Hidden Aspects of Modern Yemeni History
(Translated)

Al-Rayah Newspaper - Issue  572 - 05/11/2025

By: Engineer Shafiq Khamis – Wilayah Yemen

Over the past years, two new systems of governance have been established in Yemen: one in Sana’a and the other in Aden. Who removed what proceeded, and what brought them to power? The first eliminated the heir to the Uthmani Khilafah (Ottoman Caliphate), removing it from power in Sana’a and northern Yemen, a region that had never imagined the civilized world would suddenly turn against it, after the demise of the Uthmani Khilafah from the global political scene. Those in charge of the new system turned their attention to the West, seeking to adopt its systems for managing various aspects of life. This became clearly evident in the actions of the “Free Men” in 1943 in Aden, which was then under British occupation. The sacred charter of 1948, and the subsequent Free Officers’ revolution, aimed to establish a regime crafted outside Yemen. This regime was a democratic republic modeled on the West—so that it would be acceptable to the international order at the time. Among its objectives was the unification of the Arabs, as outlined by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden when he established the Arab League in 1945 as a replacement for the Khilafah (Caliphate), which they had abolished in 1924. It also aimed to uphold the charters of the United Nations, the successor to the Christian League of Nations, founded in 1648 to address the Eastern Question and the Islamic conquests in Europe at that time. Its constitution was fundamentally French, describing its republic and state as independent. For this reason, Paris took charge of the constitution file at the 2012 National Dialogue Conference; it was their creation, and they were its rightful owners. Meanwhile, the constitution was left to be adapted to the changing circumstances of the sun, the winds, and the rains.

The planning for the government in Sana’a and the appointment of its ministers were conducted in Cairo, its protector—whose officers had overseen the training of Imam Ahmad's army since 1954. Two attempts to establish it failed: the first on July 23, and the second on August 23, 1962. The third attempt succeeded with the death of Imam Ahmad in Cairo on September 19, 1962, succumbing to injuries sustained in a shooting in Hodeidah in March 1961, and the subsequent suicide of his assailant. On September 26, 1962, the vanguard of the Egyptian army arrived at the port of Hodeidah ten days later. This was intended to divert their attention from liberating Palestine from the newly established Jewish entity that had occupied the First Qibla and the third of the sacred masajid, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa, and to embroil them in a conflict whose opposing side was Riyadh, a city founded by Britain only three decades prior!

London made no secret of the fact that, upon learning of Cairo’s Salah al-Din intelligence operation in Taiz to smuggle weapons into neighboring Aden, and of Nasser’s address to them from Taiz declaring, “Old Britain must pack up and leave Aden,” London was certain that America was behind it, working to expel them from Aden. Consequently, Britain fiercely resisted Sana’a and harassed the fledgling state’s army in Bayhan.

Just as America did when it occupied Iraq in April 2003 by bringing Ahmed Chalabi and appointing Iyad Allawi, Ibrahim al-Jafri, Nouri al-Maliki, Haider al-Abadi, Adel Abdul Mahdi, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, and now Mohammed al-Sudani, after its military rule of Iraq with Garner and Bremer, Britain began on that day in Aden the task of searching and investigating for someone to take over the rule from its hand in Aden, far from anyone who had a connection with America’s plans coming from Sana’a. Britain welcomed the formation of the National Front, and its separation from the Liberation Front, which had a connection with Egyptian intelligence, and secretly invited them to meet its delegation in Geneva, Switzerland, from November 20 until the morning of November 30, 1967, in accordance with its 1964 decision to withdraw from the Aden colony within four years. The slogans calling for the expulsion of British colonialism from Aden and southern Yemen could not last more than a short time, until the minutes of the meetings between the National Front delegation and the British delegation, headed by Shackleton, in Geneva, Switzerland, were revealed and made public.

On December 19, 1962, America recognized the Sana’a regime, and Britain did the same for the Aden regime. Britain refrained from recognizing the Sana'a regime until the mid-1970s.

So, Britain and America are the two parties vying for control of Yemen, hiding behind the regimes in both Sana’a and Aden, manipulated by their regional tools in both Cairo and Riyadh. All this conflict is to prevent the Khilafah (Caliphate) from returning to the global political scene again!! That is what the West has planned for hundreds of years with a hundred projects to divide the Khilafah.

Yemen’s strategic location overlooking two vital sea lanes—the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea—and its position south of Makkah and Madinah, coupled with the fact that its people were described by the Prophet Muhammad (saw) as possessing faith and wisdom, made it a target for control following the shift in the global order. With the demise of the Khilafah and the emergence of a new world order, Yemen became a prize to be dominated, its people caught in the crossfire of the new international powers. As a result of these struggles for control, Britain held sway over both northern and southern Yemen until the rise of the Houthis in Sana’a and the Southern Movement in Aden. The United States, it was believed, planned to utilize these movements to diminish British control over Yemen.

Is it possible for the people of Yemen to reconsider the ongoing conflict that has raged throughout Yemen for six decades, to reassess the two systems that were established in each of Sana’a and Aden, and to refrain from being local agents serving the two international parties vying for power over them? We hope so.