Political Groups in Taiz

In order to understand the conflict in Taiz, it is necessary to understand the political groups active in the city. The mainstream political groups in Taiz mirror those elsewhere in Yemen. Due in part to its educated middle class and history of opposition activity, Taiz’s political life has historically been more active than that of most other areas in Yemen.

Over the course of the war, the Islah party has arguably dominated politics in Taiz. Yet other political parties remain active in the governorate. These parties have at various times cooperated with Islah while at other times challenging it.

The key political groups in Taiz—namely, Islah, the General People’s Congress (GPC) party, the Nasserists, and the Socialists—have maintained their importance and locally rooted identities throughout the upheaval of the past five years. Far from political factions becoming mere pawns of foreign powers, political contestation rooted in local history is alive in the city and shapes the conflict. However, the conflict and its internationalization has also at times reshaped the roles of Taizi political parties with many gaining de facto military wings, becoming influenced by foreign powers, or some mix of the two.

Islah is one of the most important local political forces in Yemen in general and, currently, in Taiz in particular. A political party with a religious dimension, it is known for its association with the Muslim Brotherhood movement. Islah aligned with the ruling GPC party both in the run-up to and in the aftermath of the 1994 civil war, in part as a hedge against the Yemeni Socialist Party (YSP).²

After his government’s victory in 1994, Saleh distributed some ministries to Islah members, such as the Ministry of Education, and supported their opening of scientific institutes, which became centers of religious studies. Islah utilized the post-unification era of democratization, unification, and the creation of a multiparty system to become a formal and legal opposition party, and develop charitable organizations throughout the country while maintaining a close relationship with funders in the Gulf States, particularly Saudi Arabia.³ In 2003, fearful of Islah’s growing strength and influence, Saleh attempted to crack down on religious political parties, further prompting Islah to formally move to the opposition and join the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), a coalition of Yemen’s establishment opposition parties.⁴

By 2011, Islah had expanded to become the largest opposition party in Taiz and the rest of the country.⁵ Islah possessed the ability and resources to quickly mobilize against the ruling forces, which proved essential during the Arab Spring. Islah had significant sway over Freedom Square, the center of the protests.⁶ When it was attacked, Islah and its allies held their own in violent confrontations against pro-Saleh forces.⁷

Islah had expanded to become the largest opposition party in Taiz and the rest of the country.

Up until 2015, Islah was able to benefit from its political organization and hierarchical military, as well as experience accrued from its participation in battles throughout various cycles of conflict.⁸ The power of Islah-aligned networks continues to grow politically and militarily in Taiz. Since 2015 Islah’s allies have had substantial influence on liberated areas of Taiz’s government, security services, and military brigades and units.

The Islah party is financed mainly through their financial capital, local economic projects, and funding from their international allies.⁹ The charitable trusts and other civil society organizations established during and after Islah’s alliance with Saleh generate income and goodwill for the party.¹⁰ Islah has retained its local political identity despite its interactions with foreign sponsors, thanks in part due to its rootedness in the Yemeni political fabric and access to diverse sources of funding beyond foreign sponsorship.

Yet Islah also maintains relationships with foreign powers. Despite Saudi Arabia’s antipathy to the Muslim Brotherhood (and many Islah members’ close relationship with Qatar),¹¹ Riyadh has long maintained close relations with numerous figures in Islah and those affiliated with the party. Saudi Arabia took advantage of these relationships to bolster its fight against the Houthis in the lead up to Operation Decisive Storm. Many figures within Islah have benefitted from Saudi patronage, and many members of the party’s leadership currently reside in Riyadh, such as Islah’s Chairman Mohammed Abdullah al-Yadoumi.¹²

The official leader of Islah in Taiz today is Abdel-Hafedh Al-Faqih, although he is seen as possessing little decision-making power with regards to military files. The bulk of the key military figures within the network maintain lower profiles. Chief among them is the network’s top military commander, Salem, who is often cast as the de facto leader of Taiz by more vociferous critics of the Islah party. The general public first became aware of Salem’s true identity within Islah in February 2018, when the media publicized his appointment as an advisor to the Commander of the Taiz Military Axis.¹³

Currently, the city of Taiz is under the military control of pro-Islah security brigades and the political control of the Islah party. The Islah network has full control over government departments across sectors, and has generally succeeded in politically and militarily dominating the city. Many of Hadi’s associates connected to Islah leadership, such as General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, have a large say in top-down decision-making in collaborating with Islah-affiliated groups. After four years of war, Islah has managed to build significant sway over key state functions within Taiz. Salem and other Islah-aligned figures and businessmen have also made large financial investments in universities, schools, factories, and small companies throughout the city in order to shore up the position of the party and its allies.

Islah is but one of many political parties operating in Taiz. Other parties, including the Nasserist NUPO, the formerly ruling GPC, the socialist YSP, and the Salafist Al Rashad Union, are active in Taiz and continue to alternatively compete and cooperate with Islah, in some cases developing close relationships with foreign sponsors, particularly the UAE given its wariness towards Islah.

The NUPO is an Arab nationalist and socialist Yemeni political party founded on December 25, 1965. It has been a part of the JMP¹⁴ since the JMP’s formation in 2002.¹⁵ The NUPO won one seat in the 1993 parliamentary elections and two seats in 1997.¹⁶

An opposition party in Taiz, NUPO is often cast as the second most powerful political party in the city after Islah. Among Yemeni political factions, the Nasserists were one of the most unequivocal in their opposition to the Houthi takeover of Sanaa.¹⁷ The Nasserist party is one of several leftist forces and parties that many residents of Taiz associated with in previous generations. But with time, and changing internal dynamics, more conservative factions such as the Islah Party have eclipsed the historically prominent leftist parties.

Today in Taiz, NUPO marginally shares power with Islah networks, with some important government positions being held by notable Nasserist figures. Figures from the NUPO in the government of Taiz include Rashid Al-Akhali, the deputy governor of Taiz, and Hussein Al-Maqtari, former head of the Cleaning and Improvement Fund. Although the party has no affiliated military groups or armed organizations, individuals affiliated with NUPO have joined and ascended the ranks of the army in Taiz.

The Nasserists remain poorly funded and dependent on internal sources of revenue. At the beginning of the war, they appeared to receive support from some of the coalition countries, particularly the UAE, but this support has been uneven. Today, NUPO is likely supported by businessmen affiliated directly with the party, although contacts in the city say it continues to engage in outreach to the UAE.

The General People's Congress party (GPC), founded in 1982 under Ali Abdullah Saleh, has historically been the ruling party in Yemen and the strongest political force in the country, though its power declined from 2011 through 2015. The GPC has rebounded recently due to the breakdown of the Houthi-Saleh relationship.

At the beginning of the war, much of the upper-level leadership of the GPC sided with President Ali Abdullah Saleh and accepted his formation of a strategic alliance with the Houthis.¹⁸ However, this differed across the country, including in Taiz, where many of the GPC’s local leadership viewed expelling the Houthis from the city as their immediate priority, leading to splits within the party.¹⁹ The split between many of the national GPC leaders and Taiz’s local GPC leadership over the question of allying with the Houthis illustrates the local roots of Yemeni politics and the ability of local interests to reshape political factions and interrupt efforts at alliance formation.

Sheikh Aref Gamel, the head of the GPC’s Taiz branch, is one of the leaders of the Popular Resistance who fought the Houthis in Taiz. Gamel led his forces to completely liberate the south of the city, including Jabal Saber, the first liberated district in Taiz. The ascent of the GPC in Taiz would have not been possible without their alliance and coordination with figures and factions loyal to Islah party networks. The split in the party posed challenges for many of its members. Some members of the GPC now reside in Cairo and do not want to be associated with any of the parties to the conflict.²⁰ However, Gamel’s supporters praise him for his pragmatism and fighting prowess alike.

The ascent of the GPC in Taiz would have not been possible without their alliance and coordination with figures and factions loyal to Islah party networks.

Taiz natives have also been politically prominent in the GPC outside of the city. The current head of parliament, Sheikh Sultan al-Barakani, is an MP from Taiz and the longstanding head of the GPC’s bloc in parliament. Former Minister of Interior Rashad al-Alimi and former Taiz Governor Hamoud al-Sufi both continue to play key roles in decision-making in the governorate from afar, taking advantage of their long-standing relations with key stakeholders inside and outside of Yemen. While quiet for some time, the GPC has held public demonstrations in Taiz, underlining their aim of maintaining relevance in the city.

The YSP was once one of the major political parties in Yemen, although its influence has declined since its heyday in the 1970s. One of Yemen’s original socialist parties, the YSP originally formed as the Unified Political National Front Organization, which was a merger between three political movements that fought for independence from the British: Yemen's National Liberation Front of occupied South Yemen (NLF), the Democratic Union Party (Marxist), and the Popular Vanguard Party (Baathist).²¹ In 1978, it officially became the YSP.²² The party maintains an outsized presence abroad, where many of its various leaders have resided since 1994, after the North-South civil war, and (more recently) post-Arab Spring.²³

After the National Dialogue Conference (NDC), an ambitious summit that was meant to be the cornerstone of Yemen’s post-Arab Spring transitional process, the YSP was delegated some positions within the local authority of Taiz. For example, Mohammed Abdulrahman Al-Samei was appointed director of finance and Najib Qahtan was appointed as the director of the Information Office. According to local sources, Qahtan has close ties with Islah networks, which has affected his influence within YSP leadership circles.²⁴

As previously mentioned, the Houthis’ entry into Taiz was partly facilitated through the support of YSP figure Sultan al-Samei, whose relationship with the Houthis has grown increasingly complicated.²⁵ A number of prominent Taizis who have aligned with the Houthis have socialist backgrounds, which stem in part from their antipathy to the Islah party.

Finally, Al-Rashad Union is a Yemeni political organization oriented towards Salafism and Islamism. The party issued its establishment announcement on March 14, 2012, and soon after received official permission to engage in political activity in Taiz.²⁶ The party is currently headed by Mohammed Musa Al-Amiri; the secretary general is Abdul Wahab Al-Humayqani.

While Al-Rashad wields very little political power on the ground in Taiz, the party has successfully poached members from Islah groups who are attracted to the party’s religious dimension.

A deputy of the governorate, Dr. Abdul Hakim Aoun, was appointed as the Salafis' slot in the local government in Taiz, however, Abdulhakim Aoun is reportedly also affiliated with the Islah Party.²⁷ The relationship between Aoun, Islah, and Al-Rashad Union underlines Islah’s coordination with—and continuing influence over—other political groups in the city.

Islah has maintained political and military dominance in Taiz over the course of the Yemen war. As noted above, this has resulted in many prior rivals having to accommodate the party. However, it has also led to blowback from rivals able to benefit from foreign sponsors wary of Islah’s Muslim Brotherhood ties. At the same time, political and military entrepreneurs taking advantage of hyperlocal facets of the war economy increasingly shape and challenge Islah’s power.

Apart from the Houthis themselves—and with the GPC party’s split into pro-Saleh and pro-coalition factions at the time—Islah’s affiliates and allies constituted the most organized and experienced fighting forces in the city. With Saleh’s eventual death at the hands of the Houthis, the GPC in Taiz was able to fully align itself with Islah and the coalition.

Military leaders who had broken with Saleh and backed key military leader Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar²⁸ during the 2011 fighting—most notably, Sadiq Sarhan, Saleh Al-Thaneen, and Hameed Al-Qushaibi—aligned against the Houthis, in numerous cases cooperating with Islah paramilitary forces. Local social figures who led militias during that same period, most notably Hamoud al-Mekhlafi, were largely drawn from Islah as well.

Islah used organizational structures that it developed for its charitable, educational, and political outreach programs as the bedrock for organizing local resistance against the Houthis. The presence of many connected Taizi Islah supporters and allies in circles close to the internationally recognized government eased the process of obtaining military and financial support from the Yemeni government, while the disproportionate representation of Taizis amongst the Yemeni press corps granted a steady stream of media attention.

The 2016 exodus from Taiz of Hamoud Al-Mekhlafi, the first leader of the Popular Resistance there, deprived the city of a key figurehead and potentially unifying figure and exposed the realities of the divisions amongst coalition forces in Taiz. The reasons for his departure are described later in this report. It did little, however, to diminish the continuing influence of Islah’s networks in Taiz, which only solidified in the coming period, although power has shifted to less well-known figures on the ground.

Even so, Islah and its allies’ perceived dominance resulted in blowback from anti-Houthi forces in Taiz. Local powers, like the Nasserists and individuals such as Abu Al-Abbas and his eponymous brigade, who distrusted Islah or resented what they saw as Islah’s undue influence sought to shore up their own standing.²⁹ Foreign powers—most notably, the UAE—which were anxious about the potential resurgence of Muslim Brotherhood ideologies in Yemen, eagerly built relationships with and bolstered these local forces within the wider framework of battling the Houthis.³⁰ Local groups and individuals took advantage of the overarching regional narrative of a Gulf (particularly Emirati) conflict with the Muslim Brotherhood to fuel their own political ends.³¹ In turn, the UAE’s support for Islah opponents has generated greater anti-UAE feeling among some Islah-affiliated factions.

Meanwhile various smaller groups—or even individuals—have sought to control local funding streams and develop their own political and economic bases of support. Issues ranging from the collection of taxation to the manning of checkpoints became key focuses of political and military tension. While the wider ideological differences and geopolitical tensions apparent in foreign sponsor relations set out the kindling, it has consistently been these hyper-local issues that provide the match, spurring clashes between anti-Houthi armed groups. For example, in July 2018, there were a total of 48 revenue-generating checkpoints on the road between Taiz and Hayjaht Al-Abd (connecting south Taiz to the south of Yemen) controlled by either Islah affiliates or their opponents.³²

Groups have also clashed and profited from the trade of qat, a mild narcotic leaf chewed across the country, and one of the few thriving industries in Yemen’s war-economy.³³ In January 2019, fighters loyal to Ghazwan al-Mekhlafi, an unruly adolescent member of the Twenty-Second Brigade, fought with militias over control of qat taxation in the Qat market, in Al-Thawra neighborhood of Taiz.³⁴ Ghazwan is related to Sadiq Sarhan, commander of the Twenty-Second Brigade, and hails from the same village as the famed Popular Resistance figure Hamoud Al-Mekhlafi.³⁵

Since 2017, the internationally recognized Yemeni government has organized security campaigns to clear elements they described as being “outside” the law, using the local police and authorities to clear government buildings and institutions occupied or held by groups challenging the government’s authority. Many of these campaigns have proven unsuccessful. For instance, coalition fighters from the Thirty-Fifth Brigade ignored government orders to relinquish control of vital revenue-generating checkpoints around the southern entrance of Taiz.³⁶ Most of these campaigns failed to progress due to infighting, the willful ignorance of government orders by certain militias, and the ability of these factions to act independently with impunity. The last of these security campaigns was launched in March 2019 by Governor Nabil Shamsan and has shown little success, as the local authorities struggle to come together under Hadi’s umbrella, often choosing to halt the campaigns to avoid a clash of interests between differing armed groups responsible for helping to keep the peace.³⁷

Bouts of infighting between anti-Houthi armed groups have often ended in ceasefire agreements. For example, a truce committee under the auspices of Taiz Governor Nabil Shamsan reached an agreement with the Abu Al-Abbas Brigades to hand over wanted individuals and evacuate Abu Al-Abbas fighters from the residential neighborhoods in the Old City.³⁸ Yet the wider structural issues encouraging and allowing for such clashes remain. Absent greater consolidation of power—whether in the hands of one group, which appears unlikely, or in the form of a more coherent and cooperative coalition of factions (a tall order) —a lasting accord is unlikely. This is particularly true given the enduring weakness of civilian government, a trend which appears to have continued under the current governor, Nabil Shamsan, regardless of his best intentions.

It remains far from certain that the groups in Taiz will agree and implement a durable cease of hostilities in the medium-term future, as the war has also become an enterprise in and of itself, infecting nearly all aspects of daily life in Taiz. Fighters are overwhelmingly reliant on their salaries, which has brought increasing leverage for military leaders and their funders at all levels. Even those not directly reliant on war-related monies cannot fully disentangle from the wider system.³⁹ In this context, Taiz’s situation will likely continue to be shaped by local tensions and its war economy—which have seen power brokers clash over everything from weapons smuggling to checkpoint profiteering—as much if not more than by the grander proxy conflicts between external states or even by Yemen’s more traditional political divides.

Fighters are overwhelmingly reliant on their salaries, which has brought increasing leverage for military leaders and their funders at all levels.