by Sam Farran
It was bloody. And frightening. And eerily calm too.
Most of all, it was effective.
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THE SECOND NIGHT of the Houthi occupation, Abd el-Malik, who remained in Saadah, put out instructions to light all the fireworks in all the areas controlled by Houthi forces. The Yemenis have a tradition, during marriages, of setting off a cascade of fireworks, each wedding trying to outdo the others. Every night a certain number of weddings would occur in various parts of Sana’a, with not only fireworks but also random celebratory gunfire peppering the air. This could be dangerous, with stray rounds falling, but for the most part, from the windows of the embassy or of the Moevenpick or Sheraton further up on the haunches of Jebel Nuqum, the valley of Sana’a below would be lit with a colorful show, a few splotches here and there, a bouquet of sparkling festivity. But this also meant that Sana’a had warehouses filled with fireworks waiting to be bought and sold to adorn these nightly jubilees.
When Abd el-Malik ordered them all set off at once, we thought he might control perhaps a quarter of the city. He controlled it all—every square inch except for a few scattered military compounds. And he demonstrated this with a fireworks show the likes of which none of us had ever seen. It lasted more than two hours and spread across the entirety of the city, a blanket of fireworks, a multicolored panoply of bursts through which everyone—the embassy personnel up on the flank of the mountain and us down in our houses in Hadda—thought a rain of artillery or mortar shells would come at any moment, as if shielded, disguised from retribution by the omnipresent roar and burst and color. It would be the perfect cover.
But no artillery ever came. No mortar fire. Celebratory rat-a-tat-tats from all corners of the wind, sure, but that was a normal part of Yemeni life, Yemeni celebration. The Houthis did not intend to attack during their display. They gloried in it. And they knew it sent a signal, both of control and mastery and of restraint. After two hours all that remained of this show was a fog, a low sulfurous cloud that trailed like a wounded animal out and down through the city toward the shallow passage north and east between the mountains, out and down into the night and, lower, far lower, into the vastness of the Rub al-Khali, which might still echo with the sounds of that evening.
The Houthi technique, for each of the military bases that remained loyal to Hadi and also for any resisting ministries or government buildings, was not to attack outright but to surround and only let Houthi or Zaydi personnel come and go: house arrest, a bloodless, white-gloved coup. Known Islahi compounds or businesses were more aggressively treated, but the tactic still resembled the way the Houthis surrounded and dealt with the al-Qaeda cell near the US Embassy: they had specific objectives but remained cautious and even courteous to the rest of the population, clearing out the problem individuals and groups but being extra nice to everyone else.
They clearly had an agenda of political reconciliation in mind. Or they wanted to quickly establish legitimacy, and their concern seemed to focus more on the Yemenis than on outsiders. They wanted to demonstrate to the average person in Sana’a that they did not intend reprisals. They would rule well and honestly. It was their platform, part of what Abd el-Malik had been saying in his recorded speeches, contrasting the millennia of (what he suggested was) good Zaydi leadership with the corruption of modern life and modern politicians. As for outsiders, Westerners, the Houthis did a fairly good job too; at least their more senior people demonstrated adequate concern and courtesy. Sometimes the younger Houthi fighters (many of whom were barely teenagers) had swallowed that “Death to Israel, Death to America, a Curse on the Jews” motto too fully. They’d get excited to see a car full of Americans or Brits or Dutch, be they diplomats or aid workers or security and energy personnel. In their zeal these youth would stop, search, accost, even make strange demands of diplomats and expatriates transiting through checkpoints or going about their daily business in whatever fashion they could. But, almost always, the Houthi youngsters making these mistakes were quickly reprimanded, or at least corrected, by more senior Houthis on-site or with a quick telephone call or two back to their commanders.
Life almost seemed normal. Too normal.
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FOR THE HOUTHIS TOO, the takeover of Sana’a almost seemed surprising. They didn’t seem disappointed, that’s not the right word. But they seemed like they had braced for more and could now exhale, collectively, perhaps with a bit too much energy and enthusiasm on occasion but also with a sense of invincibility that bordered on arrogance.
We soon started to hear rumors about why this may have been, why the Houthi takeover of Sana’a had occurred so quickly and easily: Saleh.
The bases led by his sons and nephews and the ministries led by his General People’s Congress cronies weren’t surrounded and managed as closely by the Houthis as those facilities or institutions adhering to Hadi or Islah or the other fragmentary parties. In fact, many of the bases that the Houthis took over belonged to Saleh-allied commands. We started to hear rumors from lower-level military personnel that all the Saleh-aligned bases had just opened their gates and let the Houthis in, perhaps putting on some sort of face-saving show but mostly just turning over the keys and then working out a deal to appoint a Houthi “minder” as the deputy commander (for a military facility) or deputy vice minister or deputy manager (for a ministry or government facility or even a private concern, like a bank or university department).
As the news of this secret alliance between the Houthis and Saleh began to leak out, things took a turn for the worse.
The Houthis surrounded the presidential palace where Hadi had taken refuge. They began to apply their same constrictor technique, only allowing in or out those persons who were affiliated with their movement. Everything remained relatively bloodless and eerily quiet, but I could tell that the Houthis were preparing to storm the palace and kill Hadi or take him prisoner.
I began to advise my clients to not come to Yemen. I began to tell them to pack up and leave if they were already in the country, no matter how sure they felt of their own personal safety. I began to make preparations for my clients and my employees to continue on with their work even if Yemen had to shut its doors for a while.
The various embassies in Sana’a began to evacuate their nonessential personnel, a task they had all perfected over the previous several years, going into limited shutdown mode when big events happened, like the al-Qaeda takeover of the Ministry of Defense or, earlier, the Arab Spring conflagration. This time, though, rather than just imposing a limited shutdown, one by one the embassies started to close their doors completely.
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THAT’S WHEN I LEFT—in mid-October 2014.
I flew to Beirut, trusting I could conduct business for my clients and take care of my contracts in Yemen from afar. I didn’t think that I’d be gone more than a week or two.
I conceived of my departure as just a little breather to get my feet back under me and let the situation around Hadi’s palace calm down. I thought I needed a vacation. I told myself I was just going on a little excursion to get some perspective, to see Yemen from afar, to see it in a new light. But that first week turned into two, three, five, ten.
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FINALLY, IN JANUARY 2015, Hadi escaped his own palace under cover of darkness and fled all the way to Aden far to the south.
With Hadi went his new minister of defense, Mahmoud Subeihi, who had previously been the commander working most closely with US Special Forces against al-Qaeda. Strangely, owing mostly to the lack of other allies Hadi could gather, Ali Muhsin also fled with them. They’d thrown their lots in together, three individuals with odd backgrounds: the Zumra interim president who’d been overthrown, the new defense minister with strong ties to the United States, and the former al-Qaeda recruiter and Houthi nemesis.
Subeihi was taken prisoner by the Houthis in fighting around Aden, but Hadi and Ali Muhsin fled to Saudi Arabia and convinced the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) t
o launch Operation Decisive Storm. This operation had the support of the UN mandate for Yemen, but even so it put the United States in a tough position: though Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and seven other GCC and African countries formed the coalition prosecuting the war on Hadi’s behalf, much of Hadi’s support inside Yemen came through Islah and Ali Muhsin, especially with Subeihi captured. Though the United States would not admit it, and still won’t, by helping the Saudis help Hadi, they unwittingly also helped radical Sunni-aligned forces, which were known to incorporate al-Qaeda fighters as shock troops in their front lines. The United States had this choice: support the UN- and GCC-supported effort in Yemen, or negotiate with the Houthis, who had already proven themselves fairly adept at killing al-Qaeda and Islahi fighters. Which was the more pressing US goal in Yemen: eliminate al-Qaeda or prop up Hadi?
In the end Saudi Arabia did a good job of tying the Shi’a (but Zaydi) Houthis to Iran, from whom they took help but to whom they did not want to be beholden due to the differences in the Zaydi and “Twelver” branches of Shi’ism. This false equivalency, which also played on US strategic goals in the Middle East to oppose Iranian influence, tipped the scales and kept US support for Saudi Arabia’s coalition intact.
It was a complicated situation, but it’s important to understand because it makes a difference in terms of what ended up happening to me, as an American but also as a Shi’a Muslim.
I’d been out of Yemen for three months by the time this all went down. And I wasn’t going to go back in during active fighting. By this time the US Embassy was fully evacuated but still manned by local Yemeni guards. The Houthis had not entered the compound or the Sheraton hotel. Some of the embassy guards were still Griffin security guys whom I had trained, so I heard from them pretty regularly. They thought the Houthis would come in anytime and take over the embassy grounds, but it never happened, and it still hasn’t happened.
I later heard from the Houthis themselves that they were trying not to invade any foreign embassy so as not to alienate any particular country. They wanted to present themselves as a legitimate government and facilitate the return of the various diplomatic missions to Yemen. Unfortunately, the outside world still viewed the legitimate government as the one certified by the GCC and the National Dialogue Conference, at least until elections could be called. Though the Houthis had the power and were governing by default, international support remained tied to the interim government structure built around Hadi, even if much of that structure had been displaced first to Aden and then abroad, to Saudi Arabia, where Hadi and his ministers tried to hold things together in absentia.
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AFTER I EVACUATED, I didn’t stop my work leading Universal Eagles. I kept managing my contracts from afar, calling, giving direction to, and paying my Yemeni employees for the work in Yemen that we still supported. I also picked up a few more jobs abroad. One of these took me to Somalia just before Christmas 2014. There I completed a security assessment in Mogadishu for a company called Transoceanic Development. From the outside things seemed pretty normal—just another big shipping company that dabbled in security. But soon I began to have concerns. Transoceanic dealt with a lot of strange things: unmarked planes coming in and out, shipping containers that bypassed normal customs and inspections (what normalcy Somali authorities could manage in that regard), groups of Americans on the ground, civilians you could tell were a bit out of place, not real military guys but more like college kids. Of course, with our training you know not to ask too many questions; you just get used to the kind of operations that run all over the world with these kinds of people. I didn’t pry too much into the types of equipment or the specific purposes of the logistics Transoceanic was involved in. I just kept my head down and walked through the steps of the security assessment that I’d been hired to do.2
My work there only lasted one week, maybe ten days. But it ended up being important. Somehow the Houthis had tracked this information about my work with Transoceanic, put two and two together, and came to the conclusion that I was spying for someone. This was not a good look for me when I went back to Yemen.
The ten days in Mogadishu went by quickly and uneventfully—if unmarked planes and mystery shipping containers and Ivy League greenhorn kids in a battle area can be considered uneventful. I flew back to Beirut for a bit, then returned to the United States for the Christmas holidays.
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I SPENT THREE WEEKS in Detroit and elsewhere, seeing and spending time with all my family. These were special holidays for me, having been through a lot in Yemen myself and also—most importantly—because my son had just returned from Germany after two tours in Afghanistan with the US Air Force. Perhaps this period seems really good in my memory because of what was to come next. It was a time of normalcy, of family, of reunion, of togetherness. I clung to the memory of that Christmas during the coming months, even though my marriage had already ended.)
That holiday ended all too soon, and I found myself headed back to Beirut. Almost immediately I took a call from British American Tobacco. They’d heard of my work with Transoceanic in Somalia and wanted me to do a similar security assessment on the ground in Yemen. The assignment was to last just ten days, like the one in Mogadishu. It seemed like good timing. While in Yemen, I thought, maybe I’d use the opportunity to clear up my affairs there and take care of my personal stuff: the apartment, car, furniture, and all the tasks I’d left undone, all the dirty laundry—both actual and metaphorical—that I had so abruptly left behind back in October. The loose ends of my life in Sana’a were in need of some attention.
I wanted to go back, but at first I resisted. Operation Decisive Storm was being planned, and things looked bleak in Yemen.
My sixth sense for safety itched. I knew it wouldn’t be wise.
But, also, part of me whispered in the back of my mind, Who would go back if not me? What non-Yemeni knew more about Yemen than I did? Who could possibly be a better candidate to help a company like British American Tobacco get its operations back up and running than someone fluent in the language and the culture and, especially, who shared a religion with the Houthi rebels? Who else but me?
I maintained my objection to this plan right up until I started to catch word that the Saudis were going to declare an end to Decisive Storm.
The Saudis hadn’t won. It didn’t look like they were going to win. They’d earned a bit of land back in the non-Zaydi South and East. But the Houthis held Sana’a and all of the old northern Zaydi heartland up in those mountains. They wouldn’t be leaving soon. It would take more than bombing and some halfhearted ground assaults to dislodge them. However, I took the rumblings of this Saudi declaration as a means for them to declare a quick victory, save face, and jump to the negotiating table. This would make things a lot safer. It would put Yemen in a pause, one in which I could safely return.
Or so I thought.
The whole history of my life—my childhood in Lebanon, Libya, and Dearborn, Michigan, my maturation as a US Marine and defense attaché, my contracting work in Yemen, my loves and my losses and the near misses that had taught me so much (and made me just a little cocky)—all of this welled up in me so that I had almost no choice but eventually to accept British American Tobacco’s request to return to Sana’a.
On March 20, 2015, I found myself stepping aboard a plane, on my way to being one of the first Americans to go into Yemen since Hadi had fled his own country.
Footnotes
1 Sana’a held a considerable amount of firepower in the city itself, with much more Yemeni strength in the ready to reinforce from bases to the south and east, troops who were US-trained in the fight against al-Qaeda and whose equipment was provided by the US Embassy.
2 Only later did I learn that their business involved moving things for the Special Ops community. See Adam Goldman and Eric Schmitt, “Aid Coordinator in Yemen Had Secret Job Overseeing U.S. Commando Shipments,” New York Times, June 6, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com
/2017/06/06/world/middleeast/scott-darden-transoceanic-yemen-pentagon.html.
CHAPTER 10
BAGGED
I WAS A LITTLE BIT fearless and a little bit dumb that day as I stepped off the Yemenia plane onto Yemeni soil, walked across the tarmac to the waiting bus, and held on to the greasy silver rail as the bus huffed and chugged toward Sana’a’s beaten-down 1980s vintage airport terminal, there to hiss to a stop among the milling young soldiers, dapper-but-skinny suited inspectors, lounging watchers, busy errand boys, and harried businessmen. The doors of the bus opened. I stepped into the airport hall, right into the customs line, the start of a journey that seemed—at least at the outset—no different from a hundred other such journeys I’d made.
The inspector stamped my passport. My bag rumbled into view on the carousel. I grabbed it and strode through the rest of the little terminal to the place where a car awaited my arrival. It was driven by contracted guards from the British American Tobacco villa where I would stay for the next week or two.
Everything went according to plan for the first few days.
There were definitely hiccups. There always were. It was Yemen after all: a strange place, armed to the teeth. While this was normal for Yemen, everything also had a bit of an edge. The guards, wearing their same uniforms, now worked for the Houthis. The police now worked for the Houthis. The checkpoints were manned by Houthis too.
I wasn’t afraid of this dynamic though. As far as I could tell, the Houthis weren’t out to get us, especially not me. They seemed to be acting rationally enough, and I trusted that—even though the official political situation might be in flux—the Houthis would behave as much like good hosts and good rulers as they could.