2007 - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (21 page)

Lay them down and bury them beside their son, their husband, their brother. Then together they will be a testament to the anger of Abu Abdullah, the righteous anger he feels against those who fail him, my brother Essad.

Then, find the sheikh. We learn that tomorrow he comes to the Yemen. Now he is in his own country and yours. There need be no more mistakes concerning Scottish tribal dress.

You know his tribe. There are brothers who live amongst them who know us and love us and are faithful to Abu

Abdullah. Find the sheikh, and do what was instructed, and do it soon.

We ask God to lead you to the good of this life. We ask God to lead you, and we hope it may not be sooner than was first ordained, to the good of the afterlife.

Peace be upon you and God’s mercy and blessings.

Tariq Anwar

From:

Essad

Date:

28 October

To:

Tariq Anwar

Folder:

Incoming mail from Yemen

Dear Brother,

Peace be upon you and the blessings of God be with you. We have searched for the goatherd. He is gone and so is his family. We think the sheikh has hidden them in the jebel. We have started our operation against the sheikh. And we have a man close to his household who loves us, and who loves and respects Abu Abdullah. He will find the goatherd for us, and he will help us to do what is necessary to the sheikh.

Ask Abu Abdullah to be patient. We must move without haste and yet without delay. We must make our move with great care. The sheikh is a dangerous foe, but not as dangerous, nor as powerful, nor as cunning,
nor as merciful
as Abu Abdullah.

We pray for your understanding and patience in this matter.

Essad

From:

Tariq Anwar

Date:

28 October

To:

Essad

Folder:

Outgoing mail to Yemen

Essad,

Describe your plan.

Tariq Anwar

From:

Essad

Date:

28 October

To:

Tariq Anwar

Folder:

Incoming mail from Yemen

I send you my respectful greetings.

One of the sheikh’s bodyguards was sent to Scotland to be taught how to fish for salmon. This he does not regard as suitable to his rank and family, having always believed that fishing was done by peasants who live in huts by the sea, and moreover he believes that fishing is not an occupation worthy of a family descended from the warriors who rode with Muhammad to Mecca nearly one and one half thousand years ago.

Furthermore he considers he has been deeply insulted by the Scottish bodyservant of the sheikh, the chief fishing teacher who is called Colin. Colin has told this man that we know of that he holds his fishing rod ‘like a big girl’. This is an insult which may or may not be a killing matter in Scotland but it is certainly a killing matter here. So this man will kill the sheikh for us. Now we are discussing with him the
diyah
we must pay his family when he is dead. Please indicate what operational funds are available for the
diyah
. More we will reveal in due course as the plan is developed.

Peace be upon you, and the blessings of God.

Essad

Extract from
Hansard

House of Commons

Thursday 10
th
November

(
Mr Speaker in the Chair
)

Oral or Written Questions for Answer

Written Answers

Mr Charles Capet (Rutland South) (Con):

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence for what reason he instructed that a six-man team, commanded by Captain R. Matthews of 41 Commando (RM), be sent into western Iran.

The Secretary of State (Mr John Davidson)
[holding answer]
:

No elements of the battlegroup of which 41 Commando forms part are currently deployed anywhere except within the territorial boundaries of Iraq excluding those elements which have been rotated back to the UK for post-operational tour leave.

Mr Charles Capet:

To ask the Secretary of State to confirm the specific whereabouts of Captain R. Matthews of 41 Commando (RM) at this date, if he is not in Iran. To ask if Captain Matthews is, in fact, in Iran, as information laid before us clearly indicates, what plans exist for extracting him and his team?

The Secretary of State:

It has never been the policy of this government, or any other government, to comment on operational details of the deployment of units which might now, or in the future, compromise the security of those units. It is therefore the case that we cannot comment on the whereabouts now, or in the future, of the individual named. It is certainly the case that this government has a strict policy of non-interference in the affairs of sovereign states such as Iran, and therefore in no circumstances would a unit of 41 Commando (RM) have been deployed outside the territorial boundaries of Iraq where all armed forces units currently so deployed are operating with the sanction of appropriate UN resolutions. It follows, therefore, that the individual named could not be in Iran since there is no legal sanction for any units to be in Iran.

Mr Charles Capet:

To ask the Secretary of State if it is possible that Captain Robert Matthews and his unit may have unintentionally strayed into Iranian territory whilst on legitimate duties inside Iraq close to the border, and in the region of Lake Qal al’ Dizah? If this should be the case what procedures exist for ensuring the safe return of units in these circumstances?

The Secretary of State
[holding answer]
:

We have not been advised of any accidental incursions but will continue to look into the matter as requested and will report to the House as and when any new information on this matter becomes available.

Extracts from the diary of Dr Jones: he visits the Yemen

Friday 18 November

We are here in the Yemen at last.

The landscapes are breathtaking—towering cliffs that are ochre in the sunlight and purple in the shade, wadis slashed as if with a giant knife cutting thousands of feet between sheer rock walls, with an occasional thread of water at the bottom surrounded by date palm, gravel plains that are an endless expanse of dun, marked here and there by the white crust of the
sebkhas
where moisture beneath the sand leaches salt to the surface. These are dangerous places where a vehicle might sink if driven across them. On one trip we caught tantalising glimpses of a sea of sand: the beginning of the Empty Quarter, a quarter of a million square miles of uninhabited desert.

And the towns are as wonderful as the desert. From the desert, driving towards a town through the haze and dust, it as if one is approaching Manhattan: many-storeyed tower houses white with gypsum that from a distance look like skyscrapers poke above the walls of ancient fortifications or seem to totter on the edge of brown cliffs. They are beautiful and unlike anything I have ever seen or heard of. Once one is in a town it is a din of shouting voices, a riot of colour, unimaginable smells of drains and spices, and then you turn the corner and there is a garden, hidden away behind the houses.

We spent the first few days here staying in one of the sheikh’s houses outside Sana’a, or touring the country in a convoy of his huge air-conditioned Toyota Land Cruisers. He wants us to get to know his country a little before we travel into the mountains. In the Empty Quarter we saw the beginnings of the dunes, an endless landscape of sculpted sand, dunes like low hills, dunes like long fingers, which shift and change endlessly so that no track through them ever lasts for more than a few minutes before it is obliterated in the restless wind that stings one’s skin with grains of sand.

We drove into the mountains along crumbling tracks of loose gravel, always with a precipitous slope on one side, lurching up steep winding roads along which it seemed impossible from below that any vehicle could travel. We found tiny villages, perched at the foot of great cliffs and in permanent shadow, where a few herdsmen lived tending their goats. We saw deep pools of water coloured an unearthly blue-green, oases where date palms fringed the water’s edge, and where brown-skinned boys in their coloured
futahs
, a sort of skirt wrapped around like a sarong, jumped in and out of the water.

Once we were stopped as we approached a tented encampment of Beduin by armed tribesmen gesturing with their rifles. The driver of the lead vehicle of our convoy of three stopped some way from them and got out. He bent to pick up some sand, then stood and let it run through his fingers, and showed his empty hand, palm out, to the Beduin.

‘He shows that he has no weapon,’ remarked our driver to Harriet and me.

‘But hasn’t he a weapon?’ I asked, thinking of the rifles I had seen lying on the floor of one of the vehicles.

‘Yes, of course. Everyone has guns here. But he doesn’t show his gun. He says he comes in peace.’

The Beduin let us approach their tents and Harriet and I breathed more easily. I remember we dismounted and drank cardamom-flavoured coffee with them from tiny cups, sitting on a carpet under the roof of a tent with three sides.

I am overwhelmed by this country. It is so beautiful, in a savage way, especially in the mountains of Heraz, where the sheikh lives most of the time when he is not in Glen Tulloch. The people are like the country, crowding around one in the souks or even just in the streets.

‘Britani? You Engleesh? I speek little Engleesh? Manchester United? Good? Yes?’ And one smiles and says something or other, like the phrase the sheikh taught us: ‘
Al-Yemen balad jameel
’ (The Yemen is a beautiful country).

And they nod back and smile, delighted to hear any word of their own language spoken even if they do not understand what you are trying to say, as friendly as could be. At the same time there is a sense that the friendliness could turn in a heartbeat to violence if they thought you were an enemy.

I worry about Harriet. She is her usual calm, cheerful self for most of the time, then in a moment her face becomes pinched and white, and she is silent. She must be worrying about her soldier. Maybe something has happened. I should ask. I haven’t asked.

We stayed in the sheikh’s house outside Sana’a for ten days. It was a comfortable house with every modern convenience, large, airy and cool inside. It did not have much character. The sheikh explained to us that this was his ‘official’ residence, for when he came to Sana’a on rare visits for business and politics. During those days in Sana’a he was busy, and so we were given a glimpse of the country by his drivers.

Once Harriet and I borrowed a car and drove ourselves around for a while. We went into Sana’a and saw the old city, with its riot of grey and white houses with their curious arched windows and towered storeys. We visited the spice souk, where great bowls of saffron and cumin and frankincense, and every other possible spice, were set out on display. We saw through the entrance to a
diwan
, where men reclined on cushions chewing khat, exchanging gossip or dreaming of Paradise. But we didn’t have the courage to go into any of the local restaurants. I didn’t know if Harriet was allowed to enter those places, which seemed populated only by men. In the end we went to one of the Western-style hotels on the ring road. Here the twenty-first-century world intruded itself, with piped music, beer being drunk in the bar by engineers back from the oilfields, and a few tourists. We had a late lunch—a plastic-tasting Caesar salad—and drank a glass of white wine each because we didn’t know when we would get our next alcoholic drink. The sheikh might permit drink in Scotland and even have a glass of whisky himself when he was there, but there was no question of his doing so here.

I tried to take Harriet out of her mood of abstraction, and talked about the places and the people we had seen since we arrived here, but although she attempted to keep up the conversation I could see it was an effort.

Then we drove back to the sheikh’s house. As we passed through the villages along the edge of town, the call for prayer sounded from a hundred minarets, the faithful lined up to wash themselves in the communal baths outside the mosques, and then, leaving their sandals and shoes outside, went in to prayer. There were mosques everywhere, their domes vivid blue or green, with the symbol of the crescent etched against the darkening blue sky. Everyone was at prayer, it seemed to me, a whole people five times a day praying as naturally as breathing.

In this country faith is absolute and universal. The choice, if there is a choice, is made at birth. Everyone believes. For these people, God is a near neighbour.

I thought of Sundays at home when I was a child, buttoned up in an uncomfortable tweed jacket and forced to go to Sunday communion. I remember mouthing the hymns without really singing, peering between my fingers at the rest of the congregation when I was supposed to be praying, twisting in my seat during the sermon, aching with impatience for the whole boring ritual to be over.

I can’t remember when I last went to church. I must have been since Mary and I were married but I can’t remember when.

I don’t know anyone who does go to church now. It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? I know I live amongst scientists and civil servants, and Mary’s friends are all bankers or economists, so perhaps we are not typical. You still see people coming out of church on Sunday morning, chatting on the steps, shaking hands with the vicar, as you drive past on your way to get the Sunday papers, relieved you are too old now to be told to go. But no one I know goes any more. We never talk about it. We never think about it. I cannot easily remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer.

We have moved on from religion.

Instead of going to church, which would never occur to us, Mary and I go to Tesco together on Sundays. At least, that is what we did when she still lived in London. We never have time to shop during the week and Saturdays are too busy. But on Sunday our local Tesco is just quiet enough to get round without being hit in the ankles all the time by other people’s shopping carts.