{"id":2756,"date":"2009-09-17T19:38:31","date_gmt":"2009-09-18T00:38:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=2756"},"modified":"2016-05-31T19:43:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T00:43:17","slug":"yemens-president-accuses-iraqs-sadrists-of-backing-the-houthi-insurgency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/?p=2756","title":{"rendered":"Yemen\u2019s President Accuses Iraq\u2019s Sadrists of Backing the Houthi Insurgency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor<\/strong><\/p>\n

September 17, 2009<\/strong><\/p>\n

Offers from the Iranian government and Iraq\u2019s militant Shi\u2019ite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr to mediate the ongoing and seemingly intractable struggle between the Sana\u2019a regime and the Zaydi Shi\u2019ite Houthist rebels of northern Yemen have been interpreted by Yemen\u2019s government as proof\u00a0that Iran and the Sadrists are providing guidance and support to the rebel movement.<\/p>\n

\"Muqtada<\/a>Muqtada al-Sadr <\/strong><\/em>(AFP)
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The issue was raised in a September 11 al-Jazeera interview with Yemen\u2019s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who said, \u201cWe cannot accuse the Iranian official side, but the Iranians are contacting us, saying that they are prepared for a mediation. This means that the Iranians have contacts with them [the Houthists], given that they want to mediate between the Yemeni government and them. Also, Muqtada al-Sadr in al-Najaf in Iraq is asking that he be accepted as a mediator. This means they have a link.\u201d President Saleh also said that two Houthist cells had been arrested and the suspects had admitted receiving $100,000 from Iranian sources. While the accusations of Iranian support for the Shi\u2019ite Houthists are not new, the suggestion that Iraq\u2019s Sadrist movement is supporting the rebels came as a surprise to many.<\/p>\n

Yemeni authorities say they have seized caches of weapons made in Iran, while the Houthists claim to have captured Yemeni equipment with Saudi Arabian markings, accusing Sana\u2019a of acting as a Saudi proxy. Iran\u2019s embassy in Sana\u2019a rejected claims that Iranian weapons were found in north Yemen and described all claims of material or financial support to\u00a0 the rebels as baseless (NewsYemen, September 8; Yemen Observer, September 10).<\/p>\n

Iskandar al-Asbahi of Yemen\u2019s ruling General People\u2019s Congress suggested the rebels had asked for diplomatic intervention from their alleged Shi\u2019ite allies. \u201cDespite [the Houthists\u2019] continued attacks on villages and houses, they are calling for a ceasefire and pleading with Iran and Muqtada al-Sadr, the sides which are helping and financing them, to stop the war on them.\u201d Any effort at mediation by al-Sadr or Iran is proof \u201cthat the insurgents are agents and serving foreign agendas\u201d (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 11).<\/p>\n

In Iraq, Saleh\u2019s claims were denounced by Sadrist MP Zaynab al-Kenani, who declared that the Yemeni president\u2019s \u201caccusations against Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr are wrong, otherwise the Yemeni leader should provide evidence supporting his claims\u201d (Aswat al-Iraq, September 12).<\/p>\n

A spokesman for Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the rebel commander in Sa\u2019ada Governate, said the president\u2019s allegations of foreign support had a familiar ring. \u201cThese remarks are not new for us and the same was said during the previous wars. They are lies by the state. We challenge him to prove what he says” (Al-Sharq al-Awsat, September 11).<\/p>\n

While the Zaydi Shi\u2019ites are one of the three main branches of the Shi\u2019a movement, they have little in common theologically with the Shi\u2019ites of Iran and Iraq and have developed in relative isolation from their fellow Shi\u2019ites in the mountains of northern Yemen. The Zaydis have more in common with the Sunnis and even share a preference for the Sunni Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence. In the al-Jazeera interview, President Saleh dismissed claims that the Zaydis were fighting religious oppression. \u201cThey accuse the regime of being against the Zaydi community, even though we are Zaydis. I am a Zaydi. Nobody says that the Zaydi books or the Zaydi denominations are wrong at all. All this is intended to deceive the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article first appeared in the September 17, 2009 issue of the Jamestown Foundation\u2019s Terrorism Monitor<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew McGregor September 17, 2009 Offers from the Iranian government and Iraq\u2019s militant Shi\u2019ite leader Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr to mediate the ongoing and seemingly intractable struggle between the Sana\u2019a regime and the Zaydi Shi\u2019ite Houthist rebels of northern Yemen have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,26,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iran","category-iraq","category-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2761,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2756\/revisions\/2761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aberfoylesecurity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}