The BBC Documentary on the UAE's Secret War in Yemen 🇦🇪🇾🇪
(These are the flags of the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪, or UAE 🇦🇪 for short, and Yemen 🇾🇪, the two countries that this post is all about. Despite Yemen 🇾🇪 essentially being divided by two rival governments due to the civil war, both governments use the same flag 🇾🇪. I guess, they figured that the current flag 🇾🇪 is good enough, and they didn't need to change it, despite these governments having completely different visions for the country.)
In one of the notes of my previous posts talking about China 🇨🇳, I mentioned a BBC video talking about the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪's role in the Yemeni Civil War 🇾🇪. How, the UAE 🇦🇪 was essentially conducting a secret war in Yemen 🇾🇪, hiring American mercenaries 🇺🇸 to carry out assassinations on their behalf, and how, despite the claims made by the Emirati government 🇦🇪 and the mercenaries themselves, most of the people they targeted (and killed in some cases) were not actually terrorists.
Most of the people they targeted and killed in some cases were in fact politicians or activists apart of a political movement or a political party that the UAE 🇦🇪 and other Arab states, including Egypt 🇪🇬, Syria 🇸🇾, and Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦, consider a threat due to its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a pan-Islamist movement and organization ☪️ in the Middle East and North Africa that the governments of Egypt 🇪🇬, Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦, and the UAE 🇦🇪 have branded a terrorist organization.
But, the United States 🇺🇸 has never designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. It's only these Arab governments that consider the Muslim Brotherhood and any political party or organization associated with it to be terrorists. And it's mostly because they consider them a threat to their rule, especially Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 and the UAE 🇦🇪 because they're both monarchies, absolute monarchies. So, of course they'd consider a pan-Islamist movement ☪️ to be a threat to their regimes because pan-Islamism ☪️ is an ideology that tends to be anti-monarchy.
Well, it turns out that there's actually a long version of that video. The version I linked to in that note was only 15 minutes and 40 seconds long, but I found a version that's over 42 minutes and 2 seconds long. So, there's a lot more to it, and there was a lot that was left out of that 15 minute version I initially linked in that post, and I feel that I should link you the longer version. There's a lot of things that were kind of left unexplained, or weren't given the proper context because the documentary was edited down to 15 minutes.
The only parts you see are the parts talking about the American mercenaries 🇺🇸, the ones who were apart of this private military company (PMC) called Spear Operations, and were hired by the Emiratis 🇦🇪 to assassinate people on their behalf. And it covers the first assassination attempt which failed since the guy they targeted survived. But, it didn't get into the other assassination attempts on the other targets on the hit list that the Emiratis 🇦🇪 gave them, some of which were successful because all of that was left on the cutting room floor. It was edited out for time to make it 15 minutes.
It also left out the other assassinations that took place in Yemen 🇾🇪, specifically in the city of Aden, where most of these assassinations and assassination attempts (including the ones by the mercenaries) took place, after Spear supposedly left. It also left out a lot of the information about the civil war itself, and why Yemen 🇾🇪 is the way it is. That is useful information, especially if you aren't familiar with the history of Yemen 🇾🇪 or the current state of Yemen 🇾🇪 and the politics of the Middle East overall. Like, for example, the city of Aden, the city that the Gulf of Aden is named after.
The only real international players in the Yemeni Civil War 🇾🇪 are Saudi Arabia 🇸🇦 and its Arab allies like Egypt 🇪🇬 and the UAE 🇦🇪, and Iran 🇮🇷. And also sort of North Korea 🇰🇵 because they support the Houthis because Iran 🇮🇷 supports the Houthis. Which BTW, the fact that North Korea 🇰🇵 supports the Houthis shows that they're the bad guys. Any country or non-state actor that North Korea 🇰🇵 supports is definitely evil. North Korea 🇰🇵 is not a country that you want to be associated with or have supporting you whatsoever.
The United States 🇺🇸 and the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 have only barely entered the picture, but that's only because of what's happening in the Red Sea, in the Bab-el-Mandeb strait to be exact, with the Houthis targeting international commercial and naval shipping. It really has nothing to do with the civil war itself. Anyway, the parts in green on the map indicate the Houthi controlled parts of the country. The parts in pink on the map indicate the Republic of Yemen 🇾🇪 controlled areas. The yellow and orange parts of the map indicate the STC controlled areas. And the white part of the map indicates the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula controlled area.)
Aden is the de facto capital of one of the three rival governments in Yemen 🇾🇪. There's the Houthi government, which is called the Supreme Political Council (SPC), and controls the actual capital of Yemen 🇾🇪, Sanaa and a significant portion of northern Yemen 🇾🇪, the part that used to be the country known as North Yemen. There's the internationally recognized Yemeni government 🇾🇪 called the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), which controls most of the southern half of Yemen 🇾🇪.
And then finally, there's the Southern Transitional Council (STC), which was a rival government to the PLC, and held control of Aden during most of the war, and when all of these political assassinations were taking place. It was set up southern secessionists, who opposed the PLC leadership, and wanted to re-establish South Yemen, a country that existed during the Cold War from 1967 to 1990. It was a pro-Soviet ☭ socialist state that was opposed to North Yemen, a non-communist Islamic republic ☪️ that was under the control of a military junta.
Though, South Yemen was more overtly socialist ☭ and did enjoy support from the Soviet Union ☭, the Eastern Bloc, and China 🇨🇳 for far longer than North Yemen ever did. If you want to learn more about this history, watch the video I linked in the description below the North Yemen flag. I mention South Yemen and I show this flag because the STC and their supporters waved this flag around to show their discontent with the main internationally-recognized government, and expressed secessionist sentiments.)
While, these secessionists didn't want South Yemen to be a socialist state ☭ necessarily, they wanted to break away from the rest of Yemen 🇾🇪 and have self-rule away from the main Yemeni government 🇾🇪 because they were that dissatisfied with them. To make this even more complicated, the UAE 🇦🇪 actually supported the STC over the PLC, even though they were apart of the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen 🇸🇦🇾🇪, and the Saudis 🇸🇦 supported the PLC. So, the Saudis 🇸🇦 and the Emiratis 🇦🇪 weren't on the same page about which government they wanted to support, and ended up supporting two rival governments. At least, they were on the same page about the Houthis, or the SPC as their government is referred to as.
But, they have since joined the PLC, giving the PLC full control over Aden, and making it the de facto capital of the Republic of Yemen 🇾🇪. Although, they've exerted a lot of influence within the PLC by increasing their membership to three out of eight. It's all very complicated, and this particular documentary doesn't really get into much into all that, the north and south divide that still exists in Yemen 🇾🇪, despite unification having taken place 34 years ago. There's another documentary that does.
It's called Yemen 🇾🇪: A History of Conflict, it was narrated by David Stratharin, an actor who was in The Bourne Ultimatum, Godzilla (2014), and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). In case you don't know, he was the main CIA guy who's hunting Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum and he was the main general or admiral or colonel (whatever he was) in both MonsterVerse Godzilla films. The documentary was put out by the YouTube channel, Foreign Policy Association. I'll sure to link that one as well.
There are a few things that I didn't mention or I didn't realize when I had mentioned this documentary in that note in that post on China 🇨🇳 and how China 🇨🇳 creates propaganda for friendly authoritarian countries. First, I should clarify that the guy that the American mercenaries 🇺🇸 tried to kill, but failed was not technically apart of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was apart of a Yemeni political party 🇾🇪 called the Islah Party of Aden. It is strongly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Emiratis 🇦🇪 certainly consider it to be the Muslim Brotherhood's main foothold in Yemen 🇾🇪, but it is not the Muslim Brotherhood itself.
Also, the woman ♀︎ who narrates the documentary, and conducts all of the interviews and does all the investigative journalism is from Yemen 🇾🇪 herself. Her name is Nawal Al-Mahafi. She was a Yemeni investigative journalist 🇾🇪, and joined the BBC becoming a Yemeni correspondent 🇾🇪 for them who covered the civil war when it was at its most active, when all the action was going on. So, she has personal connection with this story, and she has credibility because she was born there, and she's lived there long enough to know certain things like Yemeni history 🇾🇪 and Yemeni politics 🇾🇪.
She certainly knows a lot more than any of the mercs she interviewed, which by the way, I do think that those mercs are 100% guilty, although I do have to say allegedly for legal purposes. I mean, the bald mustache guy that Al-Mahafi interviewed contradicted himself right away, like 5 minute or 10 minutes in. At first, he said that Spear does due diligence, that they vet the targets and makes sure that they are legitimate targets and not just someone being targeted because the client (the handler) hates them.
Then later on, when Al-Mahafi questioned the guy about why they targeted that guy from Islah and tried to kill him, and he just said that they don't question the client. They just hand them a piece of paper, read the name on that paper, and then execute, no questions asked. So, which is it? Do you vet the targets and do background checks or do you just do whatever the Emiratis 🇦🇪 tell you and you don't question them at all? Because they give you fat paychecks 🤑 and you're the kind of soldiers who shoot first and ask questions later? Is that it?
And the other Spear guy that Al-Mahafi interviewed was very coy about certain details about the assassinations and assassination attempts, and refused to disclose certain names. He just kept smiling and acting creepy at certain points. Like, these guys acted like guys who were guilty, and knew they did something bad, and don't want to actually admit it, and instead play innocent.
These guys seem like total psychopaths, who just want to have an excuse to go out and kill someone, go out and play hero, act like they're Rambo or something. Especially, the mustache guy, at the beginning of the documentary, they play audio of him talking about how he's a good guy and he's fighting the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), and he only goes after bad people, evil people in his words, and he likes killing bad guys. These seem like guys who like the thrill of war, guys who want to play soldier even after they've retired from the US Armed Forces 🇺🇸, and act like they're still doing something to fight terrorism.
Even if they're being duped or suckered into killing the political enemies of a foreign government. It's kind of sad in a way that these guys don't feel like they can live normal lives and normal civilian jobs, and can only do military-type stuff and be soldiers or Navy SEALs in the case of the Spear co-founder, the other bald guy that gets interviewed. They can't leave the war behind.
But, I don't really feel that sorry for them because they did kill some people, they did commit war crimes by doing this, and they deserve to be punished for what they did. It's not even like they regret any of what they did, they don't. Their facial expressions, and their responses to the reporter's questions pretty much tell you that these guys have no regrets about assassinating people in Yemen 🇾🇪 on behalf of the Emirati government 🇦🇪. The idea that they might’ve killed innocent people doesn’t weigh on them at all. They think that they did the right thing, or if not that, then they know they did a bad thing and are proud of it. So, yeah, I'm strongly leaning towards them being guilty.
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Here's the BBC Documentary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z51MTI9sbFY&t=1373s
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Here's the Yemen 🇾🇪: A History of Conflict documentary by Foreign Policy Association. Just to let you know, this documentary came out in 2020, during the Trump administration. This way before the Israel-Hamas war 🇮🇱 and the Red Sea Crisis instigated by the Houthis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpPpXM7hSXk
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