The Man Behind the Houthi Missile Program—Commander Ibrahim Ali al-Shami

The Man Behind the Houthi Missile Program—Commander Ibrahim Ali al-Shami

On January 17, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen announced that an intelligence operation conducted in Sanaa resulted in the killing of a former Yemen Air Force commander who had defected to the Houthi militia—Ibrahim Ali al-Shami (al-Tagheer, January 19). The operation was carried out as part of the broader military intervention started by the Saudi-led coalition in March 2015, with the aim of reinstating the internationally recognized government of President Abu Rabbu Mansour Hadi (al-Arabya, January 17). President Hadi was forcibly deposed in February 2015, when the Shia-Zaydi Houthi militia took power in the Yemeni capital. Ali al-Shami was a central figure in the Houthi military apparatus, as he was widely considered one of the key commanders behind the Houthi ballistic missile program. What follows is a post-mortem profile of him, which looks at his past in the Yemeni army until his defection to the Houthi movement, and the enigmatic circumstances still surrounding his death.

Long Career in the Yemeni army

Ibrahim Ali al-Shami was born in 1960 in al-Nadhir, a small district in the central Yemeni province of Ibb (Akhbarak.net, January 18). No accessible information exists in open sources on his family’s background or his early studies, with the only details available suggesting that he attended a school in Ibb, where he graduated in 1979 (Almandeb.news, January 20, 2019). In the same year, Ali al-Shami joined the National Defense College in Sanaa, but just one year later he was seconded to the Krasnodar Air Force Academy in the former Soviet Union, where he graduated in 1982 as a second lieutenant fighter pilot (Akhbarak.net, January 18). At that time, Yemen was still divided between the Yemen Arab Republic (commonly known as North Yemen, with Sanaa as its capital) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (covering much of today’s southern Yemen, with Aden as Its capital), a Marxist socialist republic supported by the Soviet Union. Relationships with Moscow, however, had been strong with both Sanaa and Aden since the 1960s. The USSR, for instance, assisted the North Yemeni government in building the port of Hodeidah (the main battlefront of the current civil war) and several military airbases across the country. Moreover, several Soviet technical missions were carried out in Yemen through the 1970s and the 1980s, and Yemeni students and military officers used to be sent to study in Czechoslovakia and the USSR. [1]

In 1980, the Yemen Arab Republic also signed an important weapons supply deal with the Soviet Union alongside several other military agreements, culminated in an official visit to Moscow in 1981 by late President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the first by a YAR president since 1964. It was in this context that al-Shami received his military education in the Soviet Union, which he completed in 1987. Upon his return to Yemen, he was served as head of the Aviation Safety Division of the Yemeni Air Forces from 1990 to 1996 (Akhbarak, January 17; Hafryat, January 20). The entirety of al-Shami’s military career was characterized by senior military positions in the aviation division, including his service as head of the Planning Division of the Air Force from 1996 to 2002, and his move to the post of deputy director of Air Force personnel training in 2007 (al-Ain, January 20).

Defection to the Houthi Militia

No public accounts of al-Shami’s time before the Houthi armed takeover of Sanaa on February 6, 2015 are available in open sources. Al-Shami, however, was likely among those military officers still loyal to former President Saleh and willing to forge an opportunistic alliance with the Houthi militia to get rid of President Hadi’s government. Saleh, despite having been sidelined in the new political arrangement following the 2011 uprising (stepping down from the presidency in exchange for personal immunity), had remained the real master of Yemeni politics, thanks to his control over the most relevant divisions of the army—including the Republican Guards elite force—and his patronage network. Saleh’s support, and the backing of those sections of the army still loyal to him, were crucial in making it possible for the Houthi movement to gradually take over the country’s state institutions and, ultimately, triggering the current civil war.

In 2015, in fact, Houthi-controlled Yemeni media suggested that al-Shami was appointed as Chief of Staff of the Air Force and Air Defense (Saba.net., January 17, 2019). This information is corroborated by another account, which states that al-Shami became the country’s top Air Force commander after his predecessor, Major General Rashid al-Junud, had escaped from Sanaa following the Houthi takeover in February 2015 (BBC Arabic, May 15, 2015). Relations between al-Shami and the Houthi leadership were likely tense and complicated at the beginning, given Houthi suspicions towards members of the Yemeni Army and the attempts by the Zaydi militia to place individuals loyal to them in key state and military positions. In May 2015, al-Shami resigned from his post, accusing the Houthi of “cowardly acts,” of preventing his staff members from joining the Air Force and dismissing several of them (BBC Arabic, May 15, 2015; Yemen Press, May 31, 2015). Local sources also added that the Houthi had tried to force a number of Air Force officials to redeploy from Sanaa to the Hadramawt province and join combat missions there against Saudi-led coalition-supported forces, a move that al-Shami tried to resist (BBC Arabic, May 15, 2015). It is unclear how and when exactly this fracture was recomposed, but Yemeni media indicated that sometime in 2016, al-Shami was again reinstated to his post of Chief of Staff, and also became Acting Commander of the Air Force and Air Defense (Saba.net., January 17).

The “Black Box” of the Houthi Movement

All of the regional media outlets portray al-Shami as the main individual behind the Houthi ballistic missile program, with some newspapers labelling him the “black box” of the Houthis (Almandeb, January 23, 2019). These accounts indicate that his first contribution was to facilitate the looting of missiles from Yemeni Army depots and warehouses, handing them over to the Houthis, and providing information about the secret locations where these weapons were stored across Air Force camps (al-Ain, January 20). Yemeni stockpiles of ballistic missiles date back to the 1990s, especially two variants of the North Korea and Soviet origin Scud missile that were also used during the 1994 civil war fought between the North and the South (The National, June 7, 2015). It was one of these Scud missiles that the Houthis launched towards the Saudi city of Khamis Mushait in June 2015, introducing a tactic that the militia has resorted to with increasing frequency throughout the conflict (The National, June 6, 2015).

Support received by Iran widely documented by the UN later enabled the Houthi movement to increase the range of these missiles to the point of reaching the Saudi capital of Riyadh in June 2018, though there is no information available to suggest whether al-Shami has had any connection with Tehran (al-Jazeera, June 28, 2018).

Al-Shami’s role appeared to be to coordinate the logistics of these attacks, as he was the official issuing directives and orders to fire missiles into Saudi territory, and against coalition positions in Yemen, as well as providing military information and the coordinates for these launches (al-Ain, January 20). This high-profile role likely explains why, in November 2017, al-Shami was added to the list of the most-wanted Houthi militants issued by the Saudi government. Al-Shami was 19th on this list and accused of being responsible for planning, implementing, and supporting various terrorist activities in support of the Houthi militia. The Saudi government offered $10 million for information leading to his arrest (al-Akhbar, November 6, 2017; Arabi21.com, November 6, 2017).

Given the fact that the Houthi militia does not have aircraft, most of the tasks carried out by al-Shami were likely related to the management and development of ballistic missile capabilities, often presented by the Houthi propaganda as “defensive capabilities.” In an interview published in March 2018 by Houthi-controlled media, for instance, al-Shami stressed in several passages the key role played by the Yemeni Air Defense Forces in “resisting and confronting the Saudi-American aggression.” Al-Shami maintained that, despite the lack of Yemeni aircraft engaged in the conflict, and the resulting unequal balance of power, “the Air Defense units managed to improve their capabilities in other fields,” a likely reference to the development of the Houthi ballistic missile capabilities (Yemeni Press, June 28, 2018).

Conclusions

The initial Yemeni media reactions to the killing of al-Shami suggest that the initial divergences that had characterized his relationship with the Houthi movement resurfaced sometime in late 2018. Following the Saudi-coalition announcement, several Houthi-related media and social media accounts stated that al-Shami died in Sanaa as a result of a stroke, accusing the Saudi-led coalition of spreading false information (Aljadeedpress, January 17). Another account even suggested that al-Shami was removed from his post a few months before his death following a decision by Houthi leader Abdulmalik and was in the midst of a power struggle between two rival wings within the militia (Eremnews, January 17). The movement eventually acknowledged al-Shami’s death with an official statement, in which they did not make any reference to the exact circumstances (26Sep.net, January 17). Either way, al-Shami’s demise deprives the Houthi militia of a relevant and skilled military figure, who has enabled the movement to boost and refine its ballistic missile capabilities. His departure, however, is unlikely to have a significant impact on the militia’s intent and capacity to continue mounting ballistic missiles attacks, and will likely result in more military figures directly loyal to the Houthi movement stepping up to high-ranking positions.

Notes