 Well hi everybody. Good afternoon I guess. Welcome to the New America Foundation. I'm Jonathan Geyer. I want to welcome you on behalf of the Middle East Task Force here and the Middle East Channel, which is a publication we do with Foreign Policy Magazine and GW. Check out mid-east.foreignpolicy.com. I've taken interest in Yemen over the last year and tried to get a lot of new, or a lot of authors, a lot of new articles on the Mid-East Channel about the topic and one of the people I've encountered is Laura Kasanoff, so I'm really thrilled to be hosting her here today. Laura is a contributing reporter to the New York Times, and she's been covering the revolt in Yemen throughout the last 10 month period, although she's been there back and forth between Cairo for the last three years. Before that, she was a correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. She's published in Foreign Policy in Al Jazeera. She's been on a number of radio television programs discussing Yemen, and one of the few Western journalists who's actually been there for an extended period of time in this last period. So I'm really excited to have an on-the-ground opinion, which has really been absent in a lot of the commentary about Yemen. One thing is just the courage of, first of all, the Yemenis who are protesting, who've been on the streets, and Laura herself who's been sort of, she told me a common thing people have said to her is, don't fear the bullets, Laura, which is just a testament to what it is to be part of the youth of the Arab Awakening, what it is to resist and be on the streets. So I'm also really glad that we're hosting Muhammad Elbasha, who's the spokesman for the Republic of Yemen's embassy here in Washington. Elbasha is the youngest English spokesman ever for the Yemeni government. This is his second tour of duty, and he's facilitated presidential visits to Washington. He attended Purdue University and has a master's from George Mason. So we definitely, there's plenty to cover. There's, it's been a between the Nobel Prize Award for Tawakua Karman, between the drone strikes, which led to Anwar Alaki's death, and of course, the uprising. It's been a pretty hectic year in Yemen. So I don't think we'll run out of things to talk about today, but one quick comment I wanted to make, a lot of the focus on Yemen is through a counterterrorism prism, especially in Washington. And it's always about security. It's about al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula. If you go through the Department of Defense's statements over the last ten months, almost exclusively focused on al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula. But the one thing you don't see in statements is just how dire the humanitarian situation is. Just in terms of baseline, this doesn't have to do with the political conflict. About 35% of Yemenis don't have access to clean water. There's huge malnutrition problems, and this is all compounded and exacerbated by political violence from, and there's different, it's not just an uprising in Sana'a. There's ta'is, there's aid in, there's many stories to be told here today. So I hope we're able to explore what is happening with the humanitarian situation also, and what the U.S. and the U.N. and Western countries can do. So because not all of us are Yemen experts and not all of us have been there, I want to turn to Laura first just to discuss, you know, how did these uprisings begin? What are the highlights of the last ten months, for lack of a better word, and what have you seen, and what were the challenges of reporting there? So thank you. Thanks very much, John. I want to thank the New America Foundation for hosting us here, and it's also a privilege to be sitting here with Muhammad, as one would expect as he's the primary English language spokesperson for the Yemeni government, and as being a English-speaking journalist in Yemen, we have to deal with each other quite a lot, or rather, he has to deal with me. So it's very nice to be sitting with him here in Washington. I want to start out by saying yes, I first went to Yemen in 2009, and this has become increasingly relevant now because many times I just left Sana'a one week ago, and every day I'm in Sana'a and I'm taking taxis around. Taxi drivers will say, it's asked me, you know, how long have you been in Yemen? And I said, oh, you know, I say anything, two years, three years. I don't, but you know, before the crisis, they'll say, oh, good. Thank God you were here before there were problems, and at which point you want to say, like, well, there were problems in 2009 as well, but they're always very happy to know that I saw Sana'a in a different light, and I saw the country in a different light because really what the situation right now is, I think lots of times people who've been watching Yemen for a while, or just maybe watching Yemen in the periphery for a while, Yemen is, there's a problem that I think people have cried wuff a lot, that many people have said this country is on the brink of failure, and on the brink of chaos and this sort of thing, but right now it definitely seems that it's a whole other level of chaos, and that has happened because of these 10 months of political crisis and the intense months of protest, and although the anti-government protest in Yemen did, there were positive things that came out of them, uniting Yemeni society, bringing people together who wouldn't have been brought together before, giving women sort of more participation in the political scene. What it has brought in terms of the breaking apart of the country and security breakdown in the country is is a very severe situation, and you have areas that had limited government control before, now have no government control, areas that had government control before, now have limited government control, people who are living, who are poor before, are now living in poverty, and kids, you know, education was very poor before in Yemen, but now kids aren't going to school because like, because troops are living in their schools or IDPs are living in their schools, or it's just not safe for them to go to school, or their parents are sending them to work because the family needs extra money, so it's just, there's a health crisis that's looming, kids aren't getting their vaccinations because people can't make it to the hospitals, the vaccinations can't be kept at the proper temperature because there's no electricity, just problem after problem, and so I think all of these, when you sort of look at all of the elements combined, you see really a problem, and I sometimes I wonder when people are going to wake up and say Yemen is Yemen a failed state, and when that is going to happen, and it just seems like, I mean, I've heard from humanitarians on the ground, they say we are working now in a failed state scenario, there's only a very small bit of the country, which the government is actually in control of, so as I said, and I'm even saying this in the context that right now, that many people are hearing about when it comes to Yemen is the signing of the GCC initiative, and sort of the things are, that political change is possibly on the horizon for Yemen, but the problem is, has Yemen reached the point of no return, and even if there are attempts, even if there are efforts toward that political change, which is still a question, you know, is it even possible and is that even going to happen because of how bad everything has become in terms of security breakdown and economic breakdown? So the protests, I'm going to go back to how the protests in Yemen started, it started in January in sort of the wake of the Tunisian Revolution, things were kicking off in Egypt, and there were two different things that happened on the ground in Sinai at the start of the protest. There were rallies, political rallies that were held by Yemen's formal political opposition, it's known as the JMP. They were pushing for reforms, they were sort of using this fervor that came out of Tunisia and Egypt to push for their own reforms, as well separate from this, there were these protests about 30 students led by the very loud and outspoken and loud Tuwaka Karman in front of Sinai University calling for regime change, and so these were two separate things, and I think it's important to remember that these are two separate things from the beginning because if we look at what's happening right now in Yemen, sort of this political solution that has been reached with the help of the international community, it's separate from these original protesters and what they were calling for from the beginning, it's more reshuffling of the political elites instead of what was called for at the beginning of the popular revolt, and the ramifications of that and the fact that this might not actually be what the protesters had called for and what are the people happening with this reshuffling of political elites, we don't know yet the ramifications of that have yet to be seen, but it certainly started, it started as to distinct things and now it hasn't ended, but it's sort of ending as something that's separate from the original uprising. So as I said, it started with this group of students, student-ish types, Tuwaka Karman, students who came from across the political spectrum in Yemen, there were Islamists, there were socialists, there were independents, the government would like it to paint it as purely an Islamist uprising, but that was not the case from the beginning. They were attacked sporadically, every time they were attacked the protests grew to be larger. At the same time the protests started then in other cities throughout Yemen. Then as many people who follow Yemen know, on March 18th there was a large massacre in Sana'a in which over 50 protesters were killed and over 100 other shots and this sort of this is a major turning point in the protest because this signaled the breakdown of the Yemeni government, sort of the famous person who announced their support for the protesters is of course the powerful military commander Ali Mohsen, but sort of you had other people who were jumping ship as well at this time announcing their support for the protests and you saw more people join what had become now a permanent sit-in in Sana'a in support of the protesters after that massacre. Now that said, I also want to make sure that I mentioned that when Ali Mohsen this military commander who was very close with the president announced his support He's also from the same tribe I believe, right? Yeah, from the same village as well, announced his support for the president that some of the protesters actually left the square because Ali Mohsen is sort of this big symbol of the corruption of the Saleh regime. He's one of the most corrupt men in Yemen and no one really trusted him and so some people left other protesters though they really didn't agree with him announcing that his support for the protest and his troops sort of went out to protect the protests and now it's created what we have in Sana'a now which is a divided city where you have Ali Mohsen's troops that control one part of the city, government forces control another and that's what started that but at this time we thought that it really felt like the regime was actually going to fall that Saleh was going to leave and so I think that people didn't agree with it or they just didn't know what to think about Ali Mohsen joining they questioned his motivations, you know, this sort of thing but they stayed because they thought that now we have momentum and now actually there will be a popular, you know, there will be a revolution in Yemen that ended up not being the case this also sort of started I would say that sort of the high point of the sit-in in Sana'a in which it brought together sort of people from all across Yemeni society to join the sit-in it was well organized they were holding, you know, like workshops every day at the sit-in talking about political participation I remember I had, I remember one day I was at the square and these, I had these guys from Taz who were at the square at the city in central Yemen which is known for its peaceful educated populace and there were northern tribesmen as well and the guys from Taz told me, you know, these northern tribesmen came in and joined the square and we thought that they were going to be, like, have no manners they make a mess of everything and we didn't trust them and we saw that they're actually, they're very cultured, they are very respectful and really, so this is sort of a shift in consciousness that was very significant for Yemeni society when that happened as well as I want to stress that the protestors sort of kept the mantra they stayed peaceful to a large extent I mean, there was some rock throwing going on but to a very large extent, I mean, compared to sort of protests that I see in Egypt Yemenis have been much more peaceful which is very significant in terms of, you know, if you think of how armed Yemenis are and that violence is a very typical part of society there but the protestors thought that, you know, I had a tribesman say to me after one of his fellow tribesmen were killed if we stay peaceful then the world's going to see us and the world will be on our side and they definitely kept on the hold of this all of that said, they also stayed within the confines of one area of Sana'a they did not march outside of it this did not, this then did not put extra pressure on the Saleh regime they sort of stayed in the area that was guarded by Ali Musn's troops and were sort of complacent there and it had a very carnival atmosphere and everything but it didn't, you know, they never reached the critical mass they never were able to march on government buildings or things like this that actually would end up putting extra pressure on the regime so bring us up to date sort of after the march moment when Muhsin sort of steps away from Saleh what happened this summer? I know the last, there's been increased violence in October tell us a bit about that well the summer was, I mean Saleh was out of the country after the attack to kill him and at the time when Yemenis were getting rather depressed your average Yemeni because they didn't see any political solution in their country it just seemed like everything was at a stalemate but tensions were increasing on the streets between the defected troops belonging to Ali Musn and to the government troops and then starting in September is when conflict broke out again in the capital but this is, it's actually a significant point as to why the conflict broke out the protesters marched in Sana'a into outside of the sit-in area to an area that they had outside of Ali Musn protected area and they hadn't done that for months and months after they did that Ali Musn's troops were sort of behind them and tried to take over more territory in the capital and this broke out conflict caused conflict to break out again between the two sides between the defected troops between opposition tribesmen somewhere else they sort of saw this, protesters marching they were getting killed they were being shot at at this time directly by government forces as well sort of these plain closed thugs and then fighting would continue between the two sides of the defected military it seemed at this point that sort of the elites within the opposition and particularly armed elites within the opposition were using the protesters sort of as pawns for their own political goals because they knew that when protesters were killed it made the regime look bad in front of the eyes of the international community and thus helped their agenda in front of the eyes of the international community the regime eventually seemed to catch on to this as well and then actually stopped shooting protesters about a month ago when they would go in these marches because they knew it helped the opposition when they did this all of that said the protesters themselves are very willing to be used they're willing to die for their cause they've been on the streets forever and so there is well it's just a mix of everything it's not one thing or the other and the protesters are willing to go in these marches and be shot at the way I have met a few who actually left in the past couple of months and they said we're just being used in this fight between President Salah and Ali Mahsin and opposition tribesmen Hamid al-Ahmar who's one of the largest political rivals of the president we're just pawns in this where that seemed to be the situation in the capital and it was in that situation when international pressure increased on Ali Abdullah Salih because Yemen was in the UN Security Council because of sort of pressure that was going on on the ground that there might be punitive measures used against him as well as sort of the opposition the armed opposition leaders as well like Ali Mahsin if they continue this fight and it seems that the agreement for him when he finally agreed to sign the GCC initiative it came out of that international pressure whether or not this is just sort of a stalling mechanism whether or not it can actually be implemented this is sort of yet to be seen but definitely a very wise Yemeni official once told me that Ali Abdullah Salih is not going to leave unless Ali Mahsin leaves on the same plane with him or Hamid al-Ahmar and that's sort of the signing and trying to move things forward there's still a lot of other problems that need to be addressed and that's one of them So I want to bring in Muhammad in a moment to talk about the GCC initiative just in terms of context you might be wondering why Yemen there's obviously elections in Egypt going on right now there's violence in Syria there's a lot else happening so why is Yemen important or how is US policy in the last year changed towards Yemen that's a whole other set of questions before I turn to Muhammad though I want to ask Laura one more thing about reporting you said to me that the story of Taiz is different than the story of Sana'a than the story of Aydin this is a fractured country which had civil war in the early 90s so each uprising is in a way a different story so you had a big A4 piece on Taiz well the situation in Taiz is currently very very bad I got some emails I woke up to some emails this morning from residents in Taiz the city in central Yemen third biggest city but most populous province in Yemen and that the war was the worst that's ever been before and so this is an example of how the signing even if there are true efforts to push forward with political change has the conflict gotten out of control and it seems like in Taiz it has and that this is happening as much as the Yemeni government would like to position Taiz as a proxy war that's happening in terms of the tribesmen who are fighting the government in Taiz are being supported by Ali Masin Sana'a it seems a bit like it's happening independently from that and these tribesmen are trying to gain control of the city and the conflict there has gotten out of control but an important thing to know Taiz and to look at what happened in Taiz is in Taiz the protest was the biggest there than in any other place in Yemen and the people in Taiz because they're educated and even they were better at using things like Facebook they were able to organize and the population there is more politically active then the crackdown against them was much more harsh and at a time in Sana'a where things were rather peaceful or in Sana'a you would only have sort of these plain closed thugs of protestors in Taiz you had Republican guards who were a division of the armed forces controlled by the president's son shooting directly at protestors and being attacked so that was happening last spring and it's just after that armed tribesmen came into the city to protect the civilians and that's just escalated to what it is now in which both sides seemed to be trying to get control of the city however what seems to happen is the tribesmen and I was there about six weeks ago to get your finger on exactly what's happening but it seemed that the tribesmen try to attack government positions which are on hilltops in the city and then the government responds by shelling civilian neighborhoods now that said the tribesmen are in those civilian neighborhoods but the response seems to be disproportionate as opposed to Sana'a where you have two divisions of the military are divided and so they both have sort of similar types of weapons in Taiz the government has the ones with the tanks and things like that and the tribesmen the biggest thing that I saw were portable mortars but are fighting back and forth and so you have inevitably many civilians are being killed and the populace there is really being terrorized because every night it's just boom boom boom throughout the night and they sort of don't know when it's going to hit their house so you have a population that's living in fear as well as I think in Taiz you really see sort of this fracturing that's going on right now and you really feel like they're specifically being targeted because they're from Taiz by Yemen's northern government in Sana'a and they say that all the whether or not this is true the people believe that all of the republican guards on the streets are from the north and are northern tribesmen who are attacking them and this is also why they have embraced these opposition tribesmen who support them from Taiz because they say that these opposition tribesmen have given us our dignity back and are fighting on behalf of Taiz and so you just have a really divided society and it seems I don't know how that conflict is going to end Okay, well hopefully we can get more deeply into it First, before we go to Muhammad I just want to thank those who are live streaming I know some people might be tweeting about it so thanks so much Muhammad, today you tweeted about a new cabinet perhaps being formed in Sana'a with the Isla party taking a bigger role Tell us about the prospects of the Gulf Cooperation Council initiative, how it's going to be implemented, can elections technically happen in February amidst all of the the other conflict happening in the country Thank you so much You're welcome, thank you all for coming to those watching us live streaming and tweeting, welcome Laura, your remarks are depressing and I may end up in counseling tonight but overall, you know I try to distance myself in speaking today and just be a professional doing his job as a spokesman but my family is from Taiz our house was hit by shrapnel my cousin was shot twice in the stomach my dad and Sana'a was attacked with a brick in his head so it's very hard for me not to have a personal feelings emotions with the situation following 10 months of the turmoil in Yemen, we now have the science of a divided nation, a divided community the international community feels disintegration of the states what has become known as the Somalization, a Somala where warlords are attempting to carve out territories out of the homeland in light of the fluid situation the international community is hedging their bet on vice president's ability to oversee the implementation of the power transfer of the GCC and by the UN will the agreement hold up I really believe it will because the GCC accord provides a peaceful orderly and timely process to transfer power in Yemen in accordance to the constitutions but honestly watching events unfold in the homeland was beyond gut-trenching any loss of life is regrettable but we have to acknowledge today the legitimacy of the GCC accord and the GCC accord is not surprising but unfortunately the youth did not help themselves because they failed to organize politically for you in the long term to be part of the political process you have to have a political platform and unfortunately they failed to do so on the other hand I have to say that the government failed to protect the protestors and the tribal militants launched to avoid deploying to avoid deploying troops within or nearly densely populated areas so mistakes were made in the past 10 months prosecutions and investigations into the violations of human rights have not been adequate perpetrators of these killings in Yemen must and will be brought to justice but overall it is the average Yemeni who suffered the economy next year will face with tough times there is a long list of problems the government lost 16 billion Yemeni because the matter of gas was offline the government lost 12 billion because they had to buy additional diesel for generating power at one point the fuel cost rose by 130% banks were not able to issue letters of credits to import food and the main oil pipeline supporting domestic fuel consumption was bombed three times this year two weeks most recently inflation is up unemployment is skyrocketing poverty rates are doubled the private sectors continue to face losses and billions I was talking to a cousin of mine who told me he was like one more month and he is shutting down his business which has been operating for over 15 years major FDI projects came to complete halt and international community because of the security challenges the ones working with aid and development just pulled out out of Yemen we witnessed the worsening of the already alarming ability of the government to finance its budget the real depreciated by at least 10% exchange rates right now are facing additional pressures foreign reserves have at least fallen by 10% no doubt 2012 will be a very very rough year millions will also face in 2012 a severe humanitarian crisis malnutrition like John said chronic deprivation failure to provide adequate services breakdown of basic services I mean an average household in Sana'an and Laura could correct me if I'm wrong at one point witnessed only two hours of electricity if you're lucky 40 minutes and the most troubling out of them all to me personally is when you read international and even local reports that famine is looming in the horizon other humanitarian issues includes the IDPs in Sa'adah 300,000 is over 100,000 in Abyan because of their ongoing military operation against Ansara Sharia a new Al Qaeda affiliate and the security situation Vice President Hadi was very frank in June he came out and said that five provinces are out of the control of the government AQ policy this year the Al Qaeda and Arab Peninsula changed instead of tit for tat irregular warfare they've decided to adopt an insurgency strategy they try to carve up a part of Zinjibar in southern Yemen and build a mini-state the US and Saudi supported us an example of that they've more than one occasion food and logistical supply to the siege 25th Infantry Mechanized Brigade Yemeni special ops are now around our new estimates for the number of fighters in Abyan and the region that we're in the middle of ongoing battle is over 1,000 fighters including some foreign fighters from Africa and Asia in the past few months the number of casualties it's almost impossible for me to exactly say you know 100 here or 1,000 there but I could tell it killed and injured because of the entire situation in Yemen and I think over time when the government or the next government will have a humanitarian investigation committee that will specifically I think break down the number of casualties now I will forgot the secretarian re-emerging of the the March situation where I think ignited the 2004 war between the Houthis and the Salafis and now another layer of Yemen's deeply entangled regional conflicts is surfacing again I will highlight the GCC initiative specifically how would these elections look from the technical aspect just to the in terms of timeline and also just if you could walk us through a little bit about the GCC initiative honestly today I want to express my profound the US Ambassador in Sana'a I was involved in part of the negotiations and he was really hands on in playing a very important role in bringing the political factions together he's an honorary Yemeni sheikh he may not like me saying that today but he is in the summer when I just went solo with other country and I used to ask people who's running your country I would just get in taxis and say who's running your country right now and they'd all respond American ambassadors running our country right now we're still arguing whether he's from Hashid or Bakil but eventually that's up to him to decide which faction he will be in the P5 the Permanent Five envoys and ambassadors in Yemen and the GCC New York also played a very notable role in brokering the agreement so far as of today actually an hour ago the JMP coalition opposition and the ruling party coalition opposition split the cabinet seats into 17 seats was informed today but the my next minister will be from most likely the Islah party so that'll be exciting Islah party is in case you don't know maybe you can just say a few words about it people like to consider them part of the Muslim Brotherhoods but they have some Islamic tendencies but not very conservative and ultra extremists there are some not jobs in every party in Yemen but let's not put them all just a little background for some of us here the power transfer accord was signed by all recognized political factions except a substantial number of youth movements the Houthis and some factions within the secessionist movement have flat out rejected it the agreement is six parts divided into 30 points there's two phases phase one started the day of the signing all government and parliament decisions will be on consensus basis and vice president today is the sole official and executive branch that signs and issues presidential decrees that will accelerate and implement the GCC deal Vice President Hadi has called for the elections it's going to be 8 o'clock in the morning Tuesday 21st of February 2012 a former minister an ambassador of Basundua is now the designated prime minister and I assume per my conversations with him yesterday by Monday or Sunday next week we may have the new government swearing in for Vice President Hadi since the signing till today exponentially things are moved very quick very forward I want to turn back to Lorna moment but I want to ask you sort of another follow up on this there's been a lot of questions about President Saleh still making statements as if he were president including calling for amnesty for some of the shadier characters throughout this uprising how do you respond to what Saleh is doing today and whether his his presence how that's going to play a role in the coming period I would love to hear Muhammad maybe both of you could talk a bit about that the GCC deal did not say that President Saleh is no longer going to be president it's just a lot of the executive powers per the GCC and New Security Council resolution has transferred to the Vice President but he's not an interim president he's not a former president elections are going to be in February and then he will be a former a former president by then okay and again a lot of the pressure that came to bear on Saleh had to do with threats of assets freeze from from western countries so maybe Lorna can you speak to where you see things going if Saleh is still in the picture in Sana'a I think that the situation will be evaluated if the GCC deal isn't carried out the problem is that if conflict the outbreak of conflict is what prohibits it from being carried out then how the international community will react because the problem is the outbreak of conflict as in most places I'm sure is very confusing and messy situation in Yemen in which the civilian populace suffers and it's really you know both sides have some guilt the armed opposition and the government so if that happens it's very difficult to predict what's going to happen in Yemen but if he's still around I think that Yemen is still an issue on the UN Security Council I think that they're still going to re-evaluate and I don't think that the threat of sanctions or any of this sort of thing targeted sanctions those would be I don't think that they're completely taken off the table I think the international community realizes that this isn't you know it's not all over yet and then there's still I mean the chance of it succeeding is this small the chance of it failing is much larger and so I think the pressure is still there both of you are talking a bit about the perception of the US and US policy in Yemen perhaps the sticking point or the thing that brought Yemen to the front pages of the New York Times was the death of Anwar al-Alaqi this al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula inspirational speaker leader that was by way of a drone strike and there hasn't really been a serious investigation yet of how many drone attacks have there been where have they been in part because it's very challenging to get to a lot of these areas where the al-Qaeda affiliated groups are operating and to know exactly if it was a drone if it was a missile if it was something else but in WikiLeaks we know that President Obama said we'll continue saying the bombs are ours not yours can you tell us more about that Laura having reported on the death of al-Alaqi from Yemen one thing is that when you're on the ground in Yemen it's hard sometimes to think about the drone strikes because there's so much of a mess that's happening in Sana'a and Taz and really for Yemenis as well I remember when I was there in 2009 sort of this idea of US military interference was a much bigger deal and was much more in people's minds than it is right now. Right now what's in their minds is sort of basic daily survival that said that's coming from me saying in Sana'a and the situation in the south is a lot different where a lot of these drone strikes are happening they're not the one that actually killed al-Alaqi and Southerners have a much different perception of drone strikes they've spent limited time in the south and it's just important to stress that in Yemen all of Yemen is very different but the difference between Northerners and Southerners and just sort of even cultures is very distinct and so it's hard for me to speak about the south a lot when I haven't spent enough time there that said in terms of the drone that killed Anwar one thing is that Yemenis they consider him an American and they didn't really like him anyway they didn't care I mean there weren't civilians killed if there were civilians killed that we know of in that strike I think they would have cared a bit more but they were just kind of like good riddance with everything that I was hearing but again this is coming from me sitting in Sana'a I wasn't sitting with his tribesmen in Shabbat and listening to their response to it another interesting thing about the drone strike now how much the Yemeni government was involved in that I'm not really sure you ever know until the next batch of WikiLeaks and then they were very quick to sort of use the strike to their advantage or propagate the fact that it happened I got a phone call from a very high ranking security official about 20 minutes after the strike happened to let me know that Anwar Aliki was dead and they never call me ever they definitely wanted the New York Times to know that Anwar Aliki had been killed and they definitely wanted to use that so as one of as the Yemeni taxi driver said to me that was Ali Abilasala's last card he wanted to play all his cards and the last one was killing Anwar again how much the Yemeni government had to do with the death of Aliki I don't know but yes they were very happy that it happened and very happy to sort of let people know that it happened and I think that was sort of it seemed like a last-ditch effort to sort of gain the favor of the international community but again just the stress right now with the drone strikes it's sort of they're just not getting as much attention as they used to again because a lot of civilians haven't been killed and people are more worried about other things as well so we're going to open up to questions in a few moments because I know we have a lot of experts and analysts in the crowd who follow this issue very closely but do you have something to add on that Muhammad no I mean Vice President Hadi was the first official I think to my best of my knowledge that came on the record and said drones are operated in Yemen especially intelligence drones President Saleh in his last first 24th he said intelligence sharing cooperation between intelligent sharing cooperation between the Yemeni government and the U.S. is not a secret okay great so yeah maybe we will open up to questions just if there are any otherwise I have millions so don't worry this gentleman in the middle and if you can just give your name and affiliation and please make it a question hi good afternoon my name is Fernando Carvajal University of Exeter and I have a number of questions through your live stream if you don't mind first the one question is if you are going to archive this on your website so people can see it yes this will all be available so we can watch it many many times over some people are having trouble with the connection one question is to the both of you what do you think what do you know about the Houthis crisis at the moment seeing that we had a ceasefire peace deal last week and then now again there is direct clashes the second question from Afra Nasser to Laura how do you see the solution in order to stop the bloodshed and my own question is to Mr. Basha now that the new government is supposed to be this coalition government before and after the February 21st election seeing that opposition parties like Islah only have about 50 seats in parliament how representative will this government really be after February 21st and also considering that for example the voter registrar list have not been updated since 2009 and the majority of the people that are on the streets today have turned 18 since then and are really not going to be represented or be able to vote thank you great questions, thanks and thank you again to everyone watching elsewhere in Yemen or Europe or what have you so let's start with the Houthis crisis which we haven't really had time to explore yet the Houthis crisis I actually read today two statements one is from the Salafis and one from the Houthis and we don't have people on ground to really give examples of what's going on there's a lot of disinformation going on the Houthis blame that the Salafis and the match center started provoking quote-unquote jihad against them because they're Zaidis and they're not adhering to the Salafis and controlling mosques and they think this is what one of the reasons they started the war in 2004 when clashes happened and then the Salafis are now saying that the Houthis now they kind of control the entire area in Saada that they're not respecting the rights for the Salafis to practice their version of the sect that they want to be implementing in their school Dar al-Hadeeth so he said she said in terms of this particular moment fighting amid a ceasefire Laura could you talk maybe more to that or maybe you haven't been there recently it's more challenging it's hard to know exactly what's happening up in Saada just because of the lack of ability to actually go there but I don't know I think ceasefires don't mean a whole lot in Yemen to piggyback up on that from our twitter question I mean what could stop the bloodshed and what sort of policies should other countries what role does the regional powers like Saudi Arabia have in making sure there isn't an escalation when this next election comes about Laura? Unfortunately it's not my job as a reporter to be giving policy recommendations to what would stop the bloodshed but I can probably can say the obvious things Yemen is really heavily militarized right now and Sanat there's a lot of just I mean I heard there was some fighting today in Hasaba kind of minor which is a neighborhood in northern Sanaa and just I mean hearing anti-aircraft gunfire there is not a big deal and so somehow trying to get you know if rule of law can there's no rule of law there right now but to get the weapons off the street seems like the obvious thing to me and that's a big problem and there's I mean from both sides both sides are armed particularly in Hasaba and in Taaz both sides are armed and so you just have you have two sides fighting and obviously some sort of actually ceasefire that would work between the two would be good and would protect the lives of civilians. So I mean continuing from that Muhammad what do you see is what the US or other countries other allies could be doing to aid Yemen to make sure that stability doesn't you know fly out the window? Well first I want to say that you know with all the respect to my colleagues and fellow Yemenis that are rejected flat out the GCC deal to me the GCC deal is the clear available road map right now to stop the bloodshed one of the aspects of it that I'm very looking forward to is the creation of the military and security committee which hopefully will demilitarize the urban cities remove barricades and pull back the troops and have equipment to the basis that I'm really looking forward for it they're actually as we speak right now meeting and talking about it so this is one thing the other thing is it's you know the GCC initiative is on track so I urge that you know the donor nations have fulfilled to fulfill their promises you know they've been pledged promises year and year again and it's you know we will need we're extending our hands and we need someone to help us to stand up again but in the long term I think it's a lot about handing out money or just assisting Yemen I think you know don't just give me a fish teach me how to fish you know we need the technical assistance and all the aspects that will help us improve the economy regarding the questions about the elections I think that this affected a silent majority of the Yemeni population who chose not to participate in the recent waves of the public discourse will be called for active public participation in upcoming early elections the GMP and the GPC for the time being will have Vice President Hadi as their nominee but does not mean that the youth or any other faction or group that they're not going to be able to nominee someone else to compete with Vice President Hadi but I think the elections in 2013 hopefully which is the next presidential elections will be the most important elections because by then we will have a new constitution or an updated constitution the political system the government a lot of the aspects that we have today will change so that's the thing that we need to look at and by then also the voter registration reforms will be changed the committees for the mechanism of actually the electoral ballot everything will change so I think that should be our long term goal to look up to the next elections great let's take a few more questions then can we start in the front Tom I think we'll take two questions now so if we can start with you please hi my name is Nate Grubman I work at the Center for International Private Enterprise Center Middle East and North Africa programs and thank you both for coming here today Laura it's great to see you Muhammad I really appreciate the fact that you're kind of shining it won't be resolved by this GCC resolution it won't bring prosperity necessarily so in addition to kind of accepting that technical assistance what sorts of things can the Yemeni government and Yemeni leaders in general do to allow conditions for the private sector to grow and to create jobs in the country in the future thanks and sorry Tom can you go all the way to the back thanks hi Gregory Johnson Princeton University I have two questions for either Muhammad or Laura Muhammad you mentioned that there were about a thousand members of Al Qaeda and a couple of years ago foreign minister Al Qaeda said very famously that there were only 300 so my question would be where did they come from certainly they're not all foreign fighters and what if anything does this tell us about how Yemen and the U.S. are approaching the war against Al Qaeda within Yemen the second question is regarding the statement that President Saleh made not too long ago declaring a general amnesty for the follies and mistakes that were made how does that impact prosecuting the people who you mentioned earlier in your statements would be prosecuted people like Abdullah Keran or other individuals in which they're documented instances of them killing innocent civilians thanks thanks Greg so Muhammad maybe you could start in terms of the private enterprise question of how to make and then we can get into the meaty questions that we're just asked I'll be very honest you're not going to have any prosperity in the economy with out having security and political stability so that's first and foremost the priority for the next government and Greg the number of fighters for Al Qaeda went up borrowing from your wards we took our eye off the ball and a lot of foreign fighters have came in actually from Somalia and from other areas where the international community have been cracking down on them but especially now in Abiyan perhaps a lot of these numbers in the past were sort of that just the thing about the Abiyan battle is everybody came from their cells in Shabwa in Jof, in Marib the non affiliates of AQAP that were killed in Abiyan were from various parts of the country so Abiyan brought them all in one place and this is what happened regarding the amnesty the UN envoy to Yemen Ben Omar actually welcomed the amnesty but the amnesty if you read it carefully it says that it does not include that people have criminal records or criminal prosecutions that are active and open right now so it's just a general amnesty but I think people who have blood on their hands will be prosecuted eventually I have one little point to make about Greg your al-Qaeda question I'd like to hear sort of you've spoken to so many different people elites, protesters, what is the perception of al-Qaeda in Yemen also that there is no al-Qaeda in Yemen that's the perception in the north it seems like a simple question it's a simple answer but I just can't tell you how many times I've had people scream into my face there's no al-Qaeda in Yemen so that there's no al-Qaeda in the south it's a different situation in the south they're very keenly aware that there are sort of various groups of fighters which have different banners which you know differences let's say Islamic militias and things like this and there actually are members of al-Qaeda living amongst the tribes and this sort of thing I've heard from people in the south and heard from tribes in Arab as well who will tell me this the question about the numbers I just have an interesting anecdote which I think will be interesting to you and hopefully to other people in the audience I met with the mother of the last suicide bomber in Aden who tried to kill the minister of defense I guess now like two months ago and did not succeed and the funny story is when he was young he studied at some Quranic recitation school in Aden and the mother saw sort of changes in him then then she said he started to like get involved in sort of all of the media and things like this went to certain websites online listened to CDs she told me and they said what's happened to our son but they just chalked it up to the fact that he was some sort of was a teenager with lots of emotions and then they never he heard from again and there was a note left on his bed and he said he went to Abiyan he was there for two and a half years and then the last day they never saw him again and then they found out that he was the kid who tried to kill the minister of defense so when he was 19 and this was as well the interesting part of this is he was from an affluent family upper middle class Yemeni family so I you know are these actual card chemical members of Al-Qaeda you as well know that Greg what is Al-Qaeda in Yemen is very hard to define but this was just an interesting story granted this is just one case but this kid went to Abiyan for two and a half years and they never saw him again and apparently he was training there so that this is going on and sort of these youths are being attracted you know to go there they don't have a lot of other opportunities even in this kid did come from an affluent family but they don't have a lot of other opportunities for them especially in the south and this is well feeding off the fact that southerners feel really feel very marginalized by the northern government and sort of they're living in the society in which they feel marginalized and some of these youth are then going to sort of you know some not saying they're all youth but some youth are going to be attracted probably to some higher calling and that sort of thing so if this idea of you know Jihad fighting Al-Qaeda whatever is presented to them this will probably attract some youth who are living in this situation which seemed to be the case with this kid thanks let's take a couple more questions gentlemen in the back please hi thank you very much for this great session my name is Russell Shihab I'm originally from Iraq and now I'm working as advisor for Middle East and North Africa with Earth Day Network I just have one probably was one question with two parts first of all how we can make sure the next election is not the next election or the next president is not going to be another Salih first of all second of all is there any way we the M&E's government who actually going to represent every body in this country and how this government going to meet the demands of the M&E's people thank you great and the gentleman next to him please hi my name is Toby Jones I teach Middle East history at Rutgers I have two questions one is and one is kind of a flippant comment to qualify Toby can you speak a bit more in the month please I'm going to preface it with a kind of a flippant comment about the GCC I mean the GCC doesn't have a sort of a hard earned reputation for conflict resolution or crisis management and in fact I can't imagine that the Saudis are interested in a political resolution in Yemen as much as they're interested in managing the situation and preserving the status quo but I've gone on the record as saying that I think the Saudis and the GCC are pursuing the path of counter revolution rather than political stability so my question the first question has to do with this we're pinning a lot of hopes on the GCC's ability to broker a long term political solution here and I don't think that those hopes are necessarily justified what is the potential cost of failure if the GCC transition plan doesn't work the second question is really for Lauren and it has to do with from the protesters perspective and understanding that we have a cross section of different ideological and social groups that have mobilized over the last 10 months how do they see this ending what is it that they think is going to resolve the crisis those are great questions thank you Toby and really thank you all for coming here for this really wide ranging discussion I haven't been to a panel on Yemen like this in Washington so I'm really glad for these tough challenging questions in terms of the next election in terms of the next election of how representative and whether there will be another Salah maybe you can talk us through who are the opposition leaders who are the perspective winners who might have something to gain in February ok well it's a very important question because if the next government or the next administration is not going to include the Houthis or the leaders of the secessionist movement then we have a problem we're going to have a serious problem and this is why the second phase of the CCC deal includes national dialogue and everybody's hope is the national dialogue will be able to attract the hardliners from the Houthis and from the secessionists at least sit down on the table and talk so that's what we hope for this process will be able to include them the constitution will change I'm not sure if we will be able in the future to have another president I think the next administration will maybe a parliamentary system where the power is going to be within the government elected through the parliament and the presidents will have just honorary duties this is one of the things on the table so it's very hard for me to project within two years what's going to happen regarding the GCC deal and whether the GCC deal is effective or not I don't just see it now as a GCC deal it's been adopted by the international community via the UN Security Council which is as powerful as it gets the UN Envoy to Yemen with the P5 ambassadors worked as brokers between the JMP and the GPC to actually write the practical implementation mechanism for the GCC so when you look at the GCC you have to look at the entire package of the agreement that they inked it's the agreement the strong international backing that it has right now and the mechanism I mean honestly it was very impressive for me to see how detailed it is if X, Y and Z doesn't happen then you assign a committee and the vice president will have authority so it's very detailed and we can't lose hope if you lose hope you know it is what we have right now it's not going to be perfect the next government I guarantee you will have daunting tasks unbelievable tasks the uprising forgot to mention that oil reserves will go down water will continue to be scarce the regional conflicts will not be erased overnight but I strongly believe that will come out out of this turmoil will be a better and stronger Yemen in the long term so in terms of the GCC's track record which seems to be the bigger question Toby is asking they were incredibly supportive of a hostile crackdown on Bahraini protesters they invited Morocco and Jordan into the GCC amidst the Arab revolutions so I think the bigger question is what is Saudi doing here in terms of the prospects for the GCC you might not want to address all of these questions but what is the cost of failure of this GCC initiative the cost of failure unfortunately is the fact that there's no other sort of solution on the table right now that is being that I am aware of and so this is sort of the only the only path that all sides have supported can you tell us more about the U.S. role though because my understanding is it wasn't just the GCC behind this initiative I don't think we call it the GCC deal but I think it would be more appropriate to call it deal that was supported by the West and then the GCC was sort of thrown in there at the end so I think that this the GCC deal came out of a time when the West became aware that Salah's continuation as president was going to not be good for the security of the region and then obviously the security of the United States security of the world so what was a way to politically get Salah out of power because the protestors weren't going to do it it didn't seem like they were going to do it at the time so that's what it came out of and yes I think that it's to sort of underestimate the role of creating the GCC deal would not be completely accurate and they're very involved as well I mean Zayani the head of the GCC flies in every once in a while but who are the people on the ground now trying to deal with all of this it's the Western ambassadors so but yeah the problem is it's the only solution and this kind of also will address the question about the protestors what is the end game in this if you allow me to interrupt Western ambassadors the Emirati and the Saudi ambassador were very active to also on the ground so it's not just the Zayani and the P5 ambassadors were involved it was also I think it's fair to say that and you know we've talked about how many meetings they've hosted at the Saudi and at UAE ambassadors residence and the mission so it's fair to you know give some credit at least you know but I think so given that all this family is entrenched in the security architecture of Yemen that the regime is more than just the one man with the presidential role what do protestors see as the end game what would be a transition that would satisfy their demands it's hard because sort of I mean again the protestors aren't just one thing so you have you know protestors who want many different things and one of the problems is that you know they wanted they still want the sort of Egypt style revolution they want Salah they don't like this idea that you know with the GCC initiative the 60 days sort of thing they think that he's going to screw things around and somehow isn't going to end up leaving at the end of the 60 days and like we said the other problem is that even like you said the removal of Salah doesn't remove his family from power and it's not just Salah's son and Salah's nephews who control their positions and the armed forces and security apparatus but also I mean his family Salah's been married four times and has many children and sort of his family's all over the government so it's just the Salah family their presence is going to be in the government even if Ali Abilah Salah leaves but the protestors they want the president to leave like that I mean this is part of the problem and then what is Yemen left with otherwise one answer from the protestors that we've gotten like what happens afterwards and so they'll just say if you ask them that question they say well we have to concentrate on the first goal and the first goal is Erhal is leave and after we achieve that goal then we can do something else so it's just that's always the answer I get to that question when I hear what do they actually want they want him to leave that's it and then we'll figure everything out and that's obviously that's been part of the problem as well that there's no sort of organized plan that could happen afterwards and just well I mean as where you sort of ask the opposition leaders I mean a lot of the leaders of the opposition come from the ruling party or have been in cahoots with the ruling party or involved in the corruption of the ruling party and they're not really I mean if the answer seems to be in a way for the system to actually change is to have a parliamentary system like we said or something that's more representative of the country as a whole it's something that's spouted a lot and the opposition is the idea of federalism for Yemen but that would actually be the only viable solution but one of the problems too is there just doesn't seem to be someone within the opposition who would be a good leader sort of to lead the country out of this and this is why Hattie I think has been chosen as the person to do it because there really wasn't anyone else that's true and Hattie says okay let's take a couple more questions then if no more questions okay gentlemen in the back is that Greg yeah yeah if I could ask another one sorry I'm not going to have dinner tonight then my question is regarding Taz if one say missed the news that President Saleh signed the GCC agreement and just looked at the violence a few weeks ago and looked at the violence today in Taz one could be forgiven for thinking that maybe signing the GCC agreement didn't really mean anything because the violence is continuing so my question I guess is this why is the fighting going on even though President Saleh signed the GCC agreement why are protestors still being attacked in Taz it's not quite that protestors are being attacked it's that I mean that's to my understanding it's the neighborhood civilians neighborhoods are being shelled so it's just the problem in Taz is just the conflict has gotten out of control and I don't know what's I don't know why right now the violence has increased in Taz I feel like there's from what I can see for reasons one is the opposition tribesmen are trying to sort of expand their territory or they're attacking government positions with increasing fervor or the government is just trying to rid all of those tribesmen from the city it seems like one of those two things has happened but definitely the fighting has spread into areas of the city where there wasn't fighting before and I just knew that because a friend of mine house was hit yesterday in Taz and it's not an area of the city where there was fighting so it's just the conflict there is it just shows the GCC initiative just sort of a it deals with the reshuffling of the political elites there's still deep rooted conflict within the society and especially in Taz and and there's no sort of I mean I don't know what is going to stop that even if you have this military committee that's dealing with the government I don't know who are the tribesmen going to listen to as well the armed tribesmen so it's a big problem I think what intensifies also the situation in Taz is the issue became personal too you have certain officials who faced assassination attempts by the opposition and you had opposition who lost entirages or staffs or family members so it's a personal issue right down to them and this is why things have been intensified lately but in all honesty I think Taz has been ignored tremendously over the past 10 months the entire focus was on Sanaa between all the political factions this is not just an issue about the government or the opposition Sanaa became the front line for this intricate conflict or term or whatever the term you want to use for it but yeah, Taz is bleeding, Taz is burning and if the rival factions in Taz don't really put their differences aside and realize that people are walking on eggshells it will explode and the ramifications of that will be very dangerous and it could perhaps even derail the GCC deal and this is why I'm really encouraged about the security and military committee and establishment of it as soon as possible because they will have the auspices of the VP and the powers to demilitarize Taz, pull out the tribal and militant forces pull out the soldiers and the tanks and armor vehicles keep Taz like the Taz we know a peaceful, quiet, a center for culture not a daily battlefield over two factions thanks are there any more questions I think gentlemen in the middle I'm glad you're following the Twitter questions right here this one I'll reserve for me my personal question for Mr. Basha and this is concerning the issue with the south, the southern movement we saw the failure of the Cairo conference now we're seeing that the youth have separated themselves from from the Bahum leadership basically the Al-Fadli and all that where the youth are pushing more for this complete succession where some of the southern leaders are wanting this federal arrangement how and now seeing that both the president and the interim prime minister are southerners and so many ministers are from the south why is this this big gap between the southern population and the government when they are technically some of their own people within the government ruling the country now and what do you expect with the southern movement will it actually coalesce and become an actual player outside the Yemen socialist party, thank you and that was actually my question that I had reserved too so there was just an article on foreignpolicy.com about the same subject, a house divided despite the GCC deal the southern movement is not thrilled and not willing to go home but then there's also as Anthony should eat so eloquently dubbed the couch majority rather than the silent majority the couch majority that sort of sits at home and we talked to us about the secession movement and where that all stands a lot of the demands of the secessionist movements are very legitimate I can't deny that and the next government should really deal with it from a real politic standpoint of use, they have legitimate demands but the issues in Yemen in general is it comes down to economy it comes down to the budget it comes down to the finances at one point Yemen's government's budget was three times the size of my former university in Purdue so that's where the issues come people at the end of the day want food on the table want roof on top of their head and if you can't provide that and the government is looked at as the sole institution to blame you have to blame the government or someone so it's easier to blame the government but the difference between you see why the Houthi movement has been successful or why the secessionist movement has not been successful is a lack of leadership there isn't figures that rally over the secessionist the secession is now divided into three groups one group want to follow I think the Darfur model of having a federal state Yemenis hate the word federalism they like regionalism or because the federalism has an imperialistic connotation to it so one group has federalism and then referendum voting the second group says that's it we just separate secession and the third group is like let's work with it let's find a way to work with it but I think it's once the dust settled down and the next government will perhaps get a chance to really via this national communication or national dialogue committee to give them a platform to speak out I think there will be a possibility to move forward Laura highlighted something very important which I skipped it's the next state in Yemen most likely you will have some sort of federal state system regionalism I think that would be the best way to do is you run your own state you run your own province perhaps the military will be controlled by the central government in Sana'a and you share the wealth from gas and oil but you can't have everything things have to be decentralized we cannot run Yemen in a centralized format that we have today it's not sustainable it's not going to work but I just hope that the youth that the Sessionists continue their struggle I could respect that but also have plan B start mobilizing start organizing in a political format in the long term it will make things better for everybody for you to have a voice why do people now and it's very common to write that the revolution has been hijacked it's because a lot of people especially outside Yemen assume that the JMP speaks on behalf of the youth the JMP is the joint meeting parties the opposition the opposition coalition and so it will make things better for these organizations to start really getting together articulate your message and work with the realities on ground there is romance with uprisings and revolutions and the realities is always different great so Laura do you want to address a bit about the Session movement and then we'll wrap up shortly my playing with the Sessionist movement it's hard to gauge but as Mohammed said at least three different three different trends but even within that it's really split up it's something when the protests first started in Yemen back in January and we thought that where the protests are really going to get bigger and aid in it's where the south they actually have really populist grievances and things like this against the government and then it didn't really happen there and since then we haven't really seen the successionists do a lot and one argument to be made for that is the fact that maybe they're planning and they're organizing and they're planning what they're going to do after the government gets really really weak in the north but I don't really think that they're incapable they thus far seem to be incapable of actually sort of pushing their agenda through and there's various groups like we said but it's a grievance and it's a population that doesn't feel like they're included in the government within Sana'a and if you go to Aden today you see everywhere flags of south Yemen flags and even some south Arabia flags now which is the old flag but everywhere in ways that you never saw it before and so it can tend to, you see that and you tend to have the feeling that the southern separatists have gained a lot of power since the government in the north has sort of lost control of the security of the situation but I would argue that that's the only thing that to me seems like the only thing they could do was paint their flags everywhere so now the government, because it used to be if you painted a southern separatist flag somewhere you would get shot by the security forces well now there aren't enough security forces in Aden to shoot you but it's just, because this is what they could do this is just evidence of the lapse of security I don't really see them organizing themselves together but it's part of the problem that it's going to be the problems that face Yemen it's a pocket of a problem here it's a problem here, it's the southern separatists in Dalle, one province in the south who have their own problems, it's southern separatists in Hadramout who have their own problems and it's just various problems everywhere and these grievances everywhere are going to create problems for the country in the months, years to come I mean, in short we need an overhaul we need a bailout I think that's, you know, we need an overhaul and when people talk about the southern flag in Aden and you know, I travel through the southern United States and there is the Confederate flag everywhere it does not mean that the southern United States you know, it's just a way for people to express their pent-out anger and to pent-out their frustration and it's the identity and it became a symbol of identity but I think it's, you know we're not at the end of the road we were at the brink, I think a couple of weeks ago, but now things are moving forward and you know we have to keep our optimism up inshallah, God willing great, well I really want to thank our distinguished panelists, Laura Kasanoff and Muhammad Elbasha of the Yemeni Embassy I want to thank my colleagues at New America Kuch, Stephanie Gunter Clara Hogan who have helped plan all of the logistics of this event and John Williams who's doing our excellent sound and video the video will be archived probably by tomorrow so come back and check it out and please stick around and talk to our really well-versed panelists on this subject thank you all for coming