For a long time, the liquidation of figures from the Islah Party, the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as Salafist leaders and journalists, remained an unknown dimension of the Emirati strategy in Yemen. In the eyes of outside observers, the long series of assassinations committed in the southern governorates of the country, especially between 2016 and 2018, often seemed like a marginal issue in the conflict. These assassinations were seen as a (tacitly acceptable) form of fighting against jihadists, a policy deemed necessary and effective after the liberation of Aden from Houthi influence during the summer of 2015. In any case, this policy remained under close scrutiny.
In this context, the Aden authorities, loyal to the Emiratis, passed off the assassinations that targeted dozens of people as simply a settling of scores between Islamists. In particular, they pointed the finger at the responsibility of jihadists or even the Houthis, as was the case in the case of the assassination of the rising Salafist figure, Abd al-Rahman al-Adani, who was killed in February 2016. In other cases, they announced that their extrajudicial liquidations targeted Members of Al-Qaeda or ISIS.
Kill opponents
However, in the city of Aden and its surrounding areas, Emirati involvement in the assassinations, which in reality had completely different goals, was no secret. Civilians were targeted who distanced themselves from the jihadists, had no commitment other than political or mosque-related activity, and what they all had in common was criticism of the United Arab Emirates. The list of victims of this secret war is long. At least a hundred people were killed between 2016 and 2018 in attacks that led to insecurity in the large coastal city, and which continue to this day. While Aden during this period should have been a showcase for a peaceful Yemen free of the Houthis, the city remained in a state of instability and misery. Since then, it has been able to embody in the eyes of many Yemenis the incompetence of possible alternatives to the rebels coming from the north.
Initially, Al Jazeera broadcast, in its investigative documentary program “The Black Box,” a documentary entitled “What role is the UAE looking for in Yemen?” in 2018, that is, at the height of tension between Qatar and its neighbors, in which the United Arab Emirates was accused of financing a series of assassinations. To fight its opponents, especially the Muslim Brotherhood in southern Yemen. This documentary revealed that this strategy was accompanied by many human rights violations, especially systematic torture in many secret centers spread in areas under UAE control.
Direct testimonies of the killers
Six years later, Nawal Al-Mahqafi's relentless documentary American mercenaries hired by UAE to kill in Yemen provides confirmation of the accusations against the UAE. This journalist of Yemeni origin has solid experience, and has won three Emmy Awards in honor of her work on sex trafficking in Iraq and on the Covid crisis in Yemen. In her documentary titled “The War in Yemen: Political Assassinations Funded by the UAE,” Al-Mahqafi allows direct listening to the narration of American citizens, who are former soldiers, who directly participated in the assassination program. In their interventions, they confirm that they participated in the fight against the jihadists, and they are certain that they only did good deeds, and obeyed the orders coming from Abu Dhabi without saying a word.
Throughout the documentary, horrific webs are unmasked; The mercenaries were contracted through the security company “Spear Operations Group,” which is run by the Hungarian-Israeli Abraham Golan, thanks to his contacts with the Palestinian Mohammed Dahlan, who became an advisor to Mohammed bin Zayed, the ruler of the Emirates.
The journalist’s investigation includes a number of interviews and supporting documents, and benefited from the hard work carried out by the organization “Reprieve” and human rights activist Baraa Shaiban. It also included previous information that had been published by the American media outlet Buzzfeed in 2018. These data as a whole prove how the identities of most of the victims cannot in any way be linked to armed Islamic movements. Even if so, extrajudicial executions remain a clear violation of human rights, and are carried out outside any legal framework. The documentary shows how these are by no means “collateral victims” and that it is a deliberate strategy to eliminate opponents of the UAE, even by going through an alliance with a number of jihadists hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood. The documentary mentioned specific names and details, in addition to strange coincidences, such as those that occurred between the assassination of Ahmed Al-Idrissi, a leader of the Southern Movement, who is known to have refused to hand over the port of Aden, which was under his control, and to transfer its administration to the United Arab Emirates. Issues of politics and exploitation are closely intertwined.
Documentary film for political purposes?
Unsurprisingly, the documentary caused a sensation on Yemeni social media. The nature of the speeches shows the fragmentation of the political space, and also reveals the bad faith of many intellectuals, journalists, and decision-makers in Yemen, who have continued to position themselves according to the interests of their regional sponsors. In this regard, the reactions to the information provided by the BBC constitute a good indicator of the state of public debate after nearly a decade of war.
In the face of the scandals revealed by Nawal Al-Mahqafi, the UAE’s defenders flatly linked the journalist to an imaginary alliance with the Houthis due to the assumption of her Hashemite origins (the lineage of the Prophet), which they guessed linked her to the leaders of the rebel movement. They wanted their criticism of the BBC documentary to be part of the intellectual movement to redefine Yemeni identity that aims to exclude the Hashemites from the national narrative. At the same time, UAE defenders point to the supposed involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood in exposing these facts, illustrating how regional polarization over the relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood continues to influence the structuring of issues and positions.
Contrary to all expectations, we also find among the criticism some pro-Houthi activists who, with their increased popularity thanks to their commitment to Gaza, are currently trying to avoid angering the UAE. They thus pointed to the opportunistic nature of broadcasting this documentary. From their point of view, this film constitutes an attempt by the United Kingdom to put pressure on the United Arab Emirates, which refuses to join the military coalition formed by the United States to stop Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. This criticism appears to have little regard for the professionalism of the BBC's editorial staff and the timeliness of such an investigation, which began several years ago.
In defense of human rights
There is no doubt that the documentary may validate the widespread discontent among the Yemeni public towards the Emirati strategy. From Sudan to Libya and Yemen, the foreign policy of the UAE, supported in particular by France, has been provoking unrest, violence and instability since the Arab uprisings of 2011. Through its effort to establish a military base and a small emirate it controls on the island of Socotra, and through its support of the southern movement against the government. Recognized by the international community, “Little Sparta” pursued a problematic diplomacy that remains controversial in its aims as well as its methods. Thus, the state of disintegration in Yemen is due in large part to the decisions taken in Abu Dhabi, and no doubt due to the arrogance of the Saudi leaders.
In reaction to the broadcast of the documentary, Ali Al-Bukhaiti, a former supporter of the Houthis who has become a vocal critic of them, explained how the strategy of liquidating political and religious figures in Aden directly contributed to the failure of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition. In fact, this strategy has deeply divided the anti-Houthi camp and generated mistrust towards regional actors. Two days after the documentary was broadcast, Al-Bukhaiti organized a space (chat room) on the X website (formerly Twitter) to discuss the documentary, and more than 15,000 people followed the live broadcast.
In parallel, reactions to the documentary also expressed a desire to bring the issue of extrajudicial assassinations to the courts. For many activists - some of whom have been imprisoned and tortured by UAE security forces - the evidence provided provides material for international prosecution. In this regard, the work carried out by Reprieve and Hoda Al-Sarari is of great importance. Highlighting it by Nawal Al-Mahqafi constitutes an essential step.
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