A Yemeni soldier walks along the beach at Bin Ali, near the Balhaf Natural Gas facility and Emirati military base
Credit: Sam Tarling
“I haven’t seen a tourist on this beach in more than five years!” Hurrying across the white sand, his poly-blend grey suit glistening in the baking sunshine, Saeed al Kaladi extends his hand enthusiastically. “When I heard, I just had to come and see for myself.”
For Mr al Kaladi, 60, the sight of foreigners on the untouched beaches of Bir Ali, where the eastern edge of Yemen’s Shabwa governorate meets the Indian Ocean, is what he’s been praying for. His engineering firm is building a 65-villa resort on the shore, and aims to finish the complex by the end of next year. All he needs now is tourists.
In the midst of an ongoing conflict that has caused what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, the governorate of Shabwa in southern Yemen is enjoying a mini-boom.
For much of the last decade, it was a haven for Al-Qaeda, who thrived here in the chaos of Yemen’s civil war. Today, the streets of its capital, Ataq, are busy, the markets full, and new buildings are going up on every corner.
“The Ataq you see today and this city last summer are two different places,” says Shabwa’s Deputy Governor Abd Rabbo Hashleh, who proudly points out how visitors encounter only a few security checkpoints these days. Eighteen months ago, he says, there were dozens of them — all run by different groups.
Shabwa contrasts with most of Yemen, which is still riven by the civil war
Credit: Sam Tarling
Shabwa contrasts with most of Yemen, which is still riven by the civil war that erupted in late 2014, when Iran-aligned Houthi forces from the north stormed the capital, Sana’a and routed the government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.
A coalition led by Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia, has been fighting to restore Mr Hadi to power ever since, creating a proxy conflict that has claimed more than 100,000 lives and left millions homeless and starving.
The Houthis, meanwhile, have taken the war to Saudi Arabia, firing missile salvoes onto the kingdom’s oil facilities, including an attack on Monday on an oil plant in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
With neither side showing any sign of giving up, aid agencies predict that Yemen will be the poorest country on the planet by 2022.
Shabwa’s previous slide into lawlessness predated even the civil war. In 2009, it began to become a stronghold of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered by Western security officials to be one of the terror franchise’s most dangerous factions.
Among the AQAP leaders who found refuge in Shabwa’s remote valleys were the late Anwar al-Awlaki, the US-Yemeni preacher blamed for inspiring "lone wolf" attackers in the West, and Ibrahim al-Asiri, a master bomb-maker.
He armed the so-called "Underpants Bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a former student at University College London who tried to blow himself up in an airliner over the US on Christmas Day 2009.
Many here have dark memories of the early years of the civil war, when Shabwa faced intense fighting with both the Houthis and AQAP. "Only very few families stayed in Ataq during that period, most left if they could," says Hanan, the wife of Shabwa governor Mohammed Saleh bin Adio, sitting with her children in her private quarters at the couple’s heavily-guarded residence.
Members of Shabwa province's nine main tribes gather for an evening meal in the desert outside of Ataq
Credit: Sam Tarling
The tide began to turn in 2016, when Saudi Arabia’s ally in the war, the United Arab Emirates, oversaw the formation of a new local force, the Shabwani Elite Forces.
They were far better equipped than the Yemeni army, had air support from the Emiratis and the US, and were recruited from Shabwa locals who knew the area well and had tribal ties.
After a protracted period of clashes — and according to some reports, discreet pay-offs — AQAP was pushed back into neighbouring Abyan province.
Locals say it is a battle that Yemen’s dislodged central government, whose forces are fighting on multiple fronts and whose president, Mr Hadi — in exile in Riyadh — could not have won alone.
Indeed, while Mr Hadi is still recognised internationally as Yemen’s president, his writ barely runs. After being ousted from Sana’a, his administration rebased itself in Yemen’s southern capital, Aden, only to be forced out last year by yet another armed faction, the Southern Transitional Council, who want Southern Yemen to become independent.
That has allowed Shabwa’s governor, Mr bin Adio, who remains loyal to Mr Hadi, to negotiate the terms a little. He has insisted that 20 per cent of revenues from oil production in Shabwa go straight to the governorate, allowing him some autonomy.
His office has used the money, he says, to rebuild government services, improving the electricity capacity in Ataq and piping water to rural areas which “haven’t seen a drop in years,” according to his team.
Soldiers walk through the development of beachfront properties by the Shabwa Bride Company, at Bir Ali beach
Credit: Sam Tarling
Mr bin Adio acknowledges that the terror threat has not been eradicated entirely — a car bomb hit an Emirati convoy during the week of The Telegraph’s visit — but insists his zero-tolerance policy to militants is a strong deterrent. “When the state is absent, anything can happen,” he says. “But now that they know we are alert, they don’t even try.”
Some see Shabwa as the blueprint for a united, federalised Yemen, where provinces can cater to local traditions and tribal allegiances, while remaining loyal to central government and contributing troops to a national army.
But the potential for unrest is still there. Many residents still suspect the oil money either lines the pockets of local officials or goes disproportionately to central government — grievances that both al-Qaeda and the southern separatists have long played on.
Among many projects underway are the construction of brand new highways and a small airport — potentially giving Shabwa its own links to the wider world, and bringing in the foreign visitors that Mr al Kaladi, the resort builder, is hoping for.
Southern Yemen did used to have a tourism industry, catering partly to foreign oil workers, partly to Yemenis from the north, and partly to Westerners keen to see old cities such as Aden.
“Before, they came here from so many countries,” Mr al Kaladi added, in a voice laden with nostalgia. “Shabwa is at peace now; they will come again."
Those good old days, though, were now nearly 20 years ago. And as long as the calm in Shabwa remains fragile, and war continues to rage elsewhere, few would bet on his new resort getting booked up very soon.
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