s economy and weakened an already fragile healthcare system … The situation is worsening with every passing day.”

If the world has gotten accustomed to those remarks – such cries of alarm have been so many the world has learnt to look the other way in dismissal, it would be foolish to discount the plight of millions of Afghans and Yemenis on account we cannot grasp the repercussions famine will have on geopolitics, nevermind the region’s broader stability.

Desperation has a way to generate political vacuums we cannot possibly foretell, let alone begin to plan for. And here is where the buck should stop – famine in both Afghanistan and Yemen is not a direct result of war, but rather a weapon of war.

It is widely recognised that famines are caused by political actions, ranging from the deprivation of food, and the pursuit of political, economic and military objectives to culpable neglect. According to the World Food Programme, ten of the 13 largest food crises in the world – including of course Afghanistan and Yemen – are not only driven by conflicts, but are the product of deliberate war tactics that include crippling economies and starving populations.

Afghanistan here serves as a cautionary tale. Whenever populations have been pushed beyond the brink of the tolerable, they have withdrawn behind dangerous and violent narratives, thus giving groups such as the Taliban or Al-Qaeda (both banned in Russia) fodder to their fires. By manipulating food aid and access to food reserves through various tax and levies, warring parties have not only created new financial support to their cause but boosted their political status, using food security as an incentive.

Back in September the Taliban seized the WFP offices in Kandahar, putting all existing food supplies under the control of its troops rather than allow for its most vulnerable communities to be served.

To ignore such patterns condemn us to relive past history, giving air to movements we know to be dangerous and nefarious.

Numbers do not lie. In two decades Afghanistan has lost an estimated 176,000 people to military interventionism, of which 46,000 civilians. However horrendous, famine, this winter alone will claim many more – several millions to be exact.

The World Health Organization already predicted that unless drastic humanitarian actions are taken 1 million Afghan children under five will die of starvation, and another 2.2 million will suffer acute malnutrition.

“Hunger in the country [Afghanistan] has reached truly unprecedented levels,” the UN refugee agency said on 3 December. “Nearly 23 million people – that is 55% of the population – are facing extreme levels of hunger and nearly 9 million of them are at risk of famine.”

Famine in both Yemen and Afghanistan is not just a result of food scarcity but rather families’ financial distress. Since the very beginning of Yemen’s conflict political actors have wielded hunger as a weapon of war through acts of commission (attacks on food production and markets), omission (blockade of aids) and provision (selective provision of aid to one side of a conflict).

The link between war and hunger was actually recognised explicitly with the passing of a UN security council resolution in 2018 which prohibited the use of hunger as a weapon of war. And though it is evident that political actors have played deaf to such recommendations, the United Nations was nevertheless instrumental in shining an important light onto such a trend. So much so in fact that the World Food Program has since worked hard to understand the link between food security and conflict and how it can contribute to building peace.

Whether such efforts can save Yemen and Afghanistan remains to be seen.

In both countries many crises are converging towards a ‘perfect socio-political storm’. If Yemen and Afghanistan find themselves at war for many different reasons, they bear too many similarities for us to ignore, and more importantly not conclude that they share architected patterns.

War and its aftermath have left millions of people displaced – in most cases homeless and vulnerable to the whims of local war-lords and/or the international community. Foreign assistance in Afghanistan for example has amounted right up to the time of Washington’s withdrawal to 75% of all public spending. Now that donations have dried up on account nations are reluctant to ‘support’ a Taliban-run Afghanistan, teachers, health professionals and civil servants have not been paid for months – thus pushing hundreds of thousands of families into food insecurity.

Regardless of how many times aid agencies will call countries and private donors to act, we can no longer afford to ignore the underlying structural causes of hunger and malnutrition. Maybe more to the point if we allow our respective governments to hide behind organizations such as WFP and thus absolve themselves from all responsibility we will only maintain vulnerable communities in a state of protracted humanitarian crisis.

I would argue that it is within the remit of the United Nations to act against crimes of mass starvation – as witnessed in Yemen and Afghanistan, under the R2P (Responsibility to Protect) norm it adopted in 2005.

“The Responsibility to Protect – known as R2P – is an international norm that seeks to ensure that the international community never again fails to halt the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. The concept emerged in response to the failure of the international community to adequately respond to mass atrocities committed in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. The International Committee on Intervention and State Sovereignty developed the concept of R2P during 2001.”

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Speaking in Vienna on the sideline of Iran’s much talked about nuclear talks, EU negotiators warned that should Iran prove unwilling to cooperate in a meaningful fashion would lead to devastating consequences.

“If they don’t show that they are serious about this work, then we’ll have a problem,” diplomats from the E3 nations of Britain, France and Germany said. “The next 48 hours will be very important.”

Former US President Donald Trump’s legacy is weighing heavy on the Middle East  … I would go as far as to venture that his unilateral decision to do away with the JCPOA back in 2018 made the world a much more dangerous place. And though Trump may have had a point as far as his critique of the structure of the deal was concerned, to renege on an international treaty of such magnitude, set a precedent we have yet to fully appreciate. How can America hope to position itself as a reliable partner when its treaties and agreements hold on the whim of Washington’s ever revolving door of politicians?

By all accounts the JCPOA marked a shift in dynamics in that it offered hopes of normalisation between Iran and those western powers, which since the fall of the Shah in 1979, looked upon the Islamic Republic as a foe to aggressively isolate, if not contain.

If we take into account that under the JCPOA Iran committed itself to restricting its nuclear program, thus offering assurances that it would no longer ambition to become a latent nuclear power, success laid in the space such an accord offered.

Trump decided to explode the tentative window his predecessor and European counterparts carefully structured. Are we poorer for it? Most definitely … the JCPOA was a breakthrough far beyond the remit of the nuclear program. It represented a reset in international relations in a region fraught with tensions for the better. Who knows what else could have been achieved if not for President Trump.

Today the United States said to be committed to reinstate the Nuclear Deal. Only this is 2021 … 2015 is long gone. Geopolitical dynamics have evolved beyond recognition, and whether or not Washington cares to admit it or not, the world no longer holds its breath for America. Our collective geopolitical centre of gravity is shifting away from the White House … it is East, towards Russia and China that world powers are now looking towards for directions.

While the Islamic Republic may have been in a consilient mood back in 2015, agreeing to a gradual move towards political and financial normalisation, Tehran today, is not entertaining America’s threats of “crippling sanctions” and further escalation should President Biden’s wishes be ignored. This leaves diplomacy at a dangerous standstill.

In truth it is unlikely diplomacy will win this battle. Especially since most parties to the Deal have conflicted interests. The new JCPOA is being held ransom to changing regional dynamics and America’s diminished influence in the Middle East.

Needless to say that Washington’s capitulation in Afghanistan did not escape Tehran.

So what now? Well now we may all want to brace ourselves … whatever tensions are currency brewing in Vienna may lead to a dangerous military stand-off, world powers will have no choice but to get involved in.

When Israel says it reserves the right to do ‘whatever’ it feels it needs doing to protect itself, it means it. Nuclear Iran – latent or not, represents too much of an existential threat to the small Middle Eastern nation for its military brass to ignore.

Israel Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called earlier this week on French President Emmanuel Macron to strengthen sanctions against Iran, asking that “a credible military threat must be exercised.”

For several decades now Iran has said time and time again that its nuclear ambitions were purely civilian and not in the least geared towards the military. Although the Islamic Republic is not exactly lying it is not telling the whole truth either.

Allow me to explain. Iran wants to become a latent nuclear power, meaning it wishes to acquire the technology and expertise to, should it one day decide to, quickly build the weapons it needs.

As far as Israel is concerned Iran is hedging its bets towards nuclear militarisation. No amount of diplomacy will assuage.

Objectively speaking we ought to recognise that nuclear latency can be achieved with solely peaceful intentions. Now this is not to say that a country with such ‘abilities’ might not once decide that it wants to weaponize its politics by playing the nuclear hedging game and thus apply undue pressure onto its foreign partners.

It is impossible to ignore the fact that since 2018, the Islamic Republic has gradually abandoned its ‘nuclear’ commitments by enriching uranium up to 60% purity – a short step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

To just assume that Iran will not act on its newfound powers should it indeed acquire those powers is a fool’s errand. It will never take politically – there is too much mistrust and resentment between all interested parties for any such hope to materialise.

Fear these days is driving the bus – fear and paranoia.

What happens next is anyone’s guess, but if I was to take one, I would expect to see Israel take matters into its own hands and for the United States to then engage. America’s hawks might actually relish the idea of a fight between Israel and Iran as it would give them the narrative for a regime change in Tehran.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Just as Saudi Arabia has hardened its tone towards Lebanon over the smuggling into its territories of the drug Captagon – ISIS and other radical groups’ drug of choice as it is said to instill courage to its practitioners, Yemen could soon be flooded with the product, yet another plague the war-torn nation will have to weather.

Earlier this month Saudi Arabia decided to issue a blanket ban on all Lebanese imports of fruits and vegetables after crates of pomegranates were found to hide Captagon pills.

Although Lebanon remains a major player in the trade of the narcotic, countries such as Syria, Iraq and Jordan have long fallen prey to this new shadow economy, which trade has been dominated by less than savoury characters, as Islamic radicals and their various affiliates account for the majority of its traders..

A highly addictive drug Captagon has long fuelled conflicts in the Middle East. Captagon or other of its derivatives induce a sense of well-being, euphoria and invincibility to its users, as well as allow ‘soldiers’ to endure pain, all the while increasing aggression towards their opponents. Dubbed the drug of Jihad – it has often been found in militant hideouts, including in one used by the terrorists behind the 2015 Bataclan theatre attack that killed 90 people in Paris, the use of Captagon has nevertheless made its way to civilian populations as it offers a reprieve from hunger and the only too overwhelming sense of hopelessness countless communities have felt under the burden of war.

This is where Saudi Arabia’ smuggling troubles and the Kingdom’s recent ire with Lebanon gets interesting – not only for Yemen, but possibly for the new narrative Riyadh is looking to weave against its appointed nemeses.

Officials in Riyadh have already linked the recent seizure of Captagon with allegations that Hezbollah is looking to profit from the trade to finance not only its operations within Lebanon but its regional allies – including the Houthis in Yemen.

First mention of such ties were raised in June after 14 million Captagon amphetamine tablets hidden inside a shipment of iron plates coming from Lebanon were stopped by the Saudi authorities.

Days after the news broke that Saudi Arabia had stopped the drug from being smuggled from Lebanon, Arab News mentioned that a source had confirmed Hezbollah was working in collaboration with the Houthis in Yemen to break the drug further into the region in view of financing their common goals.

To drive the message home Arab News writes: “US and European drugs agencies are convinced that Hezbollah profits from the drug trade. Europol, a European law enforcement agency, issued a report in 2020 cautioning that Hezbollah members were using European cities as a base for trading in “drugs and diamonds” and to launder the profits.”

While there’s been no concrete proof to offer credence to such allegations, the narrative is nevertheless gaining momentum.

So what you may argue? Saudi Arabia has always accused its various enemies of a litany of crimes, regardless of the truth, so that it could better justify its politics.

How does this drug trafficking compute into the Kingdom’s war against Yemen.

Well, for a start the current geopolitical context.

Riyadh is losing traction among its most fervent and loyal supporters – namely the United States of America. A joint resolution of disapproval to block a proposed $650 million in US arms sales to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was introduced earlier this month by Republicans Rand Paul and Mike Lee, as well as Bernie Sanders who caucuses with Democrats.

For all its lobbying Riyadh is losing ground in Washington, so much so that US President Joe Biden confirmed he would only authorise the sale of defensive weapons so as to promote peace efforts in Yemen. A spokesman for the Biden Administration said the sale “is fully consistent with the administration’s pledge to lead with diplomacy to end the conflict in Yemen.” The air-to-air missiles ensure “Saudi Arabia has the means to defend itself from Iranian-backed Houthi air attacks,” he added.

Washington’s gradual move away from supporting the Saudi-led Arab coalition in Yemen was caused by two main factors — intense advocacy campaigns and lobbying efforts by humanitarian and human rights groups in reaction to increased civilian deaths and worsened humanitarian conditions in Yemen and growing levels of political partisanship and institutional polarization in Washington.

A new threat, or at least a looming one – such as let’s say a drug crisis and claims of a new financial axis of evil could prove ‘beneficial’ to Saudi Arabia’s war efforts, if not long term at least immediately.

More to the point the arrival of Captagon in Yemen proper could also be part of yet another destabilising campaign fomented by the Kingdom against a country it has spent so much energy destroying since late March 2015.

Should Captagon spread in Yemen, repercussions would be devastating – not only socially but from an institutional standpoint. Ravaged by war, famine and an explosion of its state institutions by way of competing political agendas, Yemen has no means to defend itself against a drug epidemic.

Worse still would be the real possibility of Yemen becoming the drug’s new regional hub. Let’s not forget that for all its woes Yemen sits still a gateway to Africa and Asia – its very geography could prove too attractive to refuse, even more so by groups such as Al Qaeda for whom a new revenue stream would offer new opportunities.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

With Yemen well within its seventh year of a conflict that has all but ravaged the country, power dynamics seem to have shifted rather dramatically – interestingly enough not in favour of either engaged parties. If anything Yemen seems to have fallen prey to political entropy whereby players have all but ensured their mutual destruction, without any room for a peaceful resolution, at least not one that would allow for the country to savage its institutions, maybe not even the integrity of its territorial sovereignty.

For all the gnawing and clawing Yemen witnessed over the past decade, may it be by the hands of a former regime which ambitioned to line the pockets of its ‘lords’ to the regional actors’ desire to play the nation to the tune of their respective geopolitical wants, the impoverished nation is quite literally holding by a thread – a very thin one at that if we consider the abysmal humanitarian crisis that grips it.

For all intent and purposes Yemen is now a failed-state – with all the unknowns it entails … If Saudi Arabia thought it could battle its old foe, Iran, by using Yemen as proxy, so that a cap could be set in the Islamic Republic’s growing regional influence, it appears all it ever achieved was to precipitate its own demise, by laying bare its own fault-lines, thus endangering its ability to withstand any more pressure — economic, socio-political or otherwise.

As for the Houthis, a power still new to the games of realpolitik, it looks like its recent stunts may have set a clock on its ability to completely transition as a seasoned political player on the international scene.

Earlier this November the Houthis pushed a button too far by kidnapping employees of the US Embassy in Sana’a, enraging not only the White House but the international community. Why resort to such ‘tribal’ tactics at such a juncture? I would argue that the battle for Mareb and the group’s inability to clearly call a win despite months of military escalation pushed the leadership to withdraw behind old tribal habits – a show of hands which clearly denote desperation.

At a briefing on November 9, State Department spokesman Ned Price said the Biden administration was “extremely concerned” by reports of the detentions of US embassy employees in Sanaa.

In what can only be understood as a quid pro quo, US President Joe Biden decided to renege on his administration’s former promise to dial back on its sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia, a move on the long run that will only empower Riyadh to push harder against Yemen and those rebels it wishes so badly to crush under a barrage of lead.

And though many will argue that Washington was always to bow to the Saudi lobby as far as replenishing its military arsenal is concerned, it is evident that the Houthis’ decision to strike the US Embassy precipitated that decision – potentially giving Saudi Arabia the momentum it needed to drive a hole into Marib to assert its positions in North Yemen.

Washington last week approved a $650m sale of air-to-air missiles to Riyadh, a move the Pentagon said would “support US foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political and economic progress in the Middle East”.

Without a clear win in Marib the Houthis cannot return to the negotiating table in strength, rather, they will be put on the backfoot, forced to concede positions to Saudi Arabia which seriously impair the group’s ability to reach financial independence.

A region rich in natural resources, Marib would offer Sana’a government economic security – notwithstanding a key geopolitical advantage should Yemen become many instead of one.

And around we go! Unless a space is created where all parties feel they can come out with enough ‘points’ to survive Yemen’s post war scenario it is unlikely anyone will invest in the peace building process. And that equates to condemning over 25 millions Yemenis to death by attrition.

But if the Houthis have lost considerable ground strategically speaking, that is not to say Saudi Arabia is closer to victory – quite the contrary actually.

The clock might have already struck midnight on the Kingdom … at least politically speaking.

Riyadh’s war games in Yemen have most definitely unnerved its international partners, none more than the United States of America. Maybe more to the point, Saudi Arabia can no longer afford its military ambitions in Yemen, especially not when its government is grappling with the fallout of the Covid pandemic and an increasing need to attract serious investors to its shores.

Driven into a corner Saudi Arabia has increasingly become more ‘aggressive’ with its international partners, evaporating much of the goodwill its financial largess may so far have allowed.

If under former US President Donald Trump the White House was willing to make allowances, President Biden is less inclined – instead his administration is looking to bring the Yemeni dossier to an end, regardless of Riyadh’s argument of Iranian containment.

As both Yemen’s war protagonists are losing both in strength and political ground we could soon see otherwise unidentified elements rise from the woodwork – a risk which may give us pause in the light of the Taliban’s win in Afghanistan.

Where conventional parties may have all but succeeded in mutual annihilation, radicalised elements within Yemen’s complex religious and tribal makeup could use such vacuum to push worrying agenda, much in line with how the Taliban rose to power first in soviet-run Afghanistan and later on America’s failed War on Terror.

What happens next only History will tell, but one would like to think that we have learnt to identify risk where political and military fractioning appear.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Speaking to the UK media this week, Britain’s most infamous jihadi bride, and allegedly ‘reformed’ Terror’s sympathiser called on her fellow Brits to let her back in on compassionate grounds.

Shamima Begum, who left the UK at the age of 15 to join ISIS (banned in Russia) in Syria now claims her youth, naivety and altogether lack of foresight led her to stray into the arms of Islamic radicals, knowing not she was in fact joining “ a death cult.”

To drive the message home, a hijab-free, abaya-free Shamima (now 22 years-old) argues she has found her true calling: helping the UK and PM Boris Johnson fight the evil that is terrorism on account we all have done a poor job of it.

Indeed … if people such as Shamima still feel they can play the system – and by that I mean those western values she was only too keen to reject, make a mockery of and actively seek to destroy so that ISIS black flag could flow over all, we ought to think long and hard about how exactly we got here.

And where is here exactly?

I would argue limbo. Socially, politically and legally we lack the semantics, the tools and structure to adequately address the pernicious effects Terror and Terror’s ideology have had on our communities. To this very day we often conflate Islamic radicalism to Islam – forever linking in the public’s mind a world faith to the genocidal lunacy of a minority few. But more on that later …

Now in Al Roj camp in Syria, a camp which houses many of ISIS fighters’ families, Shamima now appears a poster-child for western values. Pinked-nail Shamima is a whole new person … no longer the ideal Islamic mother and wife hiding behind layers of fabric to protect her modesty and shield her from lustful eyes, she now is the ‘chick next door’ – the girl you must of course forgive for her past transgressions … after all, was it not Jesus who implored his Father to “Forgive them as they know not what they are doing.”

Ms Begum is playing right into what she knows to be the West’s greatest flaw … or strength, depending on how one chooses to look at it – our ability and desire to forgive out of compassion.

Our legal system, however imperfect, is centered around the concept of reformation, that people can change and should be given a second chance. But that cannot and should not apply to terrorism.

An act so intrinsically heinous that it sits in negation of all human values, Terror exists outside Society. As such, it should be treated outside what we consider to be the ‘norm.’ Let me take you back to the creation of Guantanamo Bay. And no, I’m not making a case for the penitentiary. On all accounts it failed to serve its initial purpose and most definitely served no one but Terror itself by feeding its anti-western narrative.

Guantanamo was initially thought of as a space outside America’s legal system so that Islamic radicals could be dealt with under rules and regulations designed to contain them and the ideology which motivates them. Early on America knew that Terror could not have its day in a court of law, for it would mean offering rights and privileges to the very men and women who ambition to tear down our legal system, our values, our desire to build a society freed from bias and prejudices.

Under ISIS, not all men are equal. Under ISIS mercy comes by way of a swift death. For those communities ISIS deems heretical, there has been no compassion offered, only murder and rape … in whichever order its legions have seen fit. The proud bearers of God’s Commandments, ISIS has mocked our values; time and time again calling from its pulpits for the annihilation of the West.

Why should we then offer the comfort and trappings of our civilisation now that they find themselves on the losing end of that war?

Ms Begum played and Ms Begum lost. She claims: “The reason I came to Syria was not for violent reasons … At the time I did not know it was a death cult, I thought it was an Islamic community I was joining.”

But I recall a time when Miss Lady Terror was rather adamant ISIS was justified in its attacks against the West – mainly the Manchester bombing. Reformed Shamima now argues she did not realise at the time that women and children were among the dead.

Hypocrisy aside, I’d like very much for Ms Begum to admit that women and children or not, any and all attacks on civilian populations can never be justified, never mind rationalised under an ideology who claims victimhood to act out its bloodlust.

Stripped of her British citizenship by then Home Secretary Sajid Javid, Shamima wants to come home. What this former thrice jihadi bride needs to comes to term with is that if indeed citizenship is an inalienable right, her support for Terror mooted her status as a person, and thus her claim to be granted privileges.

Society dictates that we all play by certain rules, that we shoulder certain responsibilities in order to demand our rights to be upheld and defended. Ms Begum lost such rights the second she flew out of Heathrow, started sowing suicide-vests onto ISIS volunteer martyrs, and acted a member of the Moral Police, gun in hand, to enforce radicals’psychotic sense of morality onto women.

Veiled or not, nail polish or not, Shamima does not deserve the mercy and compassion she refused so many. Millions have suffered under Terror’s blade, it is time for her to pay the piper … she dances to his tune long enough for any of us to believe that her remorse is not motivated by the realisation she bet on the wrong horse.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Once hailed the future of the Fifth Republic for he promised to reform France’s stalling economy and reclaim some of the nation’s long lost ‘shine’, French President Emmanuel Macron is now being compared to the notorious Marechal Petain – the man who sold France to the Nazis back in the late 1930s. Some protesters to his new ‘pandemic rules’ have gone as far as to compare him to Adolf Hitler himself, a clear sign of the President’s fall from grace. A dark chapter in France’s history, WW2 still rings with shame and disgrace across the nation.

A much hated figure of France’s history books for he relinquished much of the Republic’s territory to the German despite his former military prowess in Verdun during the First World War, the Marechal shamed the nation by volunteering its Jewish population to the slaughter in exchange for political favours. Rather than fight the German invaders, Petain not only chose to kneel to Berlin, he also relinquished France’s republican values to fascism – forever associating his name to the horrors of nazism.

If France has always had a taste for a strong Executive – at times flirting with despotism in the name of political efficiency, fascism is profoundly contrary to France’s historical socio-political narrative. For President Macron to have his name slapped next to those of Petain and Hitler signals a deep crisis; one which runs far deeper than a simple political dispute. France ‘s very republican institutions and one could argue its very national integrity stand in the balance.

Battered by 18 months of imposed isolation and unprecedented restrictions on basic civil liberties – such as that of free movement, freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate, the French no longer trust the man they not too long ago entrusted with their collective future. The new enemy of the Republic … in France where it is the people who are the depositary of ‘power’, Macron is a tyrant who overstepped the bounds of the tolerable.

In truth France has endured too many health scandals over the decades for anyone to be complacent. According to a recent survey by the Odoxa polling group and Le Figaro newspaper, 58 percent of the French population are sceptical of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, compared with 33 percent of people in the UK and 41 percent in the US.

Bruised by a health scandal which hit in the 1990s and involved government officials, the French have indeed genuine questions. In 1991, the government was found to have knowingly administered transfusions with contaminated blood from people who were HIV positive to at least 1,200 haemophiliacs, which led to hundreds of deaths.

French government officials had initially said they were not aware the blood was contaminated. Three ministers, including former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, were charged with manslaughter. Only one was found guilty and received no sentence.

Ever since, the public has met the government’s claims on public health with much skepticism … understandably so!

Determined … or so he claims to manage the new covid variant Macron announced earlier this July that he aimed to achieve a 100% vaccination rate by year’s end – a goal which not only implies forced vaccination but provision for systemic discrimination.

“If we do not act today, the number of cases will continue to increase,” he said.

Vaccination will become mandatory for all health workers. Macron urged them to be inoculated by September 15, after which they could face potential sanctions or fines. Vaccination is a “matter of individual responsibility … but also a matter of our freedom”, the president added.

France’s President wishes not to advise but to order all to comply, obey and bow to the will of his Office in complete contradiction to the principles which underpins it.

In true French fashion and in a move which has cut across political demographics, protesters took to the streets of cities throughout the country, united in their rejection of what they perceive as an existential crisis.

“We are not arguing the vaccine, we are arguing our right to choose and the government’s constitutional duty NOT to discriminate against its own people on account of the pandemic,” said Laurence, a protester in Toulouse.

In Paris, one demonstrator’s blouse read “No to compulsory vaccination, freedom violated!”, while another’s placard said: “Macron, no to the health dictatorship.”

Dangling the proverbial financial carrott, Macron is promising that the road to recovery runs through a vaccination centre. And while many will be those who choose to get inoculated, true freedom requires that we accept those who will choose to abstain.

“This summer will be a summer of economic recovery,” Macron stated in his address,, adding that the ‘health passport’ – a QR code or certificate proving that the holder has a negative Covid-19 test, is fully vaccinated or recently recovered from Covid-19 – will be required throughout different establishments in France from August, including bars, restaurants, cafés and shopping centres.

French government spokesman Gabriel Attal lamented the “absolutely abject comparisons” of vaccine rules to Nazi atrocities, urging other political leaders to speak out.

Attal later stressed the need for vaccinations despite some increasingly radical pockets of resistance.

“We are in a fourth wave,” he said after a Cabinet meeting earlier this week, just before a bill goes to parliament to make vaccination passes to access public spaces, including restaurants, obligatory. “We won’t cede to a dictatorship of images and outrageous words,” the government spokesman added in reference to the anti-vaccination protesters.

If it is unlikely protesters will force a reversal, today Covid has become the new rationale of despotism, it is rather clear however that France’s malaise towards the ‘new normal’ will ultimately shape the future of the Republic.

If for every action one should expect equal reaction, Macron may soon find that the violence his government is raining on its citizens in the name of public safety could soon meet its match by way of a resistance movement.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Note to readers: I have included in this article comments I have collected from women over the past few months as part of a research paper I’m conducting on Yemen as well as already published quotes from reputable rights organisation so that victims could be given a voice and their trauma told in their own words.

If women in the Middle East continue to face oppression by virtue of their gender, at a point in our history when debates over equality and discrimination have allowed for global emancipation, Yemen is fast becoming the land where all hopes come to die … If one keeps in mind that Saudi Arabia rationalised abuse as a national cultural standard, arguing that physical violence and rape under the sanctity of marriage are not a thing, Yemen has indeed sunk pretty low to claim the title of worst abuser against women.

“My husband broke my leg as a punishment for being late after I visited my parents. My family has kept silent, asking me to be patient and telling me that as his wife I should obey his command. I feel like a trapped animal.” Ameera

And yet it truly has … from the proliferation of child marriages to force virginity tests on young girls to satisfy bigoted future in-laws and standardised physical violence, the women of Yemen have been dehumanised to stomach-churning extremes. Underneath it all lies not moral degradation but Islamic radicalism. For every inch of ground women have lost over the years echo the lunacies of religious zealots – words of hate speaking of enslavement and isolation.

“My husband took me lout of school the very week we got married … I was 15. Even though he promised my family he would allow me to finish school he decided that education for women is too dangerous. ‘A woman’s only role is to serve her husband and raise children’, he said to me. Even though I begged him he refused.” Ebtessam

And if many will argue that Yemen has more immediate crises to address before one could venture on the subject of gender equality, I will posit that Yemen’s almost systemic violence against the fairer sex, is a harbinger of worse things to come – a foreteller of the hold and control extremists now exercise over this war-torn nation of Southern Arabia.

The case of model and actress Entesar Al-Hammadi, whose great crime was to violate the Houthis’ strict Islamic dress code by holding unveiled pictures of herself on her phone, and social media accounts should attest to such a dangerous trend. The young woman is currently awaiting trial on charges of corrupt behaviour and noncompliance to Islamic norms.

The victim of a broad state-run campaign against so-called ‘religious dissidents’, Al Hammadi is but one among many to have been brutally kidnapped by police for daring imagine herself free.

An Amnesty International report describes Yemen as “one of the worst places in the world to be a woman.” It said that the women survived in oppressive, deteriorating conditions, stripped of equality. The organization quoted a woman from Marib on condition of anonymity as saying:

“I don’t feel like a human being”. The Yemeni woman continued that there were increased gender roles in the region, “I can’t breathe properly like other human beings. We suffer from the forced niqab [hijab and purdah system], child marriage, divorce shame, domestic violence and honour killings.”

Pursued, persecuted, violated, threatened with rape, women in Yemen are owned by their male guardians without any hope for recourse. When the law reads intolerance and religious indoctrination, women have no voice and no name. The victims of a system that no longer sees them as human beings, pain has become their daily bread.

“I was traveling with three children when we were stopped at a checkpoint by Houthi forces. They detained us, with no food and water during under very hot weather. We begged them to let us pass but they refused. They insulted us and threatened us with rape. We panicked and started crying… when they were done with us, they left us on the street at night in a secluded and isolated area… We were afraid, and the children terrified.”

In 2017, a UN reported that 52% of Yemeni women had been married before the age of 18. Anecdotal accounts suggest those rates have soared upwards since March 2015, when the war broke out. While it is difficult to draw an accurate picture, it appears so far that North Yemen has witnessed the brunt of such social disintegration as poverty, hunger and the miseries of war have accelerated women’s precarious social standing – in coordination with a sharp rise in religious fundamentalism.

“I was beaten with my mum at a checkpoint by men with riffles. They grabbed us both and called us whores for venturing outside the home without a male guardian. My father died a few years ago and we have no male family member living with us at present. We pleaded with them to stop but they laughed and kicked us.” Maryam

If Yemen was always lagging in terms of its ‘acceptance’ of women as equal to their male counterparts under the presidency of late President Ali Abdullah Saleh, it is nevertheless true that great strides had been taken by his administration to address the gender gap as to normalise women’s access to the workplace and education. In under a decade Yemen has lost whatever ground it once claimed, reducing more than half of its population to bone fide slavery.

Catherine Shakdam is a research fellow at the Al Bayan Centre for Planning & Studies and a political analyst specializing in radical movements. She is the author of A Tale of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi and the House of Saud. She writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.