{"id":66582,"date":"2015-11-17T09:04:13","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T09:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=66582"},"modified":"2015-11-17T09:04:13","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T09:04:13","slug":"the-agony-of-saada-u-s-and-saudi-bombs-target-yemens-ancient-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/11\/the-agony-of-saada-u-s-and-saudi-bombs-target-yemens-ancient-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agony of Saada: U.S. and Saudi Bombs Target Yemen\u2019s Ancient Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

16 Nov 2015 – <\/em>Shards of blue, red, and green stained glass, remnants of an intricate crescent window that is a 4,000-year-old Yemeni art form, glitter in the sunlight before crunching underfoot. Atop a mound of dust and mud stands the shell of an ancient tower-house, sliced in half like a cake by an airstrike.<\/p>\n

In addition to the growing number of civilian casualties<\/a> in the country\u2019s seven-month-long war, U.S.-made bombs dropped by fighter jets from a Saudi Arabian-led coalition are pulverizing Yemen\u2019s architectural history, often referred to as a living museum. These airstrikes are tearing villages apart, forcibly displacing thousands and erasing the country\u2019s inimitable heritage, possibly in violation of international humanitarian law<\/a>, according to the world heritage body, UNESCO.<\/p>\n

Entire villages in the Yemeni highlands appear to defy gravity. Remote high-rises cling precariously to cliff edges. Inside, the character of the fortress-like homes changes with the sun as it moves through the sky. Light filters through the stained glass of patterned windowpanes, called qamarias<\/em>, illuminating the white gypsum plaster. At night, candles or rare supplies of electricity send dapples of color into the twilight.<\/p>\n

Yemen\u2019s time-honored homes are part of the country\u2019s rich social fabric, embodying the culture of the families who have lived in them for centuries. The Middle East\u2019s poorest nation is famous for constructing the world\u2019s first skyscrapers, often up to 100 feet high, with as many as 11 stories designed to keep extended families and their livestock safely under one roof.<\/p>\n

The violent assault on the country\u2019s history over the past seven months began in March after a political power struggle between incumbent president Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi and Houthi rebels backed by soldiers loyal to the former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, descended into civil war.<\/p>\n

But Yemen\u2019s internal conflict has also landed the country\u2019s 26 million people in the middle of the regional struggle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, already at loggerheads over the war in Syria. After the predominantly Shiite Houthi rebels seized control of the capital, Sanaa, last year, Saudi Arabia and a coalition of nations supported by the United States launched an unrelenting aerial bombing campaign. There have been near-daily air raids ever since.<\/p>\n

The Saudis say they intervened in Yemen for two reasons: to restore the Hadi government forced into exile by Saleh\u2019s loyalists in the military collaborating with the Houthis, who they claim are an Iranian proxy, and to counter what they view as a growing threat by Iran to seize power and influence in the region. The level of Tehran\u2019s support, however, is disputed.<\/p>\n

At least 5,604 people, including\u00a02,577 civilians, have died<\/a> since the conflict began in March, according to a United Nations tally of figures<\/a> from local health facilities. That number is probably an undercount of the real figure, because many of the dead or injured never reach medical treatment centers and bodies are often buried unrecorded.<\/p>\n

A joint report <\/a>by the U.K.-based charity Action on Armed Violence and the United Nations\u2019 Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs concluded that airstrikes were responsible for 60 percent of civilian casualties in the first seven months of this year.<\/p>\n

\"Historic<\/a>

Historic old city section of Saada City, Yemen. Photo: Iona Craig<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the worst hit areas has been Yemen\u2019s northern province of Saada, the birthplace and homeland of the Houthi movement. Saada City, the provincial capital, was founded before the fourth century B.C., as the hub of the Minaean Kingdom of Main.<\/p>\n

On May 8 the Saudi-led coalition declared<\/a>\u00a0Saada City, home to some 50,000 people, a \u201cmilitary zone,\u201d which Human Rights Watch says is a clear violation <\/a>of international humanitarian law, and gave civilians a few hours\u2019 notice to leave.<\/p>\n

Many of those who did not heed the coalition\u2019s warning were forced to flee their homes by the ensuing airstrikes. The village of Rahban, on the outskirts of the city, was razed. It consisted entirely of historic, centuries-old multistory homes with thick rammed-earth walls, rainbow-colored stained-glass windows and hand-carved wooden doors. Timber joists that supported families for tens of generations now protrude from piles of rubble. More than 30 homes were wiped out.<\/p>\n

Ibrahim al-Sabra, 23, and his relatives were one of more than 100 families who fled their homes to escape an apparently deliberate tactic of forced displacement of civilians that could amount to a war crime under Article 53<\/a> of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The bombardment that destroyed his home started just after 3 a.m. and killed two of al-Sabra\u2019s cousins.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we have no home, it\u2019s gone forever,\u201d said al-Sabra, who is struggling to rent a house for his family in the city. \u201cRahban is where the poorest people in Saada City\u00a0lived. The only thing of value that we had was our homes.\u201d The newest houses there were more than 100 years old.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The al-Hadi mosque in Saada City, Yemen, before the bombing on May 9, 2015. Photo: Alamy<\/p><\/div>\n

On May 9, a day after the coalition\u2019s ultimatum for civilians to leave, multiple airstrikes hit the heart of Saada City\u2019s\u00a0historic old city. Abu Tah, 28, witnessed three bombings that\u00a0hit the market in front of the ninth-century al-Hadi mosque, killing two patients along with a doctor, who practiced out of his house next door to the mosque. Four others, including a second doctor, were also killed, he said.<\/p>\n

The mosque is the final resting place of Imam al-Hadi ila\u2019l-Haqq Yahya, the first Shiite Zaydi imam of Yemen, who died in 911 A.D. Local legend has it that the site of the mosque is where the Prophet Mohammed\u2019s camel once rested. But today, the mosque\u2019s prominent green dome is cracked like an eggshell and its doors blown out. Repeated ground-shaking strikes just a few feet from the high walls surrounding the structure have crumbled its ceilings. For the first time in its 1,200-year history, the Hadi mosque is now closed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want peace; we call for peace. We don\u2019t want our people divided,\u201d said Abdullah al-Mutamaze, a cleric, historian, and caretaker of the abandoned mosque. He sat among the rubble in a broken chair at the edge of a 10-foot-deep crater in front of the main entrance and fretted that the community\u2019s essential cultural and religious heritage would be lost.<\/p>\n

The fact that Sunni Saudi Arabia, whose king has the title \u201cCustodian of the Two Holy Mosques\u201d of Mecca and Medina, is bombing a town once famous as a seat of Shiite Zaydi scholarship is not lost on al-Mutamaze. \u201cThis is just a title, they still target the people they hate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The al-Hadi mosque in Saada City, Yemen, after the bombing on May 9, 2015. Photo: Iona Craig<\/p><\/div>\n

The destruction of historical sites and Shiite mosques is not\u00a0unique to Yemen. One of Saudi Arabia\u2019s coalition partners, Bahrain, demolished or vandalized at least 35\u00a0Shiite mosques\u00a0during the country\u2019s political uprising against minority Sunni rule in 2011,\u00a0according to the Bahrain Center for Human\u00a0Rights<\/a>, all with Saudi backing. The Saudi Kingdom has shown very little, if any, regard for its own historical sites. The former director of the Mecca Hajj Research center previously stated <\/a>that by 2008, more than 300 ancient sites had been destroyed in Mecca and Medina alone.<\/p>\n

In the past, Yemenis have not defined themselves, or their places of worship, by sect. But the country\u2019s social structure is now being ripped apart by new divisions created and stoked by the ongoing war.<\/p>\n

American and British support for the bombing campaign continues despite calls from human rights organizations to halt weapons supplies to the Saudi-led coalition in the wake of what Amnesty International called \u201cdamning evidence of war crimes<\/a>.\u201d Democratic members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, however, managed to delay the latest planned<\/a> transfer from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia of precision-guided weapons.<\/p>\n

In response to the Amnesty report, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a written statement on October 7 denying all allegations of intentionally bombing civilians. \u201cAny accusation of such intentions is a false claim spread by those who support the rebels attempting to wreak havoc in Yemen,\u201d the statement read, adding that the airstrikes in Saada were aimed at the Houthi rebels.<\/p>\n

In September<\/a>, the spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, Brig. Gen. Ahmed Assiri, told The Intercept<\/em> that the coalition was using Western precision-guided weapons \u201cto avoid collateral damage.\u201d But that\u2019s still happening. These days, the market\u2019s narrow streets, normally bustling with traders and rippling with the echo of the call for the afternoon prayer, lie ghostly quiet. The bombed-out spice market, clothes shops, and ancient caravanserai that welcomed travelers and traders over the centuries lie in ruins. Both the past and present are reduced to the same dust and rubble.<\/p>\n

The devastation serves as a disturbing portent of what may yet befall the UNESCO World Heritage site of the old city in Sanaa, which has been continuously inhabited for more than 2,500 years. Folklore has it that the walled city, on a highland plateau more than 7,200 feet above sea level, was founded by Shem, son of Noah.<\/p>\n

At risk are the picture-postcard houses of old Sanaa. The labyrinths of cobbled streets twist and turn around scores of hidden gardens, steam bath houses, busy markets, and densely packed terraced homes that stretch up toward the sky. The Grand Mosque, believed to have been built during the life of the Prophet Mohammed, stands as a haven of serenity at the heart of this vibrant city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to see the houses as part of an integrated urban fabric, which is also a social-cultural fabric,\u201d said Michele Lamprakos, architectural historian at the University of Maryland and author of Building a World Heritage City: Sanaa, Yemen<\/em>. \u201cThey provide a window onto Sanaa\u2019s long urban history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old city has already been bombed twice. On June 12, five members of the same family were killed when four homes crumbled to the ground after being hit with a 2,000-pound bomb<\/a>. A further strike on September 19 destroyed a traditional four-story home, killing 10 members of the al-Ayani family \u2014 eight were children. More than 130 densely packed, terraced homes of old Sanaa were damaged by the blast.<\/p>\n

As of October 15, according to the U.N<\/a>., up to 82,300 people have been internally displaced in Saada, and 2.3 million in all of Yemen. It is not clear how many are permanently homeless due to forced displacement, in contravention of international laws of war<\/a>, by apparent deliberate bombing of houses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe left our homes before, but we went back,\u201d said Fatima, who did not want to give her full name. She now lives in a school in Sanaa with her four children. \u201cBut this time, our home and half our village was destroyed, for what?\u201d she asked. \u201cThey are not just buildings, they\u2019re part of us, the heart of our families for hundreds of years.\u201d She tried to count on her fingers the number of generations that had lived in her demolished house.<\/p>\n

\"Saudi-led<\/a>

Saudi-led airstrikes have displaced Saada residents, pictured here in the district of Khamir, Yemen, May 9, 2015.
Photo: Mohamed al Sayaghi\/Reuters \/Landov<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe Saudis and their American bombs are erasing us from history.\u201d<\/p>\n

The annihilation of Yemen\u2019s cultural heritage extends far beyond air raids on the famous ancient skyscrapers of the northwestern highlands; other areas of the country\u2019s pre-Islamic history have also fallen victim to the coalition\u2019s bombing.<\/p>\n

The world-famous Great Marib Dam was bombed for the first time in May. Dating back to the eighth century B.C., the dam was 50 feet high and 2,100 feet wide, almost twice the width of the Hoover Dam. It was a wonder of the ancient world, watering the region for 1,000 years. Marib was the capital of the Sabaean Kingdom, ruled by the Biblical Queen of Sheba. Last month the province became the latest front-line battleground for coalition troops and the Houthi forces.<\/p>\n

In the remote desert of Al-Jawf, more than 100 miles northeast of Sanaa, Baraqish, the country\u2019s most impressive pre-Islamic metropolis, reached its zenith in the fifth century B.C. and remained inhabited up until the 19th century. On August 18, the imposing 40-foot-high, unbroken stone curtain that had protected the city for some 2,500 years was bombed by the coalition, destroying a section of the ancient wall.<\/p>\n

Anthropologist and historian Francesco G. Fedele, who worked in Yemen for almost a decade \u2014\u00a0including three years in Baraqish \u2014 as a member of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Yemen, says the city\u2019s temple to the god of healing, Nakrah, was destroyed by the Saudi-led bombing. Pictures of the site after further strikes on September 13 confirmed his worst fears.<\/p>\n

A second ancient temple to the god of thunderstorms and rain, Athar dhu-Qabd, was also mostly lost to the aerial assaults. The joint Italian-Yemeni team excavated and painstakingly<\/a> restored<\/a> both temples as part of a 25-year project that ran from 1990. The shrines were cultural treasures for the whole Arabian Peninsula.<\/p>\n

The Houthi-run state news agency, Saba<\/em>, reported<\/a> further airstrikes hit the northern wall of Baraqish and the temples on October 14, although the claim could not be immediately verified.<\/p>\n

A small museum housing the most precious finds from the team\u2019s excavations was similarly reduced to piles of shattered stone in September, says Fedele. On September 17, Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO,\u00a0deplored<\/a> \u201cthe senseless destruction of one of the richest cultures in the Arab region.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the great religious centers of ancient Arabia, Sirwah, just 75 miles east of Sanaa, was damaged earlier in the conflict, and is under renewed threat from waves of intensive airstrikes carried out since Saudi-coalition troops pushed into the district in early October. While deliberate demolition by ISIS of ancient artifacts and historic sites in Iraq and Syria has been widely reported and denounced, the reaction to the Saudi-led coalition laying waste to Yemen\u2019s cultural history, in what some archaeologists say is a pattern of systematic targeting<\/a> of the country\u2019s heritage, is comparatively subdued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are dealing here with unnecessary and possibly wanton destruction \u2026 by the Saudi Arabian army,\u201d said Fedele. \u201cIt is sad that such a conduct by the Saudis is not being condemned and, worse still, is kept under silence by conniving governments particularly in North America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile in the besieged city of Taiz, the Houthi-Saleh forces seized the prominent Al-Qahira Citadel, perched on a mountain spur hundreds of feet above the city, before it was repeatedly bombed. Now, those fighters are blocking water, food, and medicine \u2014 already in short supply due to a coalition-imposed naval blockade of the county \u2014 from entering parts of the city not under their control. Staring up at what little remains of the 1,000-year-old castle from outside a hospital, unable to treat patients due to a lack of medical supplies, one manager admitted concern for the country\u2019s heritage could seem irrational.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t think about the past, or the future,\u201d the manager said. \u201cWe\u2019re too busy trying to survive the present.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to the growing number of civilian casualties in the country\u2019s seven-month-long war, U.S.-made bombs dropped by fighter jets from a Saudi Arabian-led coalition are pulverizing Yemen\u2019s architectural history, often referred to as a living museum. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle-east-north-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}