US embassy cable - 05SANAA269

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 SANAA 000269 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/05/2015 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PARM, PTER, YM, COUNTER TERRORISM 
SUBJECT: COMBATING YEMEN'S GRAY MARKET IN SMALL ARMS AND 
LIGHT WEAPONS 
 
REF: A. STATE 04 169075 
     B. STATE 04 155749 
     C. STATE 04 153555 
     D. SANAA 04 2346 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Thomas C. Krajeski for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d 
). 
 
1. (S) Summary. Yemen has one of the highest per capita rates 
of small arms and light weapons (SA/LW) in the world.  It has 
been reported that, as a result of leakage or diversion, 
Yemeni weapons procured officially by the Ministry of Defense 
(MOD) have ended up in terrorist caches.  In the past year, 
Post demarched President Saleh and senior officials numerous 
times on ongoing negotiations by Yemeni arms dealers to buy 
large amounts of SA/LW that exceed any legitimate defense 
procurement strategy.  Our message has gone largely ignored. 
President Saleh and his top Generals use SA/LW as a currency 
to supplement personal fortune, dispense patronage to tribal 
leaders, compensate government officials, reward supporters, 
and appease potential contenders for power.  Arms procured 
legitimately through the MOD acquisitions are parceled out to 
dealers, tribes, and local bazaars that feed the illicit arms 
flow north by land across the Saudi border and south by sea 
to Somalia and the Horn. 
 
2. (S) Summary continued.  Since the forging of the 
U.S.-Yemen GWOT partnership, the ROYG has logged important 
cooperative and unilateral successes, the value of which 
should not be minimized.  Nevertheless, ROYG CT cooperation 
runs parallel to influxes of USG military and development 
assistance.  Any attempt to control the flow SA/LW into and 
through Yemen will be painful for Saleh who, to date, is 
convinced he can compensate for shortcomings in SA/LW 
control, with cooperation in other areas.  The intent of this 
message is to provide options to demonstrate otherwise -- 
that the ROYG's poor control of its SA/LW and the resulting 
proliferation into terrorist hands is incongruent with the 
U.S.-Yemen partnership.  Ultimately, the success of our CT 
cooperation with Yemen, and the seriousness of Saleh's 
friendship may well be tested.  End Summary. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
A Love of Weapons and A Tradition of Smuggling 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
3. (S) Neither weapons nor smuggling are considered taboo in 
Yemen's gun-loving culture.  Deputy Foreign Minister 
al-Dhabbi, for example, in response to demarche points on the 
dangerous proliferation of Yemeni SA/LW, cautioned that the 
right for households to own multiple AK-47s is as deeply 
entrenched as the right to bear arms is in the United States, 
and confided that he himself owns fourteen.  Smuggling is 
considered a legitimate and prestigious career, and most 
common goods and electronics found in Yemeni shops are 
smuggled from Saudi Arabia.  Ownership and smuggling of 
weapons are deeply rooted in Yemen's culture and provide 
Saleh with an effective currency to dispense patronage and to 
gain and maintain the loyalty of powerful tribal leaders, 
particularly those located in the northern region along the 
Saudi border who depend on income from arms smuggling. 
 
--------------------------------- 
An Acquisitions Process The Leaks 
--------------------------------- 
 
4. (S/NF) Yemen legitimately procures weapons through a list 
of about 29 certified, independent arms dealers who shop the 
world with open-ended end-user certificates EUCs to buy 
weapons on behalf of the Yemen MOD.  We are aware of numerous 
negotiations by such authorized brokers to purchase types and 
amounts of materiel that make no sense in terms of the size 
and requirements of the Yemen Armed Forces.  Many of these 
deals involved large quantities of small arms and ammunition 
in excess of any logical national defense requirements. 
(Note:  In August 2004, Yemeni traders attempted to buy 
SA-14s from Bulgaria (ref A).  This information was 
particularly alarming given that this weapon is favored by 
terrorists in attacks against civil aviation, and the fact 
that Saleh told visiting PM A/S Bloomfield that Yemen did not 
require this class of weapons for its national defense.  End 
Note). 
 
5. (S/NF) Everyone from President Saleh to high-level MOD 
officials, powerful generals, field commanders, and 
multitudes of tribal Sheikhs receive a cut from these 
'legitimate' arms sales.  We believe that only about 25 
percent of total weapons bought under Yemeni EUCs actual end 
up in official military stock, and that the arms broker's cut 
for each deal in an additional 25 percent.  The remaining 
weapons are skimmed by senior MOD officials, military 
commanders, and parceled out to the tribes, eventually making 
their way into the black and gray market. 
 
6. (S/NF) The 2003 Small Arms Survey placed the number of 
small arms in Yemen at six to nine million, many of which are 
fully-automatic assault rifles ideal for terrorist use. 
These are far more weapons that the 60,000-strong Yemen armed 
forces and other paramilitary and security forces reasonably 
require.  Nevertheless, last month a prominent Yemeni dealer 
with a long history of diversion was discovered to be in the 
final stages of negotiating a deal to buy 10,000 AKMs 
(kalishnikov family weapons) from Serbia and Montenegro. 
Given Yemen's grand-scale corruption, armed tribal society, 
and already large existing stocks of SA/LW loose in Yemen, 
there continues to be a high risk that Yemeni-origin arms are 
readily available to private users including terrorist 
organizations. 
 
---------------- 
A Motive to Act? 
---------------- 
 
7. (S/NF) In the past year, Post and visiting senior U.S. 
officials have argued to President Saleh that preventing 
terrorists from acquiring SA/LW is a key element in the 
U.S.-Yemen GWOT partnership.  There is some evidence that 
Saleh is beginning to see that a failure to better control 
the flow of SA/LW into and through Yemen could be dangerous 
to his regime.  Recent confrontations between security forces 
and tribesmen in the Marib region over the public carrying of 
weapons shows that the ROYG is making some effort to address 
this issue. 
 
8. (S/NF) Unexpectedly high casualties, and the difficulty of 
government security forces to quell quickly last summer's 
al-Houthi rebellion, shed new light on the dangers of a 
heavily armed society for Saleh.  The President was 
reportedly enraged to discover that al-Houthi's forces were 
better equipped with more advanced weapons than government 
troops.  It is also likely that Saleh now grasps the 
disastrous efforts on Yemen's international reputation and 
its aid prospects should Yemeni weapons be used in a major 
future terror attack.  Judging from his lack of action, 
however, it is clear that in Saleh's cost-benefit analysis, 
regulation of SA/LW constitutes the greater threat to his 
political future. 
 
9. (S/NF) Post has made clear that the USG is prepared to 
help with assistance in such areas as inventory control, 
border security, and defense acquisitions reform.  The ROYG 
has indeed responded to offers of assistance in developing 
the Yemen Coast Guard (YCG) and the Central Security 
Forces-Counter Terrorism Unit (CSF-CTU), both important CT 
assets that, given the political will, could be used to 
combat arms smuggling.  In areas where Saleh does not see a 
confluence of interests, cooperation is less than 
forthcoming.  For example, the Minister of Defense rejected 
500,000 USD in FMF funding to provide a defense inventory 
control system.  In the case of a major USG border security 
assistance program, the ROYG has refused to share CT-related 
information it garnered from USG provided technology. 
 
----------------------- 
Who Controls Licensing? 
----------------------- 
 
10. (S/NF)  In response to USG concerns about the reliability 
and validity of Yemeni end-user certificates (EUCs), in 2003 
the ROYG announced to visiting Ambassador Bodine and NSC 
Deputy Townsend a new policy to cancel all current EUCs and 
transfer the responsibility of issuance to the MFA (ref D). 
Although this is now official ROYG policy, there is no 
evidence that any licenses were actually canceled, and MFA 
involvement, to the extent it exists at all, is merely a 
rubber stamp.  Yemeni Embassies abroad, for example, are not 
allowed to have anything to do with arms procurement.  The 
ROYG has not responded to several attempts by Post to elicit 
a response to a non-paper requesting information on Yemen's 
arms import/export system (ref C). 
 
11. (S/NF) In an example of widespread corruption in the 
issuance of EUCs, Deputy Foreign Minister Mustafa Noman 
relayed an incident in which he received an envelope intended 
for the Deputy Foreign Minister for Administration.  Inside 
was an EUC for an MP who chairs the Human Rights Committee 
allowing him to purchase ammunition and ready for MFA 
signature. 
 
-------------------- 
Solutions: Long Term 
-------------------- 
 
12. (S) A Long term solution to the SA/LW problem in Yemen 
would require a comprehensive strategy including fully 
developed maritime and land border security and tight control 
on official weapons stocks.  Both these objectives present 
geographic and technical difficulties, ultimately 
surmountable with USG help.  A comprehensive strategy, 
however, is doomed to failure unless Saleh is convinced it is 
in his interest.  Denying the tribes their weapons requires a 
combination of cajoling, threatening and compensating for 
lost income.  Without such a plan, there remains a of 
instability, tribal warfare, and ultimately a breakdown of 
national unity.  Saleh will not develop the will to 
significantly alter course unless he is convinced that the 
cost of maintaining current practices outweighs the benefits 
currently being reaped. 
 
------------ 
U.S. Options 
------------ 
 
13. (S/NF) The ROYG is understandably fearful of a weapons 
embargo.  Imposing an arms embargo as a first step, however, 
lowers a heavy stick without having benefited first from its 
use as a deterrent. An embargo also runs counter to USG CT 
assistance programs in Yemen, focused currently on the 
training of the YCG and the CTF-CTU.  Both forces are 
equipped appropriately for their mission and are not major 
beneficiaries of weapons related corruption.  Particularly in 
terms of Maritime Security, the YCG is in a position to 
increasingly partner with CTJF-HOA's CTF-55 and CTF-150 in 
patrolling coastal waters and deterring and interdicting 
illicit weapons smuggling. 
 
14. (S/NF) To develop an arms embargo as a deterrent, the USG 
could demonstrate its willingness to shut down a deal, such 
as the Serbian deal for 10,000 AKMs, accompanied by a 
discussion with President Saleh on what has happened and why. 
 Ambassador might present information on another potential 
deal and test Saleh's resolve to turn it off before we do 
(having already demonstrated that the U.S. will follow 
through). In such a exchange it would be hard for Saleh to 
continue to claim plausible deniability, as he has in 
previous demarches on particular weapons deals. 
 
15. (S/NF) Interdiction of a ship smuggling illicit Yemeni 
SA/LW is another option to be pursued, with or without ROYG 
cooperation, by CTJF HOA.  Scrupulous enforcement of 
international regulations governing what constitutes legal 
cargo could be employed to convince the ROYG we will not 
stand by and watch dangerous and destabilizing diversions. 
If the ROYG fully cooperates, the YCG (which on paper already 
owns this mission) could become a partner in enforcement, 
especially after the completion of a comprehensive radar grid 
around Yemen's coastal waters and the establishment of a 
joint U.S.-Yemen ops center to monitor shipping in the 
straits.  Without ROYG cooperation, however, monitoring 
weapons smuggling whether by land or sea could prove a 
formidable, in not impossible task for the USG. 
 
16. (S) Final Comment: As a friend and ally in the GWOT, 
Yemen leaves much to be desired.  With a long history of 
fiercely independent tribes who thrive on smuggling and arms 
trades, Saleh has survived thus far by wheeling and dealing 
with friend and foe alike - a game he has mastered with 
remarkable skills.  Adapting to the demands of a new powerful 
friend, the USG, and the exigencies of globalization and the 
GWOT, require of him a serious change in perspective.  Our 
mission is to convince Saleh that his political well being 
requires that he adopt a brand new approach. 
Krajeski