Arab ally arming Yemen warlord on U.S. terror list

TAIZ, Yemen — Last year, President Donald Trump’s administration imposed sanctions on a powerful Yemeni Islamist warlord, accusing him of being a “prominent military instructor” and fundraiser for al-Qaida who had also at one point “served with” the Islamic State group and financed its forces.

But Abu al-Abbas is not on the run. He is not even in hiding.

By his own admission, Abbas continues to receive millions of dollars in weapons and financial support for his fighters from one of Washington’s closest Middle East allies, the United Arab Emirates, undermining U.S. counterterrorism goals in Yemen.

The United Arab Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia, leads a regional coalition waging war in Yemen even as a humanitarian crisis there worsens.

The coalition’s main goal is to defeat the northern Yemeni rebels known as Houthis and restore the country’s ousted government. The United States assists it with intelligence gathering, logistical support and the sale of billions of dollars in weapons and equipment — including several mine-resistant armored vehicles that have ended up in Abbas’ hands, according to one of the warlord’s top aides and photos publicly available online.

“The coalition is still supporting me,” Abbas, 47, said in a rare interview this month in a heavily guarded house in the southern city of Aden. “If I really was a terrorist, they would have taken me in for questioning.”

To the extent that it is strengthening suspected extremists, the coalition is working against U.S. efforts to defuse global threats emanating from southern Yemen, where the Trump administration is waging a separate conflict against al-Qaida’s Yemen affiliate and a nascent branch of the Islamic State. The al-Qaida affiliate has targeted the United States several times, and U.S. officials consider it the terrorist network’s most dangerous arm.

Abbas’ case underscores the awkward alliances and odd bedfellows that pervade all sides in Yemen’s fouryear war. Archenemies have turned allies. Secessionists fight alongside those favoring a unified Yemen. Socialists are in the same camp as Islamists, who themselves come in different ideological shades.

Increasingly, the divisions are touching off subconflicts intensified by tribal rivalries, political ambitions and the quest for influence. In such a tangled and fragmented landscape, the priorities driving the primary war against the rebels often clash with the priorities of the U.S. war against Islamic extremists.

The Washington Post/LORENZO TUGNOLI Militiamen guard the entrance of the Najah school in Taiz, Yemen, which serves as Islamist warlord Abu al-Abbas’ militia headquarters.