ALI SUKHANVER

 “Targeting Mecca and Medina is the only way to save US from the attacks of the Muslims”, said Tom Tancredo, the US presidential candidate in Election 2007. Tom Tancredo belonged to the Republican Party. During his election campaign he earned a lot of popularity among the extremist strata of the American society by suggesting that the sacred Muslim cities of Mecca and Medina should be attacked if America is attacked. According to the various media reports published in different western newspapers of those days, it was not for the first time that Tom Tancredo issued such a conflicting statement.  Earlier in 2005 also he had expressed the same kind of opinion regarding attacks on the sacred cities of the Muslims. In May, 2012, the Daily Mail UK published a report with the title, ‘Bomb Mecca’. The report referred to a course organized for the young U.S. Military officers by US Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia. While talking to the participants, a lecturer there, Lt. Col. Mathew Dooley said that ‘Hiroshima-style’ attacks on Islam’s holiest cities were needed to win ‘total war’ with Muslim world. One of the participants expressed serious reservation on Col. Mathew’s suggestion and ultimately the course was suspended because the opinion expressed by Col. Mathew was not in accordance with the US state policy. In short the desire of targeting the holy cities of the Muslims has ever been a part of the Anti-Islamic elements.  However, keeping in view the increasing militancy in the Muslim temperament, these elements could never materialize their desire in a direct way. The only option they were left with was to prepare a conspiracy which could drag the Muslims into a battle-field of their own. The present warlike scenario in Yemen and Saudi Arab is the outcome of the same conspiracy-plan. The international media is doing its utmost to portray the Saudi-Yemen conflict as a sectarian conflict between the Shia and Sunni sects of the Muslims and it is also being propagated that these two sects are being supported by Iran and Saudia respectively.

The matter of fact is that the conflict in Yemen has nothing to do with the sectarian conflict. It is purely an internal affair of Yemen which could be harmful to Saudi Arab at some stage as these two countries share a very long border. Yemen enjoys the same strategic position in the Middle East which Afghanistan enjoys in the South   Asia. For so many decades Yemen is facing a situation of internal turmoil. The nature of this turmoil is purely socio-political. This is for the first time that this conflict is being introduced as a sectarian conflict, allegedly because of Iranian support to the Houthis. According to various reports; Yemen had to pass through the same type of conflict in 1962 also. The Egyptians supported the Yemen government with seventy thousand troops against the Houthis. The Houthis Tribes are the 40% of Yemeni population. On the other hand the Houthis were secretly supplied weapons by Israel to fight against the Egyptians. Since then this politico-religious movement of the Houthis took a violent shape under the title of Ansarullah. This internal conflicting situation provided the international forces with a golden opportunity of playing devilish politics in Yemen.

With the help of their paid agents, the anti-Islamic forces have ever been trying their best to weaken and destabilize almost all Islamic countries including Pakistan. Fortunately, they have yet not succeeded in targeting the actual centre of gravity for the whole of the Muslim community, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By dragging Saudia into the battlefield of Yemen’s internal political turmoil, these anti-Islamic forces are simply trying to weaken this center of gravity and the so-called militant groups of Yemen are playing in their hands.

For Pakistan this warlike situation between two Islamic countries is very much unpleasant. Both the countries are very dear to Pakistan; however the relationship with Saudi Arab is no doubt more close and brotherly cordial; but that does not mean Pakistan’s relationship with Yemen is based on any kind of hostility or enmity. Just at the beginning of the Saudi-Yemen turmoil, some of the political sections in Pakistan were of the opinion that Pakistan must send its military troops to Saudi Arab in case the Houthis rebels try to cross over the Saudi boundaries; fortunately it did not happen. However the political and military hi-ups of Pakistan kept observing the situation with all care and keenness and very wisely decided not to become a part of it by sending its forces to crush the Houthis. Now things are getting better, let us hope for the best. The Prime Minister of Pakistan and the Army Chief visited Saudi Arab to look at the situation personally and to make the Saudi government realize that Pakistan is always on their beck and call. Pakistan has always played a key role in unifying the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia is a brotherly country but at the same time Pakistan has good relationship with Yemen too. Instead of jumping into a war between two Muslim countries, Pakistan must try to pacify the two countries as much as possible, through table talks and negotiations.