Pakistan Press On Dying Dissent, Hazara Killing, Disinformation Warfare and Afghanistan: New Age Islam's Selection, 7 January 2021
By New Age Islam Edit Desk
7 January 2021
• Dying Dissent
By Kamila Hyat
• Hazara Protest
Editorial, The Dawn
• Women Seeking Divorce
Editorial, The Dawn
• Trump’s Unjust Pardoning of the Blackwater Killers
By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi
• Afghanistan’s Unclaimed Attacks
By Imran Jan
• Disinformation Warfare
By Faran Mahmood
• New Yemen Government Has Major Challenges Ahead
By Manish Rai
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Dying Dissent
By Kamila Hyat
January 7, 2021
Dissent is an extremely important part of any democracy. It
is crucial as a means to maintain equilibrium within society. Without dissent,
progress is difficult and it is complicated for people to judge what is
happening in their nation and with the government that they elected.
Trying to stamp out dissent has been a frequent practice not
only in our country, but in many parts of the world. The damage it has caused
has taken years to recover from. When dissent is silenced it is most often
replaced with fear and crazed conspiracy theories such as QAnon. Of course, we
have our own set of conspiracy-based hype. But the fact that so many in a
so-called developed country can believe in QAnon and other ludicrous stories is
terrifying.
In the case of Pakistan, we saw the worst case of the
systematic suppression of dissent – till now – under General Ziaul Haq. Zamir
Niazi and others have documented the methods and outcomes in detail. Zia's
brutal clamp-down on the voices of opposition meant that people developed an
increasingly one-dimensional view of the world they lived in, without being
able to build an understanding of beliefs that were different to this view.
Religion and mendacity were used in combination to
strengthen this outlook. We still live with the harm caused by these policies
today. The intolerance we see, the misogyny that is experienced by women across
the country, the attacks on minorities, and the inability to tolerate any kind
of opposing voice or simply agree to disagree when no middle ground appears to
be available is something we have forgotten how to master. This was not the
case in the early decades of Pakistan or in fact, even in the traumatic years
that ran up to the events of Partition.
Of course, the issue of dissent has been discussed all
around the world and is a factor in many countries. It would be incorrect to
say that it is a problem only of the developing world or of relatively new
democracies, which have not yet found the stable ground they need to understand
how democracy must work and why dissent or the voicing of opinions of all kinds
is essential to this. Analyst and academic Noam Chomsky has written extensively
on dissent and what happens when it is pushed aside. About his own country, the
USA, and the media within it, he has spoken and written at length on the manner
in which corporate interests have come to control the media and determine what
is right and what is wrong in the eyes of newspapers.
The days when ideology determined what view a journal took
have vanished. There is now a middle ground occupied by almost all the media
around the world, with a few standing towards the left of the circle, a few
towards the right and most grouped right in the centre. Very few stand outside
the circle either to its left or right. There is, in other words, less and less
dissent. A common worldview has been created, essentially by interests which
represent big business and big money. These businesses and corporations, after
all, today, control the world and all that happens within it. The result is
there is almost no room for ordinary people to make their views known or to highlight
them in any mainstream form.
We are seeing this today, particularly in India, which for
decades had a fairly free, open and divided media, with opinions of various
kinds reflected in it. These have begun to vanish, almost entirely, under
unrelenting pressure from the Modi government. The result is increased tabloid
journalism and a media which represents essentially only one view of the world
– a world that is hostile to minorities in India, hostile to Kashmir and its
brave freedom fighters, hostile to Pakistan and to other groups within the
country and around the world. The manner in which the Indian media has been
reduced to an absurdity is frightening.
We are seeing some of the same in our own country. In some
cases, the media is being killed softly, with whispered threats and suggestions
made to individual journalists. In other cases, the steps taken are harsher,
with journalists picked up even if this has usually been for brief periods, and
essentially intended to scare them into following one line of opinion and one
school of thought. In some cases, the arrest of leading figures in journalism
is intended to send home a stronger message.
The larger media houses may be able to hold out to a certain
extent, although even this is limited. The smaller ones have been forced into
conformity. People then get simply a look at the world that is shot from one
angle and depicts only one perspective. But this is carried out with so little
subtlety that most people have begun to see through the facade of a free press
and a free media. They recognize, just as was the case in the days when PTV and
Radio Pakistan were the main sources of knowledge for people, that they are not
being told the truth or at least not the whole truth. To use the old term in
journalism, more and more material is being spiked. Of course, speaking
literally in the form of the modern media, this simply means it is not being
run.
Social media has to some extent tried to make up for the
loss of space available for dissent. But even social media is under pressure,
with new laws and new measures coming in. Even large social media organisations
have been asked to crush voices and to ‘cooperate’ with the government in this
case. As has happened before, the government and the state are being muddled – without
an awareness of the distinction between the two. This is dangerous in any
country, and simply breeds greater frustration, greater anger and therefore
greater risk to the country as opinion continues to be crushed.
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Kamila Hyat is a freelance columnist and former newspaper
editor.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/770229-dying-dissent
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Hazara Protest
Editorial, The Dawn
07 Jan 2021
A DESPERATELY sad sequence of events is playing out yet
again in Quetta. In the bitter cold of winter, thousands of Shia Hazaras — men,
women and children — are staging a sit-in on a highway that runs through the
city. Amidst them are the coffins of the 11 coalminers from their community who
were brutally slain on Sunday in Balochistan’s Bolan district.
Despite the efforts of the chief minister, several
provincial ministers and some federal level government functionaries, the
mourners had, until the time of writing, refused to bury their dead and call
off their protest unless the prime minister came and met them. Imran Khan in a
tweet yesterday vowed he would do so “very soon” to condole with all the
victims but requested them to bury their loved ones “so that their souls find
peace”.
After each of the two massive suicide bombings in January
and February 2013 in Quetta in which over 200 Hazaras perished, the community
had also staged similar days-long sit-ins with the victims’ coffins. Each time
they were targeted in sectarian attacks, they appealed to the state to protect
them. They were given assurances and promises, but these amounted to little
more than empty words. In certain situations they were provided security by the
government, but by and large, they stepped out of their barricaded ghettoes at
their own peril.
In other words, the state took the easy way out. It did not
take the more difficult path, which was to weed out and throw behind bars the
violent extremists that often roamed free in the province, even holding rallies
and openly threatening the community. Among those who have gathered in the frigid
temperatures this time around, there is certainly grief, but underlying that is
enormous anger.
Anger over the terrible, needless tragedies that have
repeatedly befallen the persecuted Hazaras, anger over the sectarian killers
who still manage to strike at will in a heavily militarised city such as Quetta
and escape detection. And now the anger is spreading among the public,
particularly the wider Shia community.
Protests against the massacre have spread in Karachi, with
demonstrators taking to the streets for the second day running, burning tyres
and wood and disrupting traffic. Having taken place after a lull, Sunday’s
massacre reminds us how tenuous is the triumph over militancy. The Hazaras have
suffered for too long; like the souls of their dead, the living must also find
peace.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1600180/hazara-protest
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Women Seeking Divorce
Editorial, The Dawn
07 Jan 2021
ACCORDING to a report recently published in this paper,
722pc more women from all over Sindh moved court seeking separation from their
husbands in 2020 compared to the previous year. In 2019, a total of 632 family
suits were filed in family courts. However, in 2020 — a year of
pandemic-induced lockdowns and layoffs — this number rose to 5,198 cases, out
of which 4,050 were from Karachi. The steep increase reflects how the many
problems women face on the domestic front in our patriarchal society were
compounded by circumstances arising from the pandemic. In fact, 2020 was a
particularly difficult year for women around the world, as cases of domestic
violence rose sharply in the wake of economic and social adversity triggered by
Covid-19 lockdowns in a number of countries, including in the West. In the US,
for instance, distress calls by women increased by as much as 30pc during the
initial lockdowns.
Given that Pakistan was ranked the sixth most dangerous
country in the world for women in a 2018 survey, the indirect effect of
lockdowns would undoubtedly be felt far more acutely by Pakistani women, who
are already marginalised and prevented from making autonomous choices about
their health, safety and personal lives.
According to rights groups, women from low-income households
who are part of the informal workforce were most affected by domestic violence.
It is unfortunate, then, that while the wellbeing of families is discussed in
connection with economic hardship and mental health during the pandemic, the
emotional, physical and economic plight of women is seldom taken into account.
It is imperative that the authorities demonstrate commitment to upholding laws
such as the Sindh Domestic Violence Act, 2013, and the Punjab Protection of
Women Against Violence Act, 2016, and ensuring that all women have access to
shelter and rehabilitative services should they seek support.
Several crisis helplines were launched last year; these
initiatives can only be effective if the legal aid they provide is synergised
with the government’s own criminal justice system.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1600179/women-seeking-divorce
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Trump’s Unjust Pardoning of the Blackwater Killers
By Syed Qamar Afzal Rizvi
January 7, 2021
Last week, President Trump pardoned the Blackwater
contractors who were involved in the heinous crime of civilians’ killing in
Baghdad in 2007. UN Rights experts say pardon of four contractors over Iraq
killings has undermined international humanitarian law. The truth is that the
Trump endorsed pardon is all against the set norms of international
humanitarian law, including the Intentional Code of Conduct (ICoC) stipulated
for the private security firms.
International law experts argue that ‘’ensuring accountability for such
crimes is fundamental to humanity and to the community of nations … Pardons,
amnesties, or any other forms of exculpation for war crimes open doors to
future abuses when States contract private military and security companies for
inherent state functions’’.
‘’Pardoning the Blackwater contractors is an affront to
justice and to the victims of the Nisour Square massacre and their families,”
said JelenaAparac, Chair of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries. “These
pardons violate U.S. obligations under international law and more broadly
undermine humanitarian law and human rights at a global level,” Aparac
continued.The Geneva Conventions “oblige States to hold war criminals
accountable” even when acting “as private security contractors”, the UN experts
said, reminding that the men were legally tried and convicted for the crimes.
In 2015 the US courts found Nicholas Slatten guilty of first-degree murder,
while Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted of voluntary
and attempted manslaughter President Trump pardoned all four on 22 December.
And yet not surprisingly, the pardons for the former
Blackwater contractors have met with sharp criticism from the US civil rights
experts including the military persons such as Gen. David Petraeus and Ryan
Crocker, the top American officials in charge of the U.S. policy in Iraq at the
time of the 2007 killings, who called it “hugely damaging, an action that tells
the world that Americans abroad can commit the most heinous crimes with
impunity” in a joint statement obtained by Reuters. The massacre took place on
Sept. 16, 2007, in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. One of the victims was a medical
student who died with his mother. Two were boys aged 9 and 11. According to the
US justice department, at about noon that day several of the contractors opened
fire in and around Nisoor Square, a busy roundabout that was immediately
adjacent to the heavily-fortified Green Zone. When they stopped shooting, at
least 14 Iraqi civilians were dead – 10 men, two women and two boys, aged nine
and 11. Iraqi authorities put the toll at 17.TheIraqi police and witnesses
argued that the contractors opened fire first, shooting at a small car driven
by a couple with their child that did not get out of the convoy’s way as
traffic slowed.
The human rights expert noted that the adoption of a new
international legal instrument within the UN provides a clear framework to
effectively monitor abuses and violations of human rights committed by private
military and security companies and provide an independent avenue to compensate
victims of such violations. The human rights expert stated that the
prosecutions of Blackwater contractors signal that human rights violations
committed by private military and security companies cannot remain unpunished
and provide a strong deterrent against their repetition.“There can be no
justice without effective accountability and redress mechanisms for victims,”
Ms. Elizabeth Karska of the UN working group on human rights stressed. It is
also argued, “States have a responsibility to ensure that victims and their
families have equal and effective access to justice, as well as adequate,
effective and prompt reparation for the harm suffered”.
The UN human rights experts are part of what is known as the
Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest
body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights, is the general name of the
independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms of the Human Rights Council
that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts
of the world. The International Code of Conduct(ICoC) is rightly applicable to
the three pillars: representing states, private security companies (PSCs) and
civil society organisations (CSOs). The ICoC principles can help CSOs to engage
with PSCs to encourage them to provide security services in a responsible
manner that respects the rule of law and human rights. The ICoC defines a
common set of principles for PSCs and lays the groundwork for translating these
principles into standards and mechanisms of governance and oversight: these
principles can guide CSO advocacy and awareness-raising activities.
The International Code of Conduct for Private Security
Service Providers seeks to ensure respect for human rights and international
humanitarian law in regions where the rule of law has been undermined. Its
oversight and governance mechanism is based in Geneva. The International Code of Conduct for Private
Security Service Providers (ICoC) defines industry rules and principles based
on human rights and international humanitarian law. The said code of conduct
enjoys the support of private security companies, various industry associations
and humanitarian and civil society organisations.The UN Rapporteurs have
chartered grave concern that by permitting private security contractors to
operate with impunity in armed conflicts, States would be encouraged to
circumvent their humanitarian law obligations by outsourcing core military
operations to the private sector.
Arguably, with regard to the issue of internal disciplinary
system and compliance with the rules of international law applicable in armed
conflicts, it is interesting to note that some private companies pledge in
their public communication that they respect international law, especially
human rights and humanitarian law. Therefore, the International Peace Operation
Organization (IPOA), the organization that is promoting the role of private
companies, has adopted a code of conduct that states that: Regulations annexed
to the Fourth Hague Conventions of 18 October 1907 (hereinafter “The Hague
Regulations”), Article 4 A (1), (2), (3) and (6) of the Third Geneva Convention
and Article 43 of Protocol I. In addition to situations where they would be
integrated in the regular armed forces of a belligerent, personnel of private
companies would be categorized as combatants if they formed part of militias
belonging to a party to the conflict and fulfilled the conditions provided by
Article 1 of the Hague Regulations, and Article 4 A (2) of the Third Geneva Convention.
The above-discussed legal arguments notwithstanding, so far,
the US administration has been showing a double standard on the presidential
pardons, the case of DrAfia Siddiqui is a speaking example in this behalf. Notably, Prime Minister Imran Khan in a 2019
interview, shortly after his meeting with President Donald Trump in the White
House,mentioned Dr. Afia Siddiqui’s case and his Government’s
unflinchingcommitment to negotiate her release. Her repatriation case is
pending in the Supreme Court of Pakistan and Sindh High Court. Her Mercy
Petition was sent to President Trump in 2020. Still, Islamabad hopes that the
Biden administration will pay attention to her petitionon the humanitarian
grounds.
https://dailytimes.com.pk/710581/trumps-unjust-pardoning-of-the-blackwater-killers/
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Afghanistan’s Unclaimed Attacks
By Imran Jan
January 06, 2021
Afghanistan has been getting battered with targeted
assassinations, killings of journalists, civil society members, current and
former security force members. Interestingly, these attacks remain unclaimed.
Insurgencies and terror groups heavily tout their ability to create mayhem.
They thrive in the limelight of violence. But this is a whodunit story. To
clarify; plausible deniability is the oxygen of intelligence agencies, not
insurgencies.
Unclaimed attacks smell of the need for secrecy. One thing
common between an insurgency and democracy is that both die in darkness. The
Taliban spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, vehemently denied any role in these
attacks. Labeling Kabul’s allegations as “propaganda”, Mujahid said, “We have
condemned these killings and reject any involvement in these.”
The noise pollution emanating from Kabul should never blind
us to their ulterior motive: the derailment of the peace deal that the US and
Taliban signed in February 2020. It is not the Taliban, but Kabul and New
Delhi, that need an earthquake to change the status quo and shake the peace
deal. That is what Zalmay Khalilzad was referring to when he tweeted, “Those
perpetuating violence seek to undermine the peace process and the country’s
future. They do not reflect the will of Afghan people, who yearn for peace.”
This is not the first time Khalilzad warned of spoilers.
The strategy of unclaimed attacks is serving Kabul to some
extent, because for the first time, the US military finally blamed the Taliban
for them, despite the IS claiming responsibility for some of them. However,
unfortunate for the Kabul-New Delhi duo, the peace deal remains intact despite
their collective shenanigans. At the start of 2020, there were close to 13,000
US troops in Afghanistan. That number has shrunk significantly, thanks to the
peace deal. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said, “No US servicemen have been
killed in Afghanistan in almost a year, and Afghans are finally discussing
peace and reconciliation among themselves. Such incredible progress.” Again,
thanks to the peace deal. But the conflicting messages from US military and
State Department are a cause for concern.
Every time major news outlets try to lend some veracity to
Taliban being behind the attacks, they use phrases such as “officials said they
have little doubt the Taliban is behind the surge of attacks” or “the timing
makes most officials believe that the Taliban are” behind them. Who are these
officials? They are members of the same criminal gang run by Amrullah Saleh
with Ashraf Ghani’s blessing.
The reality is not lost on the Afghan people, who can
clearly see Kabul’s fingerprints on this violence. Dawlat Waziri, a former
Afghan general and military analyst, said there are those who “want the peace
talks to collapse and support a civil war, because the more chaos and war in
this country, the more they will benefit”.
Lately, in Afghanistan, it has been designer violence —
meant to achieve one thing: the furthering of the rhetoric that peace remains
distant in Afghanistan and the Taliban are to be blamed for that. More
importantly; America must not exit now. Davood Moradian, director of the Afghan
Institute for Strategic Studies, said, “The Taliban are telling the new [US]
administration, ‘Don’t you dare reopen the deal’.” It is more plausible that
actually Kabul is sending that message.
In October 2020, an Afghan reported on an Afghan forces’
raid on a mosque school in Takhar, where 12 civilians were killed, mostly
children. That person was arrested for practising journalism. Saleh had then
tweeted, “The person responsible for the spread of this venomous & fake
news was arrested immediately.” That person’s identity remains unclear. Among
the journalists and activists assassinated in these unclaimed attacks, I wonder
if he was one of them?
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2278955/afghanistans-unclaimed-attacks
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Disinformation Warfare
By Faran Mahmood
January 06, 2021
As EU DisinfoLab exposes a 15-year ongoing ‘hybrid’
operation against Pakistan, information warfare is as real as it gets. The New
Delhi-based Srivastava Group was found using subversive instruments including
fake news, identity theft and cyber terrorism that greatly damaged the cause of
Kashmir and CPEC.
Another example of such information warfare was the use of
algorithmic manufacturing of consent by the Mexican political elite through
creation of false universes of ghost followers and bots to generate tweets and
hiring trolls to silence dissident voices. Data company Mesura revealed the use
of ‘hybrid’ tactics to build online support for controversial energy reforms by
systematically attacking dissident voices when a group of 132 students protested
against the biased coverage of election campaigns in 2012 and the overall
political engineering by the incumbent government, The Yo Soy 132 movement was
later hijacked by Manuel Cossío who offered to manage the group’s social
media. Manuel was actually working for the Mexican Secret Service who
infiltrated the movement, stole data and destabalised power balances within the
movement by leaking controversial videos before the elections.
The same algorithmic construction of consent and artificial
sabotage of dissent were used by the Indian government in its hybrid war
against Pakistan. However, the modus operandi of Indian disinformation campaign
is more complex and resembles a typical money laundering operation. Just as a
money laundering machine tries to make the source of illegal money difficult to
detect, Indian propaganda machinery attempts to make the source of ‘fake’ news
literally untraceable.
If we draw parallels of money laundering with information
laundering, then we can see the first stage is ‘placement’ of fake news outlets
in Geneva besides resurrecting defunct UNHRC non-profit organisations with
intent to impersonate them. These outlets generate fake content and compose
misleading opinion pieces that are legitimised and ‘layered’ when distributed through
mainstream Indian media, especially the Asian News International (ANI) news
agency. Fake news is presented, re-tweeted and shared in such a way that
gullible Indian audience won’t even question the source of news and takes it as
authentic — completing the last step of ‘integrating’ with mainstream media.
The state-sponsored media in Jammu and Kashmir is often
found broadcasting fake history of Kashmir over radio and TV — with an attempt
to weaken the narrative of the indigenous Kashmiri movement. Twitter accounts
of Kashmiri freedom fighters are often hacked and attacked by paid trolls in
order to discredit them.
This hybrid warfare will become increasingly problematic as
fake news is developing in a context where the media industry is experiencing a
deep crisis. With advertising revenue in decline, journalists getting laid off
and support staff getting pay cuts; the fault lines in media are getting
prominent and it is more prone to paid ‘fake’ news phenomenon. In an era of
such dis-information warfare, Pakistan’s policy response to such hybrid threads
should be led at a high level — probably at the forum of the National Security
Council. Multi-disciplinary committees comprising political and media
specialists may be set up at NSC to identify hybrid warfare campaigns in place
and should report back to the executive board. Action should be taken to
penalise those media outlets that deliberately engineer fake news in pursuit of
their special interests and stories of their malpractices should be disseminated
at the international level. We may also consider setting up think-tanks similar
to the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, which was
established in Finland to deliberate on alternative responses to hybrid threats
from Russia.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2278956/disinformation-warfare
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New Yemen Government Has Major Challenges Ahead
By Manish Rai
JANUARY 7, 2021
Multiple explosions rocked the Aden International airport
shortly after an aircraft landed carrying the newly formed cabinet of the
country’s Saudi-backed government. Dozens of casualties were reported and the
Yemeni government blamed Houthi rebels for this attack. Recently a
power-sharing government was announced in war-torn Yemen consisting of 24
ministers including representatives of the separatist Southern Transitional
Council (STC), which is backed by the UAE and Yemeni government headed by
President Hadi. Prime Minister Dr. MaeenAbdulmalek Saeed was reappointed to
head the new cabinet. The unity agreement comes as the Houthis have
consolidated control over most of Yemen’s north, with the exception of the
oil-rich area of Mareb. It also comes just ahead of the swearing-in of US
President-elect Joe Biden, who has promised to end Washington’s support to the
Saudi-led military coalition. Under the supervision of the Saudi de-escalation
committee in Yemen, hundreds of military troops from the former government and
the STC departed contested areas in the southern province of Abyan. Military
units also withdrew from Aden and were redeployed in battlefields with the
Houthis. The formation of this government which is based now in the temporary
capital Aden is definitely a positive sign and this was one of the major
demands of Yemen civil society. Also, it’s being seen as a unification of all
anti-Houthis forces.
But the newly formed government of the poorest country in
the Middle East faces towering political, security, and economic challenges.
Let’s have a look at these challenges
Humanitarian crisis– The imminent threat of famine has made
the majority of Yemenis dependent on some form of aid for survival, a situation
the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. According to a
recent report of Unicef some 80% of the population needs humanitarian
assistance, including more than 12 million children. Also, public health
experts warn that the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have significant
negative effects on Yemen’s vulnerable population. To date, most humanitarian
agencies believe that the extent of the outbreak in Yemen has been
underreported.
Crumbling Economy– Yemen is facing unprecedented economic
and financial challenges, precipitated by the intensification of conflict since
September 2014. The economy has also been hit by inflation, with Yemen’s
currency is being traded at approximately 750 against the US dollar in the
government-controlled areas. That has placed many essential goods out of reach
of common people as Yemen imports 90% of its staple food. Trade has nosedived
and investment is almost non-existent. Hydrocarbon production which used to be
125,000 barrels per day before the start of the conflict and accounted for 90%
of exports in 2015, is expected to continue to decline.
Political Instability– For the time being it seems that all
the anti-Houthis forces i.e., Government headed by President Abd-Rabbuh Mansur
Hadi, Southern separatist STC, and main Sunni Islamist party Islah are united
and part of the new government. But to balance a decentralized federalist state
that provides equal degrees of autonomy and resource sharing to southern
separatists, northern tribes, and other traditionally independent regions in
Yemen will be a tight rope walk. Any Yemeni national leader should be capable
of “dancing on the heads of snakes,” as the late president Ali Abdullah Saleh
described the challenge of governing the poor and divided country.
Military Pressure– Yemen’s government troops and the Houthi
militia are constantly engaged in regular confrontation at multiple fronts
especially in the country’s southwestern province of Taiz and near the oil-rich
region of Marib. Also, Iran is increasing its military support to the Houthis.
Yemeni military commanders have recently told Arab News that the Houthi bombardment
has become more destructive and precise, killing more soldiers and civilians.
This shows that Houthis have restocked their depleted arsenal of weapons with
more advanced ones. Houthis are also carrying out strikes through the use of
missiles and armed drones deep inside Yemeni government-controlled territory.
It should be remembered by the international community at
large and especially by Yemen’s wealthy Arab neighbours that’s Yemen’s war is a
gift to Iran. Tehran sees it in this way that quiet manipulation of the Yemeni
war has reinforced its main opponent Saudis fears that it is flexing muscle in
their backyard. Iran’s relationship with the Houthis plays into Iran’s strategy
of controlling key Arab waterways. Control of Yemen and its strategic ports give
control of vital commercial and energy shipping lanes that connect the Red Sea
to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East to Europe. It is in the benefit of
everyone apart from Iran that Yemen remains stable and peaceful. As unstable
and war-torn Yemen will remain a haven for terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL). Also prone to Iranian manipulation. Hence all the world and regional
powers should support the new government with all their means. So that this
government is able to bring security and stability to this war-torn country.
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Manish Rai is a columnist for the Middle East and Af-Pak
region and Editor of geo-political news agency Viewsaround
https://dailytimes.com.pk/710579/new-yemen-government-has-major-challenges-ahead/
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