SANAA: Ali Abdullah Saleh survived for decades as Yemen’s strongman, the master of shifting alliances, playing both sides — or flipping sides freely — in the multiple guerrilla conflicts and civil wars that tore apart his impoverished nation throughout his life. But his last switch proved his end.
Saleh, who was Yemen’s president for 33 years until he stepped down in 2012 amid an Arab Spring uprising, was killed on Monday by Houthi rebels whom he had once allied with in hopes of a return to power but then turned against in recent months.
A video circulating online showed Saleh’s body, his eyes open but glassy, motionless, blood staining his shirt and a gaping wound In his head.
His grisly end recalled that of his contemporary, Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, whose body was shown being abused by the rebels who killed him in that country’s 2011 civil war.
During his rule, Saleh was known as the man who “dances on the heads of snakes” for his ability to manipulate friends and enemies alike, using patronage, family bonds and brute force. That skill enabled him to stay on top in the Arab world’s poorest nation and one of its most unstable, where tribal and regional alliances and the sheer geography of mountains and deserts made central rule weak.
In the 2000s, Saleh was a vital ally of the US in fighting Al-Qaeda’s branch in his country, a top priority for Washington after the branch tried to blow up a passenger jet and carry out other attacks on American soil. Even while taking millions in US aid, Saleh was suspected of striking deals with the militants and enlisting them to fight his battles.
After a popular uprising against his rule erupted in 2011, Saleh cannily managed to hang on to power for months, even surviving a bomb that detonated in the presidential palace mosque as he prayed there, severely burning him. Still, he stayed on, only finally resigning in early 2012 under a Saudi-brokered deal.
As president, Saleh fought multiple wars against the Houthi rebels in their heartland in northern Yemen, each time failing to crush them completely. Then after his fall, he allied with the Houthis against his own former vice president and successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi — most likely in the hope he could ride them back into power.
Saleh’s loyalist military units helped the Houthis overrun the capital, Sanaa, and much of the north and center of the country. Hadi fled, his government moved to the southern city of Aden, and Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a coalition air campaign in early 2015. Then in recent months, Saleh’s alliance with the Houthis fell apart as the rebels moved to weaken him and Saleh flirted with switching to side with the Saudi-led coalition.
Saleh rose to power in an era when Yemen was divided into two nations, north and south. He was born into a small tribe allied with one of the country’s mightiest clans, Al-Ahmar. He did not stay long in school, leaving before he was a teenager and enlisting in the armed forces. His age was not known for sure. His website gives his birth date as March 21, 1946, but many in Yemen say he was born four years earlier. On the other hand, he just happened to be 40 when he took power in 1978 — when the constitution said the president had to be 40. And in the 2006 election, official statements alternated between saying he was 64 and 65.
Whatever his age, Saleh was ambitious and soon caught the eye of North Yemen’s president, Ahmed bin Hussein Al-Ghashmi, who appointed him military chief in the city of Taiz, south of Sanaa.
Saleh’s moment came after a bomb in a briefcase killed Al-Ghashmi in June 1978. Within a month, Saleh was North Yemen’s president, backed by Saudi Arabia.
His reputation cemented as a tough leader, he also knew how to play Cold War politics. Marxist South Yemen was a Soviet client state, so Saleh reached out to Western leaders to leverage aid for North Yemen.
In 1990, with the Soviet Union unraveling, Saleh negotiated unity with the south, ensuring his place as the president. On May 22, 1990, he raised the flag of the Republic of Yemen at the southern port of Aden. Four years later, he crushed an attempt by the south to break free.
His powerful nexus of the military and tribes made him virtually untouchable. He also sought to harness a dangerous new force in the country. Arab militants who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s needed a new home, and the deal apparently offered by Saleh was sanctuary in exchange for respecting his authority.
In 2000 that legacy came back to haunt him when the Navy destroyer USS Cole was bombed in Aden harbor, killing 17 American sailors. Washington demanded that Saleh crack down on suspected militants.
Saleh’s efforts against extremist groups were widely criticized as spotty and ineffective.
In 2006, a band of Al-Qaeda militants made a bold escape from a Sanaa prison that US and Yemeni officials believed had help from regime insiders. The band went on to form Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror network’s Yemen branch. The group was linked to the attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 and shipments of explosive-rigged packages were intercepted in Britain and Dubai in 2010. Still, the US saw little choice but to partner with him.
Key dates in life of veteran
• March 21, 1942: Born to a North Yemen family linked to the Hashid tribal confederation.
• 1962: Joins the army. Takes part in the coup that replaces the Zaidi imamate with an Arab nationalist republic.
• 1978: Following the assassination of President Ahmad Al-Ghashmi, Saleh is elected president of North Yemen by a constituent assembly.
• 1990: He successfully steers the country to reunification with the communist south, becoming president of a unified Yemen.
• 1994: He crushes a secession bid in the south.
• 2004-2010: Saleh fights northern Houthi rebels, who like him belong to the Zaidi minority.
• 2012: Steps down on Feb. 27 after months of demonstrations against his 33-year rule, and after being wounded in a June 2011 attack.
• 2014: Saleh allies himself with his former enemies — the Houthis — who in 2015 seize the capital Sanaa, and briefly Aden in the south, which is quickly retaken by a Saudi-led coalition.
• 2017: Break-up of the alliance between Saleh and Houthi rebels, who shoot him dead on Dec. 4 south of Sanaa after he flees the city.
— AFP
Timeline of conflict since 2011 uprising
SANAA: Timeline of the conflict in Yemen since a 2011 uprising that toppled President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose former Houthi allies said Monday had been killed.
Inspired by regional uprisings in the Arab Spring, Yemenis take to the streets in early 2011 to demand the departure of Saleh, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since 1978.
November 2011: Saleh agrees in to hand over power in exchange for immunity from prosecution for him and his family, after 11 months of protests and deadly clashes.
February 2012: As Saleh steps down, a presidential election is held. Saleh’s deputy and only candidate Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, seen as a man of consensus, is sworn in days later. Efforts to draw up a new constitution for Yemen face difficulties and tensions intensify.
2014: Houthis launch an offensive and push toward Sanaa from their northern stronghold of Saada, aiming to expand a hoped-for autonomy within a future federation.
Sept. 21, 2014: Houthis storm the capital and seize the government headquarters, state radio and military sites after days of clashes. More than 270 people are killed. The rebels, backed by Iran, forge an alliance with forces loyal to Saleh.
January 2015: The rebels and their allies have also taken control of the presidential palace. Hadi flees to Yemen’s second city, Aden, which he later declares as the “provisional capital.”
March 26, 2015: Nine regional countries in a Saudi-led Arab coalition launch operation “Decisive Storm” with airstrikes on the rebels to defend Hadi and his internationally recognized government. They claw back some territory but also have to deal with increasing attacks by terrorists allied to Al-Qaeda and Daesh.
2015 and 2016: The UN and US organize three rounds of fruitless peace talks. Seven truces are agreed, but all are broken.
Aug. 23, 2017: Splits emerge in the rebel camp, with the Houthis calling Saleh a “traitor” after he dismissed the Iran-backed group as a “militia” in a speech. The next day, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis attend a rally marking 35 years since the founding of Saleh’s General People’s Congress (GPC) in a major show of support. The tensions erupt into clashes between the allies in which a colonel loyal to Saleh and two rebels are killed.
Nov. 29: Violence erupts anew in Sanaa, killing and wounding dozens.
Dec. 2: Saleh reaches out to the Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis, offering to “turn the page” if it lifts a crippling blockade on the country. The Houthis accuse him of staging a “coup against our alliance.”
Dec. 4: President Hadi orders his forces to retake control of Sanaa. The Houthi-controlled Interior Ministry announces the killing of Saleh, 75, as a video emerges showing what appears to be his body.
— AFP
Saleh ruled by shifting alliances as nation crumbled
Saleh ruled by shifting alliances as nation crumbled
Hezbollah faces long recovery, officials believe thousands of fighters killed
Hassan Fadallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, told Reuters the priority will be “the people”
BEIRUT: With the bodies of its fighters still strewn on the battlefield, Hezbollah must bury its dead and provide succour to its supporters who bore the brunt of Israel’s offensive, as the first steps on a long and costly road to recovery, four senior officials said.
Hezbollah believes the number of its fighters killed during 14 months of hostilities could reach several thousand, with the vast majority killed since Israel went on the offensive in September, three sources familiar with its operations say, citing previously unreported internal estimates.
One source said the Iran-backed group may have lost up to 4,000 people — well over 10 times the number killed in its month-long 2006 war with Israel. So far, Lebanese authorities have said some 3,800 people were killed in the current hostilities, without distinguishing fighters from civilians.
Hezbollah emerges shaken from top to bottom, its leadership still reeling from the killing of its former leader Hassan Nasrallah and its supporters made homeless en masse by the carpet bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs and the destruction of entire villages in the south.
With a ceasefire taking hold on Wednesday, Hezbollah’s agenda includes working to re-establish its organizational structure fully, probing security breaches that helped Israel land so many painful blows, and a full review of the last year including its mistakes in underestimating Israel’s technological capabilities, three other sources familiar with the group’s thinking said.
For this story Reuters spoke to a dozen people who together provided details of some of the challenges facing Hezbollah as it seeks to pick itself up after the war. Most asked not to be named to speak about sensitive matters.
Hassan Fadallah, a senior Hezbollah politician, told Reuters the priority will be “the people.”
“To shelter them, to remove the rubble, to bid farewell to the martyrs and, in the next phase, to rebuild,” he said.
Israel’s campaign has focused largely on Hezbollah’s Shiite Muslim heartlands, where its supporters were badly hit. They include people still nursing casualties from Israel’s attack on its mobile communications devices in September.
“I have a brother who was martyred, a brother-in-law who was wounded in the pager attacks, and my neighbors and relatives are all either martyrs, wounded or missing,” said Hawraa, a woman from south Lebanon with family members who fight for Hezbollah.
“We want to collect our martyrs and bury them ... we want to rebuild our homes,” said Hawraa, who stayed in her village until she was forced to flee by the Israeli assault in September. She declined to use her full name, citing safety fears. The Israeli offensive displaced more than 1 million people, the bulk of them from areas where Hezbollah has sway.
A senior Lebanese official familiar with Hezbollah thinking said the group’s focus would be squarely on securing their return and rebuilding their homes: “Hezbollah is like a wounded man. Does a wounded man get up and fight? A wounded man needs to tend to his wounds.”
The official expected Hezbollah to carry out a wide-ranging policy review after the war, dealing with all major issues: Israel, its weapons, and the internal politics of Lebanon, where its weapons have long been a point of conflict. Iran, which established Hezbollah in 1982, has promised to help with reconstruction. The costs are immense: The World Bank estimates $2.8 billion in damage to housing alone in Lebanon, with 99,000 homes partially or fully destroyed.
The senior Lebanese official said Tehran has a variety of ways to get funds to Hezbollah, without giving details.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, a close Hezbollah ally, is urging wealthy Lebanese Shiites in the diaspora to send funds to help the displaced, two Lebanese officials said.
The officials also expected significant donations to come from Shiite religious foundations across the region.
Hezbollah did not immediately respond to a detailed request for comment for this story. Iran’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
’THE RESISTANCE’ WILL CONTINUE Hezbollah has indicated it intends to keep its arms, dashing hopes of Lebanese adversaries who predicted the pressures generated by the war would finally lead it to hand them to the state. Hezbollah officials have said the resistance — widely understood to mean its armed status — will continue.
Hezbollah opened fire in support of Palestinian ally Hamas on Oct. 8, 2023. Israel went on the offensive against the group in September, declaring the aim of securing the return home of 60,000 people evacuated from homes in the north.
Despite the resulting devastation, Hezbollah’s Fadlallah said the resistance put up by its fighters in south Lebanon and the group’s intensified rocket salvoes toward the end of the conflict showed Israel had failed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says its campaign has set back Hezbollah decades, eliminated its top leaders, destroyed most of its rockets, neutralized thousands of fighters, and obliterated its infrastructure near the border. A senior US official said Hezbollah was “extremely weak” at this moment, both militarily and politically. A Western diplomat echoed that assessment, saying Israel had the upper hand and had almost dictated the terms of its withdrawal. The ceasefire terms agreed by Israel and Lebanon require Hezbollah to have no military presence in an area between the Israeli border and the Litani River, which meets the Mediterranean Sea some 30 km (20 miles) from the frontier.
Hezbollah, which approved the deal, has not declared how it intends to help implement those terms, including whether it actively hands its arms to Lebanese troops who are deploying into the south, or leaves the weapons for soldiers to find.
Israel complains Hezbollah, which is deeply rooted in south Lebanon, never implemented the same terms when they were agreed to end a previous war in 2006 war. Israel says the group was preparing for a large-scale assault into northern Israel, pointing to its military build-up at the frontier.
Andreas Krieg of King’s College in London said Hezbollah had retained considerable capability.
The performance of its “core infantry fighters in southern Lebanon and rocket attacks deep into Israeli territory in recent days showed the group was still very, very capable,” he said.
“But Hezbollah will be very much bogged down in the effort of rebuilding the infrastructure and also, most importantly, securing the funds to do so,” he said.
’REPAYING THE DEBT’
Hezbollah has been handing out cash to people affected by the hostilities since they began, paying $200 a month to civilians who stayed in frontline villages, and offering more as people were forced to flee the areas, according to recipients.
Since the start of the escalation in September, Hezbollah has been paying around $300 a month to help displaced families.
The group has made no secret of the military and financial support it gets from Iran, which shipped huge sums of cash to in 2006 to aid the homeless and help rebuild.
Hezbollah supporters say more will be on the way. One, citing conversations with a local Hezbollah official, said the group would cover a year of rent for the homeless in addition to furniture costs.
Addressing the Lebanese people in an October sermon, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “the destruction will be replaced... repaying the debt to the wounded, bleeding Lebanon is our duty....”
The World Bank, in a preliminary estimate, put the cost in damage and losses to Lebanon at $8.5 billion, a bill that cannot be footed by the government, still suffering the consequences of a catastrophic financial collapse five years ago.
Gulf states Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia helped pay the $5 billion reconstruction bill in 2006, the last time Hezbollah and Israel went to war. But there has been no sign that these Sunni-led Arab states are ready to do so again. Hezbollah conducted a lot of reconstruction work after the 2006 war, financed by Iran and using its construction wing. The project was directed by Hashem Safieddine, a Hezbollah leader killed by Israel 11 days after Nasrallah, in a sign of the bigger challenges it will face this time round.
“For Hezbollah the priority is to guarantee the loyalty of the Shi’ite community. The destruction has been enormous and it will impact the organization,” said Mohanand Hage Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
57 dead in army-miltant clashes in northern Syria: monitor
- Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
- The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants
BEIRUT: Militants launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday, sparking clashes in which 57 combatants were killed, a war monitor said.
Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham” (HTS), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, referring to a militant group led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch which controls a chunk of northwestern Syria.
The Observatory said “26 members of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham and allied factions” were killed, as well as “31 members of the regime forces.”
The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants in the area for the first time in years, the Britain-based Observatory said.
The Syrian conflict broke out after President Bashar Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011. It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Displaced residents return to South Lebanon, Israeli army breaches ceasefire twice
- Najib Mikati says Lebanese army developing operational plan for the South
- Nabih Berri: We are entering a new phase, and the moment of truth for the unity of Lebanon has arrived
BEIRUT: As soon as the ceasefire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army took effect at 4 a.m. on Wednesday — after hours of airstrikes targeting Beirut, its southern suburbs, the Bekaa, the South, and even Akkar in the far north — returning residents quickly transformed the tragic scene into one of “victory.”
Roads leading from Beirut to the South and Bekaa were crowded with hundreds of vehicles loaded with families and their belongings heading back to their villages.
People disregarded army warnings to stay away from damaged buildings or those reduced to rubble, citing fears of unexploded missiles. Upon reaching their neighborhoods, whose features had drastically changed, residents climbed the ruins, entered partially destroyed homes, or stood among what remained of their homes, a scene that vividly depicted the pain of war.
The harsh images of destruction and the tears of women over their lost homes were met by the younger generation filled with a determination to speak of “victory.” Celebratory gunfire filled the air, and Hezbollah flags and images of its former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah were raised atop the rubble of the buildings.
Neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which had turned into ghost towns for two months, came back to life with the sound of honking car horns.
Hezbollah organized a tour for journalists in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where the smell of fires and the dust of explosives still emanated from the flattened buildings.
Traffic jams and chaos ensued as Ministry of Public Works bulldozers cleared rubble littered with people’s belongings, memories, children’s books, and toys from the middle of streets.
The road to the South was packed with thousands of cars, with many passengers waving Lebanese flags, declaring they were “returning to their villages, and if their homes are destroyed, they will stay with neighbors.”
Although many of those returning avoided routes damaged by Israeli airstrikes, life in some villages looked likely to be extremely challenging because of the lack of essentials such as water, electricity and operational shops.
The return did not include those border towns into which the Israeli army had advanced and destroyed homes. Reports indicated that civil defense teams were retrieving the bodies of party members killed in battles that no one had previously been able to recover.
Despite the destruction in frontline villages, some youths from the border area approached them. In Aita Al-Shaab, they burned the Israeli flag, while others challenged Israeli tanks stationed in villages such as Kfarkela, Khiam and Odaisseh. They took photos in front of the tanks, flashing victory signs, while photojournalists moved in to capture the moment. Israeli soldiers fired five artillery shells and warning shots in response, to push them away from the area, the first breach of the ceasefire agreement.
A second was reported by Hezbollah’s Al-Manar channel, which stated that “Israeli drones flew over the skies of Marjayoun and Khardali.”
The Israeli army acknowledged opening fire on those it described as “suspects in several areas of southern Lebanon” and affirmed that it would “respond with fire to any breaches of the agreement.”
In Khiam, photographer Mohammed Al-Zaatari suffered gunshot wounds to his leg in the town when the Israeli army opened fire.
The Lebanese army subsequently closed all access to Khiam due to the presence of the Israeli army in the area.
Some of the returnees to Nabatieh departed at dawn from Akkar, the region to which they had fled in the far north. Ahmad and his companions said: “We set out before the ceasefire took effect and arrived in the Zahrani area as the agreement came into force. The scene of destruction in Nabatieh is alarming, yet it was anticipated.”
On the way to the Baalbek-Hermel region, residents celebrated the ceasefire in their own way by slaughtering sheep in Tamnine El Faouqa.
The Israeli army focused its attacks on the city of Baalbek and surrounding villages just before the ceasefire was scheduled to take effect. Airstrikes, which targeted civilians, hit occupied and unoccupied residential buildings, with some attacks involving phosphorus bombs.
Fifty civilians were killed in the Baalbek-Hermel region during the ceasefire, including a 16-day-old infant named as Jaafar Ali, alongside 10 members of his family.
The Talais family lost 11 members, including children, was killed. In the city of Baalbek, four members of the Wahbi family were also killed their lives.
The recent Israeli airstrikes targeted the last land crossings connecting Lebanon to Syria in the north, particularly the official Al-Arida Border Crossing, disrupting work in the area.
Minister of Public Works Ali Hamieh said during his inspection of the Masnaa Border Crossing that “Al-Arida Border Crossing will be opened within 48 hours.”
Amid these developments, images of Wafiq Safa, Hezbollah’s coordination and liaison unit head, circulated on social media, showing him in good health. This was his first appearance after an assassination attempt a month ago in Beirut, resulting in the deaths and injuries of dozens of civilians.
The Council of Ministers convened under the chairmanship of Najib Mikati to discuss the state’s arrangements for the ceasefire phase and its implementation.
Mikati described the ceasefire as “a new day that we hope will bring peace and stability.”
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said: “We are entering a new phase, and the moment of truth for the unity of Lebanon has arrived.”
Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah said that Hezbollah has “a program related to reconstruction, but this is a shared responsibility.”
Biden administration advancing $680m arms sale to Israel, source says
- The package includes thousands of joint direct attack munition kits (JDAM) and hundreds of small-diameter bombs
- However, the package has been in the works for several months
WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is pushing ahead with a $680 million arms sales package to Israel, a US official familiar with the plan said on Wednesday, even as a US-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah has come into effect.
The package, which was first reported by the Financial Times, includes thousands of joint direct attack munition kits (JDAM) and hundreds of small-diameter bombs, according to the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The news comes less than a day after the ceasefire agreement ended the deadliest confrontation in years between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, but Israel is still fighting its other arch foe, the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
However, the package has been in the works for several months. It was first previewed to the congressional committees in September then submitted for review in October, the official said.
The package follows a $20 billion sale in August of fighter jets and other military equipment to Israel.
Reuters reported in June that Washington, Israel’s biggest ally and weapons supplier, has sent Israel more than 10,000 highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
The conversations about the latest arms package had been going on even as a group of progressive US senators including Bernie Sanders introduced resolutions to block the sale of some US weapons to Israel over concerns about the human rights catastrophe faced by Palestinians in Gaza.
The legislation was shot down in the Senate.
Biden, whose term ends in January, has strongly backed Israel since Hamas-led gunmen attacked in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Most of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people has been displaced and the enclave is at risk of famine, more than a year into Israel’s war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave. Gaza health officials say more than 43,922 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s offensive.
Dozens of underage migrants rescued in Mediterranean
- The group packed into an overloaded small boat was made up of “90 percent unaccompanied minors,” Marseille-based SOS Mediterranee said in a statement
- Ocean Viking had intervened after receiving a notification about the boat from a NATO aircraft by VHF radio
MARSEILLE: Rescue ship Ocean Viking on Tuesday pulled 48 mostly underage migrants from the Mediterranean off the Libyan, the aid group that operates the vessel said on Wednesday.
The group packed into an overloaded small boat was made up of “90 percent unaccompanied minors,” Marseille-based SOS Mediterranee said in a statement.
Ocean Viking had intervened after receiving a notification about the boat from a NATO aircraft by VHF radio, it added.
“Most of the survivors are originally from The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau,” according to SOS Mediterranee, which added that they were “now safe and resting in the on-board shelters.”
Guinea-Bisseau on Africa’s western coast is one of the world’s poorest countries, seen also as one of the most plagued by corruption.
The aid group complained at Italian authorities’ issuance of an authorization for Ocean Viking to dock for the people to disembark at the distant port of Ravenna — almost 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) or a four days’ sail away.
“This practice... empties the Mediterranean of search and rescue resources and increases the suffering of rescued people,” SOS Mediterranee said.
Around 1,985 people attempting to reach Europe across the Mediterranean have gone missing or died this year, according to International Organization for Migration (IOM) figures.
