Integrating Yemen’s Armed Groups: Pathways of Decentralisation

Force Integration in a Post-Hybrid Landscape

After years of war, Yemen lives a watershed moment. Since April 2022, a national truce mediated by the United Nations (UN) is in effect and an inclusive, although politically fragmented, leadership structure, the Presidential Leadership Council, has replaced the interim president. Under the auspices of the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, a military coordination committee between warring parties has been convened for the technical implementation of the truce. This joint coordination room also facilitates communication and confidence-building. Moreover, the Presidential Leadership Council established a 59-member Joint Military Committee to restructure and unify the armed and security forces belonging to the "anti-Houthi camp", as well as intelligence units.

Against this backdrop, time is ripe to reassess options for armed groups’ integration in the security sector, combining research analysis and policy analysis.

In Yemen, the establishment of the Presidential Leadership Council in April 2022 has formalized the country’s post-hybrid reality. When both officials and "rebels" become members of the same institution, as in the case of the new Presidential Leadership Council, “armies” and “militias”, “state” and “counterstate” governance can’t be categorized as opposite poles of an imaginary continuum any longer. For this reason, the hybrid model – that has been key to understand the complex forms of security delivery that emerged after 2011 – reveals now its limits, as the reality changes on the ground. The boundaries between formal and informal forces, previously challenged and waned by hybridization, tend to extinguish. The game-changer now is the top-down political recognition provided by weakened recognized institutions, through formal co-optation, to the “hybrid sovereignties” who de facto rule the territory. From one hand, regular security forces and recognized institutions coopt non-state forces and would-be institutional entities (ex. the Southern Transitional Council, STC), maximizing amalgamation, but without real integration. On the other, most of the non-state forces and would-be institutional entities are now part of regular security forces and recognized institutions, thus acquiring a legal status which reinforces their legitimacy. But the gradual recognition of armed groups and self-proclaimed entities, while prolonged conflict and multiple power centres continue to erode institutional sovereignty, forges a new reality which overcomes hybridity. Who is a “formal” actor and who is an “informal” player in Yemen today? Does these labels still matter when it comes to designing locally-oriented pathways of integration?

In the Presidential Leadership Council, the leaders of the most powerful armed groups, with varied degrees of hybridization with regular forces, now sit side-by-side (except for the Houthis) with people from internationally recognized institutions. For instance, Aydarous Al Zubaidi, the President of the STC, a self-proclaimed entity with affiliated armed groups claiming for the autonomy/independence of Southern regions, is a member of the Council. However, the STC is formally part of the recognized government based in Aden since late 2019, as part of the “Riyadh Agreement”.

Moreover, coalition-building attempts between armed groups, as well as effective integration by recognized institutions, have substantially failed so far, due to power rivalries and different agendas. For instance, two leaders of the West Coast Forces, the National Resistance Forces’ head Tareq Saleh and the Giants Brigades’ commander Abu Zaara, are both on the board of the Council, despite being formally part of the joint Saleh-led military umbrella.

This also has implications for the armed groups’ integration into the security sector. Generally, the regular security sector is considered substantially different from the groups aspiring to integration. However, this isn’t the case in post-hybrid landscapes as Yemen. So, what about armed groups’ integration in a post-hybrid setting, especially if a shared centre of institutional power is still missing? Integration can’t follow fixed packages; however, a national horizon is needed to limit further fragmentation and support national unity. Integration should move instead along three axes: it should be locally-oriented and task-oriented, including steps for incremental implementation.

This paper provides "work in progress" stabilisation options, thus focusing on a specific side of Security Sector Reform/Governance (SSR/G) and, yes, it offers integration packages. However, these are flexible, adjustable during implementation and develop from two perspectives of centre-periphery relations that also leave room for incremental choices. The paper elaborates integration options into existing agencies: the police forces and the Yemen Coast Guard (YCG). It also provides integration options into new, purpose-built agencies: the Yemen Regional Guard (YRG) and the Yemen National Guard (YNG), both developing within the horizon of a federal united Yemen, as per the 2014 National Dialogue Conference (NDC) outcome document. Throughout the paper, "Guard" refer to both the YRG and the YNG.[1]

The Yemen Regional Guard (YRG) policy option portrays a context of marked decentralisation in centre-periphery relations, with many powers assigned to governorates and local authorities. This option mirrors the current state of art on the ground, in which a de facto federalisation of the country has been achieved, although ungoverned through institutional means. The YRG option would institutionalise this reality, with many powers devolved from national institutions to governorates and local authorities.

The Yemen National Guard (YNG) policy option depicts a context of limited decentralisation in centre-peripheries relations, with some powers devolved from national institutions to governorates and local authorities.

With regard to sequencing, the YRG option can be calibrated and adjusted depending on the evolution of the political-institutional context, thus confirming or reducing the practical translation on the ground of the federal principle. In this way, the YNG policy option can be considered an alternative option to the YRG to build a less decentralised Yemen. But the YNG option could be also considered the "phase two" of the YRG, in case a national-level political agreement is finally achieved.

Genealogy: Who are Yemen’s armed groups?

• The genealogy is mainly rooted in long-simmering unaddressed local grievances that have turned into claims for equal access to resources, jobs, representation, and autonomy/independence vis-à-vis the national government, in northern regions as well as in southern ones. In other cases, armed groups are top-down creations aimed to strengthen a specific power centre, included recognized institutions;
• Most of the armed groups build upon tribal kinship (except for the original backbone of Ansar Allah, which is not tribal/qaba’il, but sada), often mixed with strong ties to the local territory. This can be conducive to armed confrontation in case the tribal balance breaks, but it can also provide leverage for reconciliation. Mediation mechanisms, tribal elders and collective responsibility are precious tools on the road to stabilisation, especially in the absence of shared institutions. However, tribal mediation has a limited radius of action: it can support de-escalation zones and ceasefires at a local level, but cannot guarantee agreements at the national level, as the interests and leverage of tribes do not extend beyond the local;
• Most of the armed groups have – and pursue - intertwined interests. Military goals aim to support political interests (autonomy from the national government; inclusion in decision-making fora), economic interests (informal and often cross-border economy, smuggling, personal enrichment) and, to a lesser extent, confessional or even sectarian ones (ex. Salafi fighters).

Context: What to take into account before designing force integration options

In Yemen, defence institutions have traditionally embodied the first arena of political competition and struggle, especially with regard to the army. Their chronic politicisation has boosted fragmentation of defence, security and intelligence agencies; since 2011, this has paved the way for their collapse. For this reason, seven dynamics have to be taken into account for the purpose of designing viable policy options for force integration and its implementation.

• The reality of army politicisation and the need for varied integration agencies. Yemen’s army is highly politicised: security governance must rely on a series of defence and security agencies with specific tasks and deployment areas. The involvement of distinct and complementary forces, including informal ones, in the SSG/SSR effort is recommended: it would reduce and balance the overwhelming role of the army. In contrast to the armed forces, police forces have not been a significant locus of politics so far, as they have been thin on the ground, under-funded and under-equipped. Also for this reason, integration paths within existing agencies, such as the police forces and the coast guard, can be explored, as well as integration in new, purpose-built structures.
• Hybridity is the Yemeni normal. Hybridity represents a constant, not an exception, in Yemen’s defence and security sectors, due to the co-existence and overlap between formal and informal security providers. Especially in northern and central regions, this factor is also magnified by the presence of strong tribal structures which served as local pre-political entities. Any integration path, regardless of its nature, can try to govern hybridity as much as possible, but it will not be able to erase it.
• De facto federalisation. Prolonged conflict has helped reshape centre-periphery relations. Indeed, in areas held by the internationally recognised government Yemen currently experiences a “bottom up” decentralisation of power (including in security provision and governance): this results from a de facto federalisation of the country, not as the outcome of a “top down” devolution of power. A partial and remarkable exception concerns the three oil-producing governorates: in wartime, Marib, Shabwa and Hadhramawt negotiated with the central government to keep 20% of energy revenues at home to be invested in local development programmes. However, this pact should be seen as the product of “bottom up” shifting power balances. Therefore, force integration has to achieve a sustainable distribution of powers between the central/national level and the decentralised/local level. This effort can effectively work only if connected to a single, legitimate and national centre of political power, with “checks and balances” between centralised and decentralised powers. Otherwise, it will mostly boost centrifugal fracturing, while force integration should aim to contain fragmentation forces and foreign interferences.
• The social-economic nexus in force integration and in SSG/R. Economic and social dimensions are directly related to security and force integration. If a part of local budgets is invested in the payment of security and defence forces operating in the same territory, or in vocational training programs, this can foster a virtuous cycle boosting local development.
• The state financial crisis and the payment issue. Armed groups often can offer regular and higher salaries to combatants compared to the Yemeni state, which ravaged by a major financial crisis. State resources are and will likely remain extremely limited; at the same time, regional donors and international stakeholders are not able/willing to commit a proper amount of financial resources, especially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. If the state can provide only intermittent and lower salaries compared to the armed groups, this represents a significant obstacle to force integration, and instead ends up facilitating recruiting efforts by armed groups.
• Identity and status of armed group combatants. Armed groups also provide a social identity to the ′have-nots`, such as unemployed and marginalised people, especially young men, and their families. The social identity issue in armed groups applies primarily to low-level combatants, not to “officers” and “commanders”, who can rely instead on the social status, prestige and privileges of being the leaders of an armed group. For this reason, integration options should also find ways to make joining the official security sector, rather than an armed group, more appealing and socially desirable for young Yemenis and the communities they belong to.

The possible role of security committees in force integration

In designing and implementing force integration, the hybrid nature of security committees, established by presidential decree in the early 2000s, can be an added value.

• Advantages: These meeting platforms, each headed by the respective governor, already gather formal and informal security players (army, police, armed groups) to discuss local security challenges and to distribute and coordinate tasks on the ground, even during the 2015 war. Alongside local governors, security committees rally actors answering to different and complementary national agencies (Ministry of Interior, MoI and Ministry of Defense, MoD), plus the armed groups. In times of war, governorate-level security committees are acting as places of local security governance: for instance, since 2016 the Marib security committee has been at in the reorganisation of the security forces, and the security committee affiliated with the internationally-recognised government in Hodeida decided in 2018 to integrate 3000 fighters of the Tihama Resistance under the state-affiliated branch of the Republican Guard.[2] Therefore, some security committees are already dealing with force integration.
• Disadvantages: Security committees mirror local political balances. For instance, the security committee held by the Houthis (ex. Hodeida governorate) is controlled by it through appointed officials, in parallel to that established by the internationally-recognised government since 2018.[3] Yemenis perceive security committees as “legitimate institutions”[4] although their legal basis and mandate remain unclear: security committees are not mentioned in open access official documents. Currently, security plans concerted at the security committee level are then implemented through joint operations rooms established by governorate-level Security Departments reporting to the MoI. Finally, security committees can help integration thanks to their informality, plurality and direct connection with territories. At the same time, the lack of a clear legal framework can generate difficulties, such as opaque accountability in decision-making (for instance, formal security forces have more leverage than informal ones in security committees) and implementation phases.

Integration into existing agencies: the Coast Guard and the police

Integration options in existing agencies may include:

• The Yemen Coast Guard (YCG). Combatants with expertise could be integrated in the YCG. This would maximise local capabilities while quickly improving coastal and port security. This would be the case of combatants from the Republican Guard/Guards of the Republic, led by Tareq Saleh, in Taiz governorate, a force that would already have “affiliated forces” in the YCG (ex. Perim/Mayyun island). The YCG has been undergoing restructuring since 2016: it has refocused from preventing jihadi attacks to countering smuggling activities, mostly to and from Iran; the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are leading restructuring efforts, including training and equipment. Port security is a priority (see the missile and drone attack against Mokha port in September 2021) not only for access to humanitarian aid, but also to support trade and the energy sector. As most maritime threats originating from Yemen come from the Houthis’ asymmetric warfare, force integration in the YCG can’t have a nation-wide breadth without a comprehensive political settlement, so it would be better to opt, whenever necessary, on single combatants’ integration.
• Police forces. Mixed police units, encompassing policemen plus integrated combatants, can be established by the MoI at the local level. Their tasks would include standard police activities (ex. opening of new police stations on the territory; patrolling; traffic control) after a basic policing course focused on community-policing; they would also support local councils in facing emergencies (ex. distribution of masks against Covid-19), as well as providing basic public services to Yemenis (ex. humanitarian aid coordination and delivery). On recruitment, the local shura or other wide-ranging organisms [5] would be tasked to nominate candidates among the combatants fighting in the area. Combatants applying for integration should meet a series of community criteria previously established by the shura.[6] This would build upon the governance role that both local councils and armed groups have increasingly played during the war, while bringing it under an institutional structure. Both formal (police) and informal (tribes) actors would be involved in the integration process; this option could work especially well in territories with a highly homogenous social fabric, thus fostering small-scale de-confliction and reconciliation mechanisms. In a broader way, the strengthening of the police forces (territorial presence, security and legal instruction, funding and equipment) is recommended. The police should represent the formal security agency closest to the community: about 60% of Yemenis live in rural areas with erratic state presence.

Integration into new, purpose-built agencies: The Guard

The Guard would establish a decentralised agency to integrate armed groups under an institutional framework.[7] It could also become, in the medium to long term, a reserve force of the army. The Guard would be a gendarmerie-like force: the main task of the Guard should be to address security issues at the community level (including policing in rural areas in which police forces are usually not present), providing security, and tackling, when necessary, security threats within governorates’ boundaries.

In both the YRG and YNG options, the Guard proposes one model for the whole country. After common basic training, each governorate develops its locally-tailored expertise (ex. border security and counter-smuggling; counter-insurgency and the countering of violent extremism; protection of civilian infrastructure; demining), depending on each governorate’s security priorities. As the Guard can operate in areas where police forces are not present or can perform military tasks, it has mixed armaments and equipment. Specifically, the Guard has deep knowledge/connection with the territory, local enlistment also offering a vocational training path, and regionally-tailored expertise.

The Guard would build upon hybridity, binding pre-existing belongings (tribal; armed group) to a broader geographical loyalty (governorate-level). Its presence would reduce: first, risks of overlapping and competition with other security agencies, as its tasks and deployment areas would be clearly defined (most in rural areas since police presence is higher in urban centres); second, risk of disaffection in national army ranks, as combatants would be integrated in a brandnew agency, not in the army. Force integration would advance local development and community buy-in since enlistment would also offer the possibility to choose vocational training. This aims to address part of the economic-social issues which led to the rise of armed groups, and which are usually capitalised by the armed groups to strengthen territorial power and control.

At the same time, the Guard option would acknowledge the disastrous state of Yemen’s finances and economy, as well as the growing financial restraint shown by neighbouring donors and international stakeholders. As the provision of regular salaries is the most pressing imperative on the road to stabilising armed groups, the Guard fund (controlled by an international monitoring body) would partly rely on: regional and international donors; a variable share of governorates’ budgets; Yemen oil and gas companies’ finances; the reinvestment of integrated armed groups’ finances. This should incentivise regular payments pursuing/preserving local security to support local development.

The Guard would also provide/recognise a social identity to some of the people who joined the armed groups. Selected “commanders” and “officers” would be enrolled for security professionalisation with a national reconciliation intent; combatants, on the other hand, would enlist for security professionalisation or vocational training based on governorates’ job priorities. At lower levels, this would support combatants who are less driven by ideology/belief/political aspiration to practically rethink themselves, their families and communities, choosing a return to civilian life.

 

YRG and YNG options: A comparison

 

YRG mid-operational issues	YNG mid-operational issues
Structure and command. Each governorate has its regional division of the Guard, placed under the governorate-level local council (comprising the governor plus elected members).  Mission. Governors can deploy the YRG within governorate borders in case of: armed attack from out-of-governorate forces; threat and attack against civilian and military infrastructures; natural calamity, with the duty to previously inform the MoI (not to gain the authorisation). The government can place the YRG under MoI command in case of national emergencies: armed insurgency against national institutions; foreign interventions not allowed by national authorities; natural calamities. The governor can reject MoI request of intervention (veto power).  Appointments. In each division, YRG commander and deputy commander are appointed by the respective governorate-level local council, with the approval of the MoI.	Structure and command. The YNG comprises twenty-two divisions at governorate-level, each of them divided into brigades. The YNG is placed under the MoI. Placing the YNG under the MoD would likely foster direct competition with the army, excessively emphasising the military dimension of the Guard, which is present but also mitigated by police-style formation and tasks.   Mission. Governors can deploy the YNG within governorate borders in case of: armed attack from out-of-governorate forces; threat and attack against civilian and military infrastructure; natural calamity. The government can place the YNG under MoI command in case of national emergencies: armed insurgency against national institutions; foreign interventions not allowed by national authorities; natural calamities. In these cases, the governor/s of affected region/s can reject MoI request of intervention (veto power).  Appointments. The YNG has an appointed national commander, who is appointed by MoI and approved by governors at majority (without veto power). The governorate-level division is headed by an appointed regional commander and a deputy regional commander: they are appointed by MoI and approved by the governor.
YRG strategic questions	YNG strategic questions
Design and implementation. The Supreme Security Committee at the national level is tasked with designing the integration process (ex. criteria and timing for integration); in each governorate, Security committees at the governorate level are tasked with identifying which regionally-tailored expertise has to be developed. Security Committees at governorate-level and coordination centres/joint operations rooms at the governorate level are tasked with implementing the force integration process, with UN technical assistance.  Enlistment and ranks. The YRG integrates selected “commanders” and “officers” of the armed groups, providing them equivalent military ranks with respect to the army: this occurs after a professional training course. Low-level armed group combatants who join force integration can’t exceed a fixed number previously calculated by each governorate on the total population to avoid the risk of an overstaffed Guard.   Security and development nexus. Combatants belonging to the armed groups who opted for integration can choose between: A) enlistment to undergo security professionalisation training in the YRG (with monthly salary, accommodation and daily meal); B) enlistment to undergo vocational training for economic and social sectors identified by governorate-level authorities (with monthly salary, accommodation and daily meal; a salary benefit is foreseen if the enlisted complete the vocational training program).  Salaries and pensions. Each governorate pays salaries and pensions to soldiers through the YRG budget.   Budget. External donors, especially members of the Saudi-led Coalition contribute, for the largest share, to finance the YRG fund. Each governorate partially contributes to local security co-financing its division of the YRG thanks to the re-investment of a variable share of the governorates’ budget (local taxes, fees and energy revenues). In energy-rich governorates, Yemen oil and gas companies participate in the partial funding of the YRG. A quota of the finances held by integrated armed groups is reinvested in the YRG fund, contributing to the payment of integrated combatants’ salaries and pensions. This occurs as integrated armed groups explicitly declare to submit all their funds, weapons, equipment, ceasing any income-generating activity.   Financial management. In each governorate, the YRG budget is managed by governorate-level local councils with the approval of MoI officials, and with the monitoring of an international body representing donors and stakeholders. Governorate-level local councils have oversight on the YRG budget.  Armament and other equipment. Police equipment and some military-style armoury (ex. armoured vehicles, helicopters, boats, light infantry weapons). Integrated combatants must declare and relinquish personal armament and equipment.  Military education and training. Each YRG division (“commanders”, “officers” and integrated low-level combatants) undergoes a training programme, organised at the governorate level with the approval of the MoI. The programme aims to forge team identity through professionalisation. It provides basic military training (including good governance, gender and human rights), legal training, plus military training on regionally-tailored issues to develop different, complementary and, whether necessary, interoperable expertise vis-à-vis the army. Some examples: border security and counter-smuggling (ex. Hajja, Saada, al Jawf, Mahra); counter-insurgency and the countering of violent extremism (ex. Abyan, Al Bayda, Shabwa, Hadhramawt); protection of civilian infrastructure (ex. Hodeida, Taiz, Marib, Shabwa, Hahdramawt); demining (Hodeida, Taiz, Shabwa). Arab players (included members of the Saudi-led Coalition) play a pivotal role in training assistance for the YRG, focusing on know-how transfer: this is conveyed though new Yemeni military academies involving multi-national teams of military experts organised by the MoI with governorate-level approval, and supervised by the UN. The presence of Arabic-speaking advisers and trainers (ex. Jordanians; Omanis; Kuwaitis; Egyptians) could be evaluated for know-how transfer and team building purposes.   Community outreach, public communication and community-building. In relatively stable governorates, the YRG division could organise, with the approval of the MoI, public meetings and festivals (ex. exhibitions of local products, poetry and traditional dances/songs), in the footsteps of the Saudi National Guard’s Janadriya festival. Such events would support knowledge and confidence-building between local communities and the YRG, also to outreach young people to join and choose the vocational training path. For the YRG, public meetings and festivals could also be useful to spread anti-radicalisation messages (especially in Abyan, Bayda, Shabwa, Hadhramawt) to counter jihadi and violent extremist indoctrination and recruitment.	Design and implementation. The Supreme Security Committee at the national level is tasked with designing the integration process (ex. criteria and timing for integration; identification of regionally-tailored expertise to be developed), with UN technical assistance. Security Committees at the governorate level and coordination centres/joint operations rooms at the governorate level are tasked with implementing the force integration process, with UN technical assistance.  Enlistment and ranks. The YRG integrates selected “commanders” and “officers” of the armed groups, providing them equivalent military ranks with respect to the army: this occurs after a professional training course. Low-level armed group combatants who join force integration can’t exceed a fixed number previously calculated by each governorate on the total population to avoid the risk of an overstaffed Guard.   Security and development nexus. Combatants belonging to the armed groups who opted for integration can choose between: A) enlistment to undergo security professionalisation training in the YNG (with monthly salary, accommodation and daily meal); B) enlistment to undergo vocational training for economic and social sectors identified by the Ministry of Local Administration (MOLA) and governorate-level authorities (with monthly salary, accommodation and daily meal; a salary benefit is foreseen if the enlisted complete the vocational training program).  Salaries and pensions. The MoI pays salaries and pensions to soldiers through the YNG fund. Short ′payments chains` with limited intermediaries would allow to: minimise opportunities for cheating (ghost personnel) and corruption (direct embezzlement); ensure timely and transparent payments to track and verify them; separate pay disbursement from operational command, so as to anchor personnel loyalty to an institution instead of to local leaders who materially hand out money.   Budget. External donors, especially members of the Saudi-led Coalition contribute, for the largest share, to finance the YNG fund. Each governorate partially contributes to local security co-financing its division of the YNG thanks to the re-investment of a variable share of the governorates’ budget (local taxes, fees and energy revenues). In energy-rich governorates, Yemen oil and gas companies participate in the partial funding of the YNG. A quota of the finances held by integrated armed groups is reinvested in the YNG fund, contributing to the payment of integrated combatants’ salaries and pensions. This occurs as integrated armed groups explicitly declare to submit all their funds, weapons, equipment, ceasing any income-generating activity.  Financial management. An international monitoring body representing donors and stakeholders supervises, with the MoI, aid absorption and allocation phases by the YNG fund. Representatives of governorates and local councils are part of the monitoring structure, as well as representatives of integrated armed groups. The House of Representatives has oversight on the YNG fund.  Armament and other equipment. Police equipment and some military-style armoury (ex. armoured vehicles, helicopters, boats, light infantry weapons). Integrated combatants must declare and relinquish personal armament and equipment.  Military education and training. The YNG (“commanders”, “officers” and integrated low-level combatants) undergoes a training programme, organised by the MoI with the approval of the governorates. The programme aims to forge team identity through professionalisation. It provides basic military training (including good governance, gender and human rights), legal training (as the Guard falls under MoI), plus military training on regionally-tailored issues to develop different, complementary and, whether necessary, interoperable expertise vis-à-vis the army. Some examples: border security and counter-smuggling (ex. Hajja, Saada, al Jawf, Mahra); counter-insurgency and the countering of violent extremism (ex. Abyan, Al Bayda, Shabwa, Hadhramawt); protection of civilian infrastructure (ex. Hodeida, Taiz, Marib, Shabwa, Hahdramawt); demining (Hodeida, Taiz, Shabwa). Arab players (included members of the Saudi-led Coalition) play a pivotal role in training assistance for the YNG, focusing on know-how transfer: this is conveyed though new Yemeni military academies involving multi-national teams of military experts organised by the MoI with the approval of governorate-level representatives, and supervised by the UN. The presence of Arabic-speaking advisers and trainers (ex. Jordanians; Omanis; Kuwaitis; Egyptians) could be evaluated for know-how transfer and team building purposes.   Community outreach, public communication and community-building. In relatively stable governorates, the YNG could organise public meetings and festivals (ex. exhibitions of local products, poetry and traditional dances/songs), in the footsteps of the Saudi National Guard’s Janadriya festival. Such events would support knowledge and confidence-building between local communities and the YNG, also to outreach young people to join and choose the vocational training path. For the YNG, public meetings and festivals could also be useful to spread anti-radicalisation messages (especially in Abyan, Bayda, Shabwa, Hadhramawt) counter jihadi and violent extremist indoctrination and recruitment.

 

The YRG: advantages and disadvantages

The YRG is a force integration tool in which security is strongly devolved to the governorates, in a context of marked decentralisation. This implies (in case its establishment should follow an institutional-political agreement among Yemenis) or suggests (in case its establishment should occur without a prior agreement) a federal state architecture. The YRG would be placed under the governorate-level local council, which would also be tasked with payments and financial management. However, the establishment of a YRG ministry, not recommended by this study, should be considered only in case of unsolvable conflict with the NDC outcome document.[8] The YRG option presents a series of "checks and balances" aiming to prevent/reduce two risks. The first risk is to empower the governors too much, especially at the military level. An institutional organism, the governorate-level local council (also comprising elected members) is involved in each region during the decision-making process, in order to prevent governors from becoming unaccountable "strong men". The second risk is to excessively marginalise national institutions from the decision-making process at governorate level, thus fuelling misunderstandings, mistrust and disaffection. Officials from the MoI have to approve the most sensitive operational issues, in order to keep a balance between the local and the national levels.

The YNG: advantages and disadvantages

The YNG is a force integration tool in which security is partly devolved at the local level, in a context of limited decentralisation. The YNG option can be considered an alternative to the YRG in building a less decentralised Yemen. But the YNG option could be also considered the "phase two" of the YRG (sequencing), in case a national-level political agreement is finally achieved. The YNG would be placed under the MoI: the presence of a national bond would mitigate the perception of the YNG as the ′force of the peripheries` vs. the national force (army). In theory, a specific YNG ministry could be established, but this is not recommended here as it would be likely to produce more harm than good, fuelling further political competition for control and corruption. Unified command and control, such as the creation of a security agency with a single chain of command, is something that cannot realistically be achieved in Yemen due to the hybridity issue. Against this backdrop, what the YNG option proposes is to govern the plurality of security players as much as possible, while crafting, through integration, a win-win trade-off between state institutions and integrated armed groups. For instance, the armed groups (or parts of them) who accept integration must be included in formal consultations for YNG appointments; on the other hand, they must adhere to accountability standards, commit to recognising appointments and comply with orders from above.

Focus. Force integration and the protection of energy infrastructures: troubles and tips

The protection of the oil and gas infrastructure is decisive to stabilise Yemen, rebuilding the economic domain with an eye to local development. But on the energy topic, linking force integration and decentralised security within a unified state is highly problematic. This emerges from Yemen’s contemporary history,[9] as well as from other Arab countries’ recent experiences (Libya[10]). During Ali Abdullah Saleh’s presidency, the “tribal-military-commercial complex” played –and still plays - a prominent role in controlling the energy sector. The government used to pay co-opted tribes to protect energy infrastructures on their territories. However, sabotages, armed attacks and other disruptions were frequent (including by criminals and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula), as tribes exploited this prerogative as a bargaining chip vis-à-vis the central government. Moreover, local communities used to denounce Sanaa’s elite monopoly on energy revenues and the lack of revenue re-distribution at the local level (ex. in Hadhramawt). The local gas and oil sector did not encourage equal wealth and development, especially in Southern regions.

Against this backdrop:

• - Force integration must be careful not to assign oil/gas protection exclusively to armed groups operating in the same areas and profiting from the energy sector (e.g. from smuggling and bribes for self-financing and enrichment). On the other hand, it isn’t realistic to completely exclude from oil/gas protection the armed groups who have territorial and economic interests in the energy sector (especially without previous and quite troubling Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration, DDR);
• - A variety of armed players (including integrated armed groups) serving in a hypothetical energy protection unit may end up fighting each other for pipeline/export control and profits, thus generating competitive violence;
• - The protection of the oil/gas infrastructure should not exclusively be assigned to top-down militias, as it has been so far, since this is likely to ignite a vicious cycle in which local communities, deprived from revenues redistribution on their territory, react with attacks against fields and pipelines;
• - In such a framework, the control of the oil/gas infrastructure has to rely on a delicate "balancing act" among competing forces in order to be effective and sustainable, within the framework of a wider restructuring and professionalisation of energy infrastructure units. A possible role for Arabic-speaking officers from other countries could be envisaged for advice and training.

Policy options providing limited room for force integration may include:

• An energy infrastructure unit. This could be present in governorates hosting production fields, pipelines, refineries, storage and export facilities, including offshore energy facilities and production platforms (in these cases, coordination with the YCG would be recommended). This unit would receive specific training under national command in Yemeni military academies. In case of a YRG, unit sub-divisions could be deployed at the governorate level, to be placed under governorate-level command. Arab-speaking officers from other countries could advise on education and training activities; cooperation exchanges with the NATO-Istanbul Cooperation Initiative Centre in Kuwait (who activated a critical energy infrastructure protection course) to train selected officers could be explored.
• An energy intelligence unit. The creation/strengthening of an intelligence unit focused on the energy infrastructure is advised, cultivating direct linkages with local tribes and divisions of the army, the Guard and the YCG. The role of integrated former combatants would be pivotal to the unit, included as informers.

Policy options not primarily related to force integration:

• "Energy sentinel units" as civil defence missions. These unarmed, civilian units would inspect oil/gas infrastructures to prevent/alert on damages and spills. Yemen oil and gas companies and/or foreign companies involved with extraction, refinery activities, licenses and so on would pay (or at least contribute to paying) the salaries of the energy sentinels. A stabilised context would be more attractive for foreign investments, especially if investors can directly support local security and increase their own security and profit. The kick-off experiment could be launched in contexts where local security players already control the entire supply chain for the energy sector (from oil extraction to fuel), as in the case of Marib.
• "Environmental sentinel unit". This unarmed civil defence unit would prevent/alert/monitor environmental threats related to: maritime ecosystems (ex. pollution; oil spills, as with the FSO Safer tanker), environmental threats to agricultural land; desalinisation, pits and clean water. The unit could also be rapidly deployed by the MoI or governors in case of natural calamities (floods, cyclones, earthquakes, desert locusts), alongside the Guard.

Where do we start? Ideas

The paper highlights "work in progress" force integration options, and outlined the physiognomy of a would-be regionally-based Guard. In this framework, the United Arab Emirates-backed forces (ex. the Hadhrami Elite Forces; the Shabwani Elite Forces; to a lesser extent the Security Belt Forces), represent concrete examples of "proto-units" of the possible YRG/YNG, since they combine local recruitment, local operative radius and the developing of specific expertise (most of all COIN).  The main issue remains how to engage the Houthis. They have been able to consolidate power, rather than disperse it, in the war landscape, combining cooperative, competitive and then coercive consolidation.[11] This is exactly the opposite of what happened to the anti-Houthi camp, weakened by fragmentation and infighting. Also in the case of the Houthis, integration efforts could focus on the most external groups/combatants, especially those coming from the Houthis’ geographical periphery or former Saleh’s bloc loyalists.

Unpacking force integration packages (ex. the YRG/YNG) is the way to identify starting points towards stabilisation (ex. a YRG unit to be established somewhere on a specific task). The stabilisation of the armed groups and/or combatants has to find not only alternative tools of integration (ex. police, the YCG, the Guard), but also to identify small-scale, incremental steps to implement integration starting, for instance, from the sub-governorate/municipality level.

On timing and sequencing, some integration options could be designed and implemented before a political agreement is reached, maybe capitalizing on hypothetical de-escalation zones (ex. a YCG port special unit for Mokha in Taiz governorate; a YRG/YNG demining unit in al-Khawkha, Taiz governorate; a YRG/YNG counter-terrorism unit in Shabwa). Governorate-level integration could be pursued later (ex. the YRG/YNG division in Taiz; the YRG/YNG division in Shabwa), as a second step in SSG/SSR. This approach can’t be guided by homogenous lines since it tries to provide locally-tailored answers. However, a national horizon in force integration is needed to limit fragmentation and support federal unity.

  

Footnotes

[1] Unlike in the previous author’s publications (see Ardemagni, “Localizing Security: A National Guard for Federal Yemen”, ISPI Policy Paper, 2018), the word “regional” replaces here the word “federal” to avoid confusion and misunderstandings with the US Federal Guard placed under national command. “Federal” was previously chosen by the author to emphasise the link between the Guard hypothesis and the federal principle written in the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) outcome document. The word “regional” now has the same function.

[2] The Tareq Saleh-led branch of the official Republican Guard who sided against the Houthis after the killing of Ali Abdullah Saleh in late 2017. In Marib, the Security committee includes: the leadership of the Third Military Region (MoD), the police department (MoI) and the Political Security Organisation (intelligence services). See Casey Coombs-Ali Al-Sakani, “Marib: A Yemeni Government Stronghold Increasingly Vulnerable to Houthi Advances”, Sana'a Center For Strategic Studies, October 2020.

[3]  Who entered formal institutions after the Houthis’ appointed supervisors (now widely dismissed) acted like parallel officials.

[4] On Security committees, refer to Mareike Transfeld, Mohamed al-Iriani, Maged Sultan and Marie-Christine Heinze, “Local Security Governance in Yemen in Times of War”, Yemen Policy Center-CARPO Policy Report, April 2021.

[5] The Hadhramawt governorate provides examples of other organisms. For instance, the Bloc of Hadhramawt Tribes and Conference for Hadhramawt and the South, founded in July 2021, is close to the Southern Transitional Council (STC). It rallies more than half of members of the Hadhramawt Inclusive Conference (HIC), those who consider the HIC too much compromised with the recognized government and the official army.

[6] On community criteria, see the experience of the Afghan Local Police (ALP). Kate Clark, Erica Gaston, Fazal Muzhary and Borhan Osman, “Ghosts of the Past: Lessons from Local Force Mobilization in Afghanistan and Prospects for the Future”, Global Public Policy Institute, GPPi Report, July 2020.

[7] The most insightful analysis on National Guards in the Arab states is Frederic Wehrey and Ariel Ahram, “Taming the Militias: Building National Guards in Fractured Arab States”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, paper, May 2015.

[8] The National Dialogue Conference Outcome Document states (at page 47), that “the armed forces…shall have no regional affiliation”. This would prevent the YRG to be placed under governorate-level, as suggested instead in this study. 

[9] For instance the Installations Protection Force established by the Riyadh Agreement to unify the armed groups guarding government buildings, ports and refineries in government-held areas, still on paper.

[10] See Matt Herbert, “Extractive Resource Protection in Libya: The Challenge of Reforming and Supporting the Petroleum Facilities Guard”, in Emadeddin Badi, Archibald Gallet and Roberta Maggi (eds.), “The Road to Stability: Rethinking Security Sector Reform in Post-Conflict Libya”, DCAF Geneva Center for Security Sector Governance, 2021 (chapter 5).

[11] On pathways to militant consolidation, see Mohammed M. Hafez, Michael Gabbay and Emily Kalah Gade, “Consolidation of Nonstate Armed Actors in Fragmented Conflicts: Introducing an Emerging Research Program”, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Special Issue on Armed Group Consolidation in Fragmented Conflicts, 2021.