Yemen - The Saudi-U.S.-Al-Qaeda Alliance Is Now Officially 'News'

moon of alabama

When in March 2015 the U.S and Saudi Arabia launched their war on Yemen, Moon of Alabama noted:

[T]he U.S. supported Saudi campaign is actually in support of their Wahhabi Al-Qaeda brethren, not in support of the majority of Yemenis.

In April 2015 evidence emerged that Saudi Arabia hired al-Qaeda in Yemen to fight the Houthi movement and its allies.

At that time al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (APAQ) captured the military base, refinery and port of Mukala in south Yemen. The Yemeni soldiers guarding those facilities had orders not to resist the move. They were under command of a Muslim Brotherhood officer who resides in Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda immediately renamed itself "Sons of Hadramaut" while the Saudis announced that they would support the new "Popular Committees". 

To the Saudis the Zeyda Shia and especially the Houthis are "extremist groups". Al Qaeda, especially in the form of "popular committees" like the "Sons of Hadhramaut", are friends and tools to be armed and used to Saudi advantage. As the Houthies will certainly not give up under Saudi pressure, the Riyan Mukalla Airport seized by the "popular" "Sons of Hadhramaut" will soon be indeed very busy.

The hiring and arming of al-Qaeda by Saudi Arabia and others has since been a frequent occurrence. But the mainstream media hardly ever reported the issue. It was a 'conspiracy theory' peddled by lowly bloggers like yours truly.

Now it is official news: Yemen: US allies don’t defeat al-Qaida but pay it to go away.

Even though the Associated Press headline and the first paragraphs are somewhat misleading, the piece is well worth the read:

Again and again over the past two years, a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States has claimed it won decisive victories that drove al-Qaida militants from their strongholds across Yemen and shattered their ability to attack the West.Here’s what the victors did not disclose: many of their conquests came without firing a shot.
That’s because the coalition cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. Hundreds more were recruited to join the coalition itself.
These compromises and alliances have allowed al-Qaida militants to survive to fight another day — and risk strengthening the most dangerous branch of the terror network that carried out the 9/11 attacks. Key participants in the pacts said the U.S. was aware of the arrangements and held off on any drone strikes.

That lede does not reflect the detailed reporting following it. The cooperation between Saudi Arabia and al-Qaeda started immediately after the launch of the war, not only two years ago. 

It has since been ongoing. Early on al-Qaeda captured several towns and places with the implicit help of Saudi Arabia. It also received weapons and large payments. When its expansion became too obvious, the Saudis moved other proxy forces into those places or simply asked al-Qaeda to raise a different flag. The reporting deeper into the AP piece indeed concludes that al-Qaeda is not only paid to leave, but is hired and equipped by the Saudis to fight on all fronts. It provides that the U.S. war of terror against al-Qaeda is just a sham:

[T]he U.S. is working with its Arab allies — particularly the United Arab Emirates — with the aim of eliminating the branch of extremists known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. But the larger mission is to win the civil war against the Houthis, Iranian-backed Shiite rebels. And in that fight, al-Qaida militants are effectively on the same side as the Saudi-led coalition — and, by extension, the United States.

While the highlighted core news is correct, the AP piece again misleads in the details. The direct involvement of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and of mercenaries from a dozen countries proves that the war in Yemen is not a "civil war". It is a full fledged attack on Yemen, its resources and applaudably cool (vid) people. The Houthis are Zaida, not Twelver Shia like the Iranians. The are backed by Iranian rhetoric but that's about it. 

The missiles they launch against Saudi Arabia are from North Korea, not from Iran:

With Ali acting as a go-between, a "protocol of cooperation" between Yemen's Huthi rebels and North Korea was negotiated in 2016 in Damascus that provided for a "vast array of military equipment."

Al-Qaeda is directly involved in the ongoing attempt to encircle and starve millions of people in north Yemen. It plays a leading role in the attack on Hodeidah:

Two of the four main coalition-backed commanders along the Red Sea coast are allies of al-Qaida, the al-Qaida member said. The coalition has made major advances on the coast, currently battling for the port of Hodeida.Video footage shot by the AP in January 2017 showed a coalition-backed unit advancing on Mocha, part of an eventually successful campaign to recapture the Red Sea town.
Some of the unit’s fighters were openly al-Qaida, wearing Afghan-style garb and carrying weapons with the group’s logo. As they climbed behind machine guns in pick-up trucks, explosions from coalition airstrikes could be seen on the horizon.

Why is this involvement of al-Qaeda in the war on Yemen now the official news? For years it was an open secret. This blog covered it in about each of its dozens of posts about Yemen. 

But it was only rarely reported on in mainstream news. When such 'conspiracy theories' become official 'news' it is often only because it is useful to the powers that be. So why is AP publishing this now?

Is someone in the U.S. Defense Department upset with the U.S.-Saudi war on Yemen? Is this supposed to stop the attack on Hodeidah? Or is the White House miffed about Clown Prince Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who is in charge of the war? Is this meant as a warning to 'behave'?

Posted by b on August 6, 2018 at 07:22 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/08/yemen-the-saudi-us-al-qaeda-alliance-is-now-officially-news.html#more