The truth behind Yemeni clerics jihad warning

The Yemeni regime is try­ing to esca­late the fight with the Houthis to take an inter­na­tion­al­ize the con­flict, and asso­ci­at­ing the Houthis among the ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions, a demand not approved by the United States, which puts Al Qaeda’s as first pri­or­i­ties, and con­sid­ers the Houthis issue as an inter­nal conflict.

Since 2004 and until now the Yemeni gov­ern­ment failed to per­suade Wash­ing­ton to include the Houthi move­ment in its ter­ror­ists list. Par­al­lel to this rejec­tion there were many research reports from Wash­ing­ton, accused the Yemeni gov­ern­ment of turn­ing a blind eye to Al-Qaeda activ­i­ties, and even accused the Yemeni gov­ern­ment of mak­ing a mys­te­ri­ous deal with Al-Qaeda.

On Thurs­day, Decem­ber 17th, 2009, Obama con­grat­u­lated Pres­i­dent Ali Abdul­lah Saleh on the suc­cess of what it called a qual­ity pre­emp­tive Yemeni oper­a­tion against Al Qaeda bases in Abyan, despite the civil­ian vic­tims killed in this oper­a­tion. The note­wor­thy in Obama’s com­ment and as the reported by the media, Obama expressed his aware­ness of Yemen’s con­cern about the north-based insur­gency and reit­er­ates its full sup­port for Yemen’s unity and stability.

The Yemeni tries to cut (Houthis in exchange for Al-Qaeda) deal with the U.S., at the same time the Yemeni regime fears from the con­se­quences of an Amer­i­can air strike against Al-Qaeda bases in the moun­tains of Yemen, which can cause an embar­rass­ment for Ali Abdul­lah Saleh’s Gov­ern­ment and can shake its pres­tige among its citizens.

It seems that there voices among the U.S. Sen­ates pushe Obama’s admin­is­tra­tion to strike Al-Qaeda bases in Yemen, away from the accep­tance or rejec­tion of the Yemeni Gov­ern­ment. To counter the above voices, The Yemeni Gov­ern­ment instructed the reli­gious author­i­ties in Yemen, to ini­ti­ate a pub­lic cam­paign against the United States. Yemen reli­gious cler­ics threat­ened to call for jihad in case any for­eign mil­i­tary inter­ven­tion in the coun­try (or an air strike planned by the United States).

So we see two U.S. poli­cies in Yemen and the Arab penin­sula, one rejected the inclu­sion of Houthi as a ter­ror­ist move­ment, and the other offer advice and train­ing for Yemen and Saudi Ara­bia, and acknowl­edges its com­mit­ment to the secu­rity of its friends in the region.