Kick Islah Out of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council

ADEN, YEMEN—Western diplomats and the United Nations have some explaining to do.

More than three and a half years ago, the Southern Transitional Council, the political entity that in practice governs most of South Yemen and remains the recognized government’s most potent fighting force against the Houthis, warned that Amjad Khaled, a former commander of Yemen’s Transport Brigade, was involved in terrorism.

Khaled aligned with Yemen’s Islah Party, the country’s Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. Diplomats and international officials repeatedly refused to consider evidence that Khaled was a terrorist because they sought to prioritize the notion that Islah could be a responsible party in Yemen’s governance.

In effect, they were making the same mistake twice, as the same logic led the United Nations and United States to engage in intellectual somersaults to prevent acknowledgement that so-called partners in Somalia worked fist-in-glove with Al-Shabab.

Intentional blindness kills. By refusing to recognize Khaled’s activities and his pivotal role linking Al Qaeda and the Houthis, the United Nations and Western partners permanently undermined Yemenis faith in the Internationally Recognized Government and its Presidential Leadership Council. While first Secretary of State Antony Blinken and then Marco Rubio preach unity and promote the fiction that a big umbrella works, their failure to address the Trojan Horse inside the government makes unity nearly impossible.

The Curious Case of Amjad Khaled

Khaled crystallizes the problem. Born in Aden, Khaled fought in 2015 with the Southern Resistance to liberate Aden from the Houthis.

President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who used his presidency to empower Islah, rewarded Khaled with an appointment to lead the General Transport Brigade and then made him a brigadier general after Aden’s liberation and the integration of the Popular Resistance into the national army.

Khaled quickly showed that he prioritized Islah and the Muslim Brotherhood over Yemen itself. In 2019, he fled to al-Turbah, 45 miles south of Taiz, amid clashes with the Southern Transitional Council’s forces and received protection from Islah, which controlled the town. While under the Muslim Brotherhood’s protection, Khaled began directing attacks against southern forces. During this period, Al Qaeda leaders’ foot soldiers came to al-Turbah and some areas of al-Hujariah, approximately 20 miles away, to work with Khaled and the Muslim Brotherhood. After Islah briefly detained Khaled and allegedly looted his house, Khaled took to video to warn Islah that he had recorded meetings which revealed their knowledge of and coordination with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The safe haven Islah offered Khaled proved deadly. Between 2021 and 2023, Khaled allegedly directed multiple assassinations and bombings in Yemen, including an attack on Aden’s international airport and an attempt on the life of Aden Governor Ahmed Lamlas. Suspects captured after the October 2021 Aden bombings fingered Khaled personally. Still, Hadi did not act nor initially did his successor Rashad al-Alimi, the current president of Yemen.

Khaled continued terrorism under Islah’s protections. In March 2022, Khaled reportedly directed the car bomb assassination of Major General Thabet Gawas, commander of the 131st Infantry Brigade, in Aden. Khaled’s cell subsequently killed World Food Programme staff member Moayad Hamidi, a Jordanian citizen in al-Turbah, in a plot reportedly meant to undermine the confidence of international organizations working in areas outside Houthi control.

Khaled’s Sentencing is Too Little, Too Late

Only in February 2024, did the Presidential Leadership Council dismiss Khaled as head of the Transport Brigade. Nine months later, the specialized criminal court in Aden sentenced him to death in absentia; Khaled likely remains either under Islah’s protection or under the Sultanate of Oman’s. The United Nations, the United States, and moderate Arab governments must pressure both to turn Khaled over.

Simply catching Khaled will not be enough to bring peace to Yemen, however. His relationship with Islah should raise red flags about that group’s continued presence in the Presidential Leadership Council. Denunciations are too late and appear less sincere and more geared to avoid accountability. Nor is Khaled the exception; increasingly he appears the rule.

Ateq, in the once restive Shabwah governorate, was until recently a no-go area. Prior to 2022, Mohammad Saleh bin Adio, an Islah acolyte, governed Shabwah and appointed Islah members throughout the governorate’s bureaucracy. Whether for money, ideology, or both, he was permissive to both Al Qaeda and the Houthis, destabilizing Shabwah and allowing it to be a transit point for weapons smuggling coming in from both the sea and Oman bound for the Houthis, Al Qaeda, or both.

Islah has been a Trojan Horse Undermining Yemeni Security

When I visited Ateq last week, it was an oasis within an oasis: Quiet, clean, with an optimism unmatched in Yemen. A solar farm nears completion to power the city, the airport has reopened, the main roads are paved well, and security is such that it is possible to walk around after dark without fear. The same cannot be said in the Hadramawt, still under Islah influence, where terrorism and smuggling thrive. As the Houthis restart their attacks on Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb shipping, it is time to consider not only the Houthis to be terrorists, but also their enablers.

The international community encouraged the Presidential Leadership Council’s formation to bring peace. The theory was simple: A big tent increases stakeholders and bolsters legitimacy. In reality, however, its inclusion of Islah has meant that terror groups have had a Trojan Horse to undermine Yemen’s recovery and anti-Houthi, anti-Al Qaeda operations.

Just as Blinken erred by prioritizing wishful thinking over reality by reversing the earlier designation of the Houthis as a terrorist entity, Rubio repeated the error by allowing wishful thinking over the Houthis to predominate. If the United States and the international community hope to stabilize Yemen, it is time to end the backdoor support for terrorists that Islah represents and Khaled’s case proves.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. The opinions and views expressed are his own. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units. The views expressed are the author’s own.