Houthis in the Yemeni city of Saana fire anti-aircraft weapons in the general direction of Saudi-led attacking warplanes March 30.

DEARBORN — Local Yemeni Americans are united in the agony they feel for their homeland, but they are split into opposing camps about who is to blame for the crisis and how it can be solved.

The war is raging in Yemen, the cradle of Arab civilization. An alliance of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia is dropping bombs targeting Houthi forces, which have taken over most of the country. The Houthis, who are Shi’a in the mostly Sunni country, are said to be allied with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. 

Houthi militants captured the capital Sanaa last September and kept advancing in different provinces until they launched an offensive against the southern city of Aden, where President Abdrabboh Mansur Hadi had relocated. Last week, Saudi Arabia started a bombing campaign dubbed “Operation Decisive Storm” to quell their advance.

While the anti-Houthi camp might not be fond of the Saudi bombs, supporters of the president hold the militants and Saleh responsible for starting the conflict. And there are those who oppose the intervention and consider it an unjustified act of aggression against all Yemenis.

Hamtramck activist Abdulmalik Alwajeeh blamed the Houthis for the war. “Yemeni citizens are absent from all that is happening,” he said. “Groups and gangs want to reach power, no matter what price the people have to pay.”

Alwajeeh said the Houthis have allied themselves with Saleh to single-handedly rule the country.

“Saleh is motivated by revenge after he was ousted by the February Revolution,” Alwajeeh said.

Saleh stepped down, handing power to Hadi after a popular uprising in 2011.

Alwajeeh added that Houthis aided by forces loyal to Saleh have found it easy to control the institutions in the capital, which opened the door for them to take over the entire country. 

“They became so arrogant that they even threatened Yemen’s neighbors,” he said referring to a statement by a Houthi spokesperson who warned that the intervention in Yemen would lead to the collapse of the Saudi monarchy. 

According to Alwajeeh, the Saudis warned Saleh’s son that an assault on Aden would prompt them to intervene militarily in the conflict.

“I hope that Houthis take steps backwards,” Alwajeeh said. “They are still advancing and occupying more provinces and institutions. They must be rational and go back to the dialogue table where concessions from everybody can save the country.”

Alwajeeh said sectarianism, although foreign to Yemeni culture, is on the rise in Yemen. He blamed other countries in the region— especially Iran— for igniting sectarianism, saying the sectarian tone started spreading when Iran intervened.

“But at the end of the day it is all politics,” he said. “Countries in the region want followers in Yemen for its strategic location, so they revert to sectarianism.”

Alwajeeh urged Yemenis to reject the orders of foreign countries. 

“As an expatriate, I feel sadness and sorrow over what is happening in Yemen,” he said. “The community here is a reflection of the Yemeni people. In Yemen people are divided. People are divided here.”

The Hamtramck activist urged dialogue, saying that he does not support or oppose the Saudi intervention. 

“When there is dialogue, I would oppose the intervention,” he added. “I am in pain that Yemenis are dying.”

Activist Walid Fedama described the Saudi intervention as an “unjustified massacre.”

He held President Hadi responsible for the effects of Saudi air strikes because Hadi requested Saudi help.

“The Saudi kingdom has power,” he said. “It has tanks and fighter jets and it wants to train its pilots over the flesh and blood of innocents in Yemen. They are destroying everything that’s beautiful about Yemen.”

Fedama laughed off claims that Saudi Arabia is defending the legitimate government in the country. 

“Legitimacy in Egypt was not defended with all this hatred and destruction,” he said, referring to the Saudi support of the coup that ousted elected president Mohamad Morsi. 

Fedama was especially critical of Egypt, which is participating in the Saudi-led operation. 

“Egypt has sold its Arabism and its honor for Saudi money to prop up its economy,” he said.

He also blasted Yemenis who support the Saudi assault. 

“History will not forgive Saudi Arabia and the traitors inside Yemen,” he said. “Whoever agrees to the bombing of his own country has no honor. The homeland is valuable. I have a U.S. citizenship and I’m proud of it, but the motherland is something else. The arms of Yemen are better than my mothers’ arms.”

Fedama added that if Gulf monarchies have a problem with Iran, they are attacking the wrong country.

“Let them go fight Iran,” he said. “They have armies and navies and airplanes. If Iran has an agenda in the region, why are they bombing us? Why are they killing innocent Yemeni women and children?”

Fedama said he does not support Houthis and Saleh, per se. 

“I am talking in defense of my country that’s being slaughtered, not a political party,” he said. “We might fight among each other, but at the end of the day, we are all Yemenis; we are one people. Saudi Arabia is adding to the divisions and spreading sectarianism with this war.”

Fedama echoed Alwajeeh’s comments that sectarianism is a new phenomenon to the people of Yemen, but blamed Saudi Arabia for the rise of sectarian rhetoric.

Occupying the south

South Yemen merged voluntarily with the north in 1990. But Ali Baleed Almaklani, the executive director of the Yemen American Benevolent Association (YABA), said the central government in the north discriminated against southerners after the unity, which led to a civil war in 1994 after the south declared secession unsuccessfully. 

Almaklani said Saleh turned the unity into an occupation of south Yemen.

He added that the Houthis’ assault against Aden is a continuation of Saleh’s attacks and discrimination against the southern part of the country. The Houthis are based in Saada, a northern governorate on the Saudi border.

Almaklani said the Houthis’ aggression is what caused foreign intervention. 

“Who invited the warplanes to come and bomb Yemen?” he asked, referring to the Houthis attack on Aden, which preceded Operation Decisive Storm.

Almaklani said he stands against war, but the Saudi offensive in Yemen should not be taken out of its context as a response to the Houthis’ assault on the south.

“You cannot say stop the [Saudi] bombing while you support the occupation and looting and insulting of southern Yemenis by Houthis and Saleh,” he said. “It pains me to see a foreign country bombing Yemen. But we have to ask, who is behind this? Who caused it?”

Almaklani said the Houthis and Saleh want to control the country all by themselves because of their obsession with power. He added that for a solution to be reached, the Houthi militias need to withdraw from the areas they captured.

Anti-intervention Yemeni activists have called for a protest against the Saudi operation in front of Dearborn’s Henry Ford Centennial Library on Sunday, April 5, at 3 p.m.

Almaklani criticized the organizers of the protests for claiming to represent the community.

“We are sick of propaganda,” he said. “If you call for a protest, you need to identify who you are and specify what organizations you represent. You cannot say ‘the Yemeni community invites you’ when maybe you will not have a single person from the central and southern provinces at the protest.”

Almaklani said he wishes for the safety and unity of all Yemenis. He warned of deepening the divisions in the local Yemeni American community.

“Do not tell me you are more patriotic than me,” he said. “Let us focus on educating our children to reject violence and empower peaceful change.”  

Activist Akram Alward said the protest is being organized by Yemenis who want to do something about the “massacre” in Yemen.

He slammed the Saudi intervention, describing it as “aggression targeting innocent Yemenis.”

He said Yemenis who support the Saudi-led operation do not represent the community. “Most of the victims of this aggression are women and children,” he said. “Who can stand for something like this?”

Alward said Houthis are Yemenis and that they cannot be compared to outsiders bombing the country. 

“Houthis have supporters all over Yemen,” he added. “People from different sects and ideologies support them. They did not come from Iran or fall from the sky.”

Alward said Saleh had been an agent of Saudi Arabia for 33 years. “And now they are saying Shi’a and Iran are taking over with the help of Saleh. Any person with logic would refuse this narrative.”

He added that the conflict in Yemen is not as sectarian as the media are portraying it to be. 

“On the ground, there is no sectarianism, except from those inciting it to justify the Saudi aggression,” he said. “All Yemenis are affected by the Saudi shelling the warplanes do not discriminate between Shi’a and Sunnis.”