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Yemeni Government Collapses as President and Prime Minister Resign Yemeni Government Collapses as President and Prime Minister Resign
(about 4 hours later)
SANA, Yemen — The pro-American president of Yemen abruptly resigned Thursday night along with his prime minister and cabinet, leaving his Houthi opponents the dominant force in a leaderless country that is a breeding ground for Al Qaeda. SANA, Yemen — The American-backed government of Yemen abruptly collapsed Thursday night, leaving the country leaderless as it is convulsed by an increasingly powerful force of pro-Iran rebels and a resurgent Qaeda.
The Houthis, who are allied with Iran, have been strongly critical of the United States, particularly opposing Yemen’s cooperation with drone strikes against the Qaeda affiliate here, Al Qaeda in Yemen. At the same time, the Houthis, whose leaders are members of the Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam, are bitter opponents of Al Qaeda, which is Sunni. The resignation of the president, prime minister and cabinet took American officials by surprise and heightened the risks that Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, would become even more of a breeding ground for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has claimed responsibility for audacious anti-Western attacks — including the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo in Paris this month.
The resignation of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi came immediately after an apparently unsuccessful meeting between government and Houthi representatives, brokered by the United Nations special envoy to Yemen, Jamal Benomar. It was intended to help carry out an agreement between the two sides that had been reached a day earlier. The resignation of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi brought full circle Yemen’s Arab Spring revolution, which ousted former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 amid massive popular protests. Now Mr. Saleh, who has lately made himself an unlikely ally of the Houthi rebels who toppled the government, is poised to return to the forefront of Yemeni politics.
Mr. Hadi’s abrupt resignation caught American officials off guard. Diplomats, military officials and counterterrorism analysts were scrambling to assess next steps, including any decisions to evacuate Americans at the United States Embassy and the impact on counterterrorism operations in Yemen. But some experts warned that the country might be hurtling toward partition — and civil war.
“We’re not in a position — and I don’t think any of you are either — to assess what it means at this point in time,” the State Department spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, told reporters in Washington as news of Mr. Hadi’s resignation was breaking. The events in Yemen were not the week’s only death knell for accomplishments of the Arab Spring’s first year, 2011. In Libya, that country’s last remaining intact and functioning institution, its Central Bank with $100 billion in foreign currency reserves, fell to marauding militiamen.
“Our top priority in Yemen remains the counterterrorism effort, where we’ve been targeting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for a number of years,” said Ms. Psaki, using another name for Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate. “That’s ongoing.”  “We are in uncharted territory now,” said Jamal Benomar, the United Nations envoy to Yemen, raising several possible perils, including the prospect that southern Yemen might break away. “It’s going to be very difficult days ahead,” he said.
Some American officials and lawmakers in Washington expressed grave concern. “The collapse of the government is devastating,” Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a telephone interview. “It’s very hard to say what comes after.” Charles Schmitz, an analyst with the Middle East Institute and an expert on the Houthis, said that of all Yemen’s many political crises, Thursday’s was among the worst yet.
Should the Houthis try to govern the country themselves, Mr. Schiff said, it could escalate sectarian violence with Yemen’s Sunni majority, and open the door for Al Qaeda to expand its reach. “We’re looking at the de facto partitioning of the country and we’re heading into a long negotiating process but we could also be heading toward war,” he said.
“The Sunni tribes will not want to live under Houthi domination, and will look for any allies they can, including Al Qaeda,” he said. American diplomats, military officials and counterterrorism analysts were scrambling on Thursday to assess the next steps in Yemen.
With Houthi fighters already in control of much of the capital and many areas of northern Yemen, it seemed likely that they would take at least de facto control of the government. A senior State Department official said Thursday night that the staff at the United States Embassy in Sana was being reduced “in response to the changing security situation.” As news of Mr. Hadi’s resignation broke earlier in the day, Jen Psaki, a State Department spokeswoman, said, “We’re not in a position — and I don’t think any of you are either — to assess what it means at this point in time.”
A further concern is the prospect that southern Yemen will try to break away from the north, possibly threatening another civil war. The Houthis are identified with the old Kingdom of Yemen and the Arab Republic based in the north. The north and south were unified in 1990. In addition, they have aligned themselves with Yemen’s ousted former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was forced out in a deal brokered by the United States and Middle Eastern allies in 2011. “Our top priority in Yemen remains the counterterrorism effort, where we’ve been targeting Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for a number of years,” said Ms. Psaki, using the name for Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate.
The resignation of Mr. Hadi, who was elected to succeed Mr. Saleh, came less than an hour after Prime Minister Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah said on his Facebook page that he and all of the cabinet members were stepping down. Their resignations came while the United Nations-brokered meeting was underway. At the Pentagon, defense officials were also trying to gauge the murky chaos in Yemen. “We are still trying to sort out recent events,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said in an interview Thursday. He added that “it’s too soon to tell what this is going to mean for counterterrorism.”
The press secretary for Mr. Hadi said he had formally handed over power to the speaker of Parliament, Yahya al-Raye, who would be required by the Constitution to form a caretaker government. It was not clear, however, if Mr. Raye was taking charge. “From a military perspective, the character of that fight may change, but the energy we apply to it won’t,” he added.
An official close to the president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of apparent concerns about his safety, said in a phone interview that the president believed that he had no choice but to resign. “The president expresses his disappointment at the difficult circumstances and challenges surrounding what is going on from the conflict with the Houthis,” said the official, sounding nervous and hanging up immediately. Although the Houthis, who are believed to be financed by Iran, are strongly anti-American, they are even stronger opponents of Al Qaeda. The Houthis are dominated by a Shiite Muslim sect, the Zaydis, while Al Qaeda is rabidly anti-Shiite.
The agreement reached on Wednesday brought a temporary end to fighting in the capital, but Houthi fighters did not leave as promised from their posts around the presidential palace, and some officials described their actions as amounting to a coup. While the Houthis now control the capital, Sana, and many parts of northern Yemen, Al Qaeda has been strongest in Sunni tribal areas in Yemen, and has used Sunni anger at the swift rise of the Houthis as an effective recruiting tool — particularly in oil-rich areas of eastern and southern Yemen.
The Houthis denied that, however, and as an apparent concession, by Thursday had withdrawn from their positions around Mr. Hadi’s personal residence. On Thursday only private guards from Mr. Hadi’s home province, Abyan, could be seen outside his home. The collapse of Mr. Hadi’s government began last week when the Houthis staged what his supporters called essentially a coup, surrounding the presidential palace and effectively putting the president under house arrest. Fighting flared between the Houthis and Mr. Hadi’s supporters but eased after an agreement was reached on Wednesday that called for the Houthis to withdraw, and the president to agree to governmental reforms that the Houthis had demanded.
Emissaries from both Mr. Hadi and Houthi leaders were seen visiting one another Thursday in an atmosphere of calm, and there were no initial reports of fighting after the resignations. When the Houthis did not withdraw, and apparently reneged on an agreement to release the president’s chief of staff, whom they had taken hostage, Mr. Hadi and his supporters said they had become little more than puppets of the Houthi forces and stood aside, apparently daring them to seize power.
There were reports of violence in the province of Marib, an important oil-producing area east of Sana, with the Houthis clashing with Sunni tribesmen. Marib is also home to fighters from Al Qaeda in Yemen. Two people were reported killed on Thursday, according to elders in the area. The resignation of Mr. Hadi, who was elected to succeed Mr. Saleh, came less than an hour after Prime Minister Khaled Bahah said on his Facebook page that he and all of the cabinet members were stepping down, “so that we are not made party to what is going on and what will happen.” Their resignations came while a United Nations-brokered meeting to resolve the crisis was underway.
Mr. Benomar, a Moroccan diplomat and the representative of the United Nations secretary general, had returned to Sana on Thursday and immediately gone into meetings with representatives of Mr. Hadi and the Houthis. If the resignations were a gambit to force concessions from the Houthis, they apparently failed. After months of insisting they did not want to seize power from an elected government, the Houthis signaled late Thursday night that they would do just that.
The Houthis had agreed to pull back their fighters from central installations in Sana, including the palace, in exchange for several political concessions from Mr. Hadi, like amendments to a draft constitution. The deal was widely seen as a victory for the group, which has repeatedly used military force as a cudgel during political negotiations. According to local news reports and a Western diplomat, Houthi leaders were considering the possibility of forming a presidential council to govern the country that would include Houthi members, political parties and military officers. A Yemeni news agency, Al Masdar Online, said the Houthis had also issued a “no-fly list” of former ministers and officials who would not be allowed to leave the country.
Another central provision of the agreement — the immediate release of one of Mr. Hadi’s top aides — also remained unfulfilled late Thursday. Yemen’s information minister, Nadia Sakkaf, said on Twitter that the aide, Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, was still being held hostage by the Houthis despite a deal. According to the Constitution, the speaker of Parliament, Yahya al-Raye, would be required to form a caretaker government. It seemed unlikely that Mr. Raye was in any position to take charge, however, with Houthi fighters in control of key points in the capital, government buildings and the airport.
“They got what they want,” she said. “Why should they fulfill their promise?” Mr. Hadi had come under increasing pressure from the Houthis, who demanded top government posts and undermined his control of the military and security agencies, according to analysts and diplomats. An official close to Mr. Hadi, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of apparent concern about his safety, said in a telephone interview that the president believed that he had no choice but to leave office. “The president expresses his disappointment at the difficult circumstances and challenges surrounding what is going on from the conflict with the Houthis,” said the official, sounding nervous and hanging up immediately.
Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi political bureau, confirmed that Mr. Mubarak had not been freed. Mr. Hadi’s resignation was not accompanied by a new wave of violence in the capital, at least initially, although there were reports of violence in the province of Marib, an important oil-producing area east of Sana, with the Houthis clashing with Sunni tribesmen.
In signing the deal, the Houthis had stopped short of a military takeover of the government, an outcome that analysts said the Houthi leadership preferred. Since taking over parts of the capital in September, the Houthis have become Yemen’s de facto ruling power, exerting control over important ministries and, increasingly, the country’s security forces. The Houthis are eager to assert their control in the province, which includes much of Yemen’s oil infrastructure and is seen as a strategic gateway to other parts of the country.
At the same time, they have been able to lay blame for continuing challenges — including corruption and meager government services throughout the country — at the feet of Mr. Hadi and his leadership. The Houthis’ plans have prompted resistance and a furious reaction from Sunni tribesmen in the province, including some aligned with Islah, Yemen’s most prominent Sunni Islamist movement, which has been eviscerated by the Houthis, who consider it a loathsome rival. The province also has many followers of Al Qaeda in Yemen.
In addition to the crisis in Sana, many in Yemen have also been looking nervously to Marib, as a point of contention for the tensions unleashed by the Houthis’ military advances. Saudi Arabia, alarmed at what it sees as the Houthis’ strong ties to Shiite Iran, has begun sending aid to the tribes in Marib, according to diplomats.
The Houthis are eager to assert their control in the province, which includes much of Yemen’s oil infrastructure and is seen as a strategic gateway to other parts of the country. But in a country that is two-thirds Sunni, Al Qaeda has been able to gain support among many opposed to the Houthis, breathing new energy into what had been a greatly weakened extremist movement. A further concern is the prospect that southern Yemen will try to split off from the north, possibly threatening another civil war. Northern and southern Yemen were separate countries for many years, until their reunification in 1990, after which they fought a civil war in 1994.
The Houthis’ plans have prompted resistance and a furious reaction from Sunni tribesmen in the province, including some aligned with Islah, Yemen’s most prominent Sunni Islamist movement — now eviscerated by the Houthis, who considered it a hated rival. The province also has many followers of Al Qaeda in Yemen, whose opposition to the Houthis has helped them recruit there. The Houthis are identified with the old Kingdom of Yemen and the Arab Republic based in the north. In addition, they have aligned themselves with Mr. Saleh, whose is widely believed to have aided the Houthis when they swept into the capital last September.
Saudi Arabia, which has recoiled at what it sees as the Houthis’ strong ties to Shiite Iran, has begun sending aid to the tribes in Marib, according to diplomats, raising fears that the province will become a focal point for an escalating proxy war. Despite the Houthis’ military prowess, their base is among Zaydi Shiites, who represent only 35 percent of the country’s population.
Yet the group’s populist message as they entered the capital last September — promising to fight corruption and pursue economic justice — spread their support beyond their base.
Mr. Hadi is not without his own supporters, particularly in the south, and in the important southern port city of Aden, militiamen loyal to Mr. Hadi have recently begun patrols.
On Thursday, a southern security committee ordered military personnel to report to the local authorities, rather than to the capital, Sana, in what was seen as a warning to the Houthis of the potential for imminent secession.
“We regret that it has come to this,” Prime Minister Bahah said in his resignation statement Thursday. “We apologize to you the patient people of Yemen and pray that God will sail Yemen to stability and safety.”