Yemen's Terror Problem

[Merlin]

Islamist web sites urge jihadists to head to Yemen.

Yemen's Terror Problem

22 May [WSJ] In recent months, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland of Yemen has come into its own as al Qaeda's safe haven on the Arabian peninsula. Now a U.S. court and the Obama Administration may send a batch of potential terrorists there. ...

Only Pakistan's tribal regions rival Yemen as a terrorist Shangri-La. As al Qaeda suffered setbacks in Saudi Arabia and post-surge Iraq, Islamist Web sites urged jihadis to head to Yemen. Three unruly tribal provinces bordering Saudi Arabia -- a so-called triangle of evil -- and active insurgencies in the north and south make the country of 22 million a good sanctuary.

The root of the problem is the government's tacit non-aggression pact with al Qaeda. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh tells American officials he can't push too hard, and for too long the U.S. has indulged him. The Saudis used to play this same double game. Then al Qaeda attacks killed some 200 people and jolted them into a crackdown. The Kingdom has been free of terrorist violence for the past three years.

But the threat is now regathering in Yemen. In 2002, a CIA Hellfire missile took out Abu Ali al-Harithi, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen. His replacement was also captured, but then the government backed off. ...

[Merlin]

The CIA deputy director is visiting Yemen to discuss 'the fate of some 100 Yemen detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay'. His visit is also because Yemen 'has re-emerged as a potential base for al Qaeda'.

CIA deputy chief in Yemen for talks on al-Qaida

28 May SAN'A, Yemen (AP) — The CIA deputy director coordinated with Yemen's president Thursday on fighting al-Qaida and also discussed the fate of some 100 Yemeni detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay.

Stephen Kappes made an unannounced visit to the country to meet President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the southern city of Taiz, about 170 miles south of the capital San'a. Saleh's office said they discussed security cooperation and combatting terrorism.

The impoverished country on the tip of the Arabian peninsula, a U.S. partner in the fight against terrorism, has re-emerged as a potential base for al-Qaida. Two Saudi former Guantanamo detainees are believed to be leading Yemen's branch of al-Qaida.

The country has also been rocked by a recent flare-up of violence in the south, where separatist sentiment is mounting against the central government. Southerners accuse the central government of marginalization. The north and south fought a civil war in 1994.

Kappes and Saleh also talked about the fate of the Yemeni prisoners in Guantanamo, said security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. ....

[Merlin]

This occurs in N Yemen near the Saudi border, a stronghold of al Qaeda. While kidnapping of foreigners are common, most are later freed unharmed. This is different.

Briton feared dead as 7 hostages killed in Yemen

1 hr ago SANAA (AFP) — A British engineer was feared to be among seven foreign hostages, one of them a child, who were found murdered in northern Yemen on Monday, security officials said. ...

Two of the three children captured with the group were reportedly found alive. The bodies were found by the son of a tribal leader in Noshour, east of the volatile Saada mountainous area of northern Yemen where the nine were abducted, the official said. ....

The Yemeni authorities had accused Shiite Zaidi rebels in Saada of seizing seven Germans, a British engineer and a South Korean woman teacher. The rebels denied the charge.

The nine -- among them three German children and two women nurses -- belong to an international relief group that has been working at a hospital in Saada province bordering Saudi Arabia for 35 years, a local official said on Sunday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping, the latest in a string of abductions of foreigners in one of the poorest countries in the world. ....

Local sources said the group was a Christian Baptist organisation that also has a medical team in the hospital at Jebla, south of Sanaa, where an Islamist militant killed three American doctors in December 2002. ...

Foreigners are often kidnapped in Yemen for tribesmen to use as bargaining chips with the government over local disputes. More than 200 foreigners have been abducted over the past 15 years.

All have previously been freed unharmed, except for three Britons and an Australian seized by Islamist militants in December 1998 who were killed when security forces stormed the kidnappers' hideout.

[Merlin]

If these hostage killings have to do with al Qaeda, what is the significance of these violent acts? For getting international attention? For ransom?

Yemen hostage killings: the work of Al Qaeda?

15 June [CSMonitor] Yemeni officials pointed to Shiite rebels that have clashed with the government, but the operation is a marked departure from their style of hostage-taking.

Sanaa, Yemen - As many as nine foreign hostages, including Germans, a Briton, and a South Korean, have been found dead in the volatile region of Saada in northern Yemen today, according to news agency reports.

Yemeni authorities have accused a Shiite rebel group active in Saada, frequently referred to as the Houthis, of the kidnapping and murders. However, analysts say the incident isn't in line with typical Houthi hostage-taking, when foreigners are normally released unharmed. They instead point to Al Qaeda. ....

Al Qaeda strengthening in Yemen

Al Qaeda has increased its presence in Yemen over the past few years, carrying out a number of fatal attacks against foreigners and foreign institutions, including an attack on the US Embassy in Sanaa in September 2008.

"About two weeks ago, Al Qaeda threatened foreigners in Yemen ... [telling them] that they aren't protected by the Yemeni government," Mr. Johnsen explains.

No other group has claimed responsibility for the abductions and murders, and on their official website the Houthis have strongly denied carrying out the attacks. ....

[Merlin]

Al Qaeda can also move into Yemen in a big way.

INTERVIEW-Yemen could be "another Afghanistan" -EU official

ALGIERS, June 17 (Reuters) - Yemen is in danger of following Afghanistan down the path to becoming a safe haven for Islamist militants, the European Union's anti-terrorism chief said in an interview on Wednesday.

Three foreign women were found dead in Yemen this week after they were kidnapped by an armed group, heightening long-standing fears the country could slip into chaos and provide a launchpad for militant attacks.

Gilles de Kerchove, the EU's Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, said he had recommended that Yemen be ranked alongside Pakistan and the northern Sahara as regions that harbour threats to European interests. .....

Security analysts say they believe some al Qaeda militants, seeking new bases of operations after being squeezed out of Saudi Arabia and Iraq, are heading for Yemen.

The Arab world's poorest state, Yemen is already struggling with al Qaeda militancy, along with with tribal rivalries and secessionist sentiment in the south, home to most of the country's oil facilities.

If instability there deepens, al Qaeda could use it as a launching-pad for new attacks on neighbouring Saudi Arabia and further afield. Lawlessness in Yemen could also be exploited by pirates targeting shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden and the Horn of Africa. ....

[Merlin]

Heavy fighting with many deaths in N Yemen. Reported to be between the Sunni and Shite Muslims. But N Yemen is the stronghold of al Qaeda.

Yemeni troops 'kill 100 rebels'

23 Aug [BBC] Yemeni troops carrying out an offensive against Shia rebels in the north of the country claim to have killed more than 100 fighters, including two leaders.

The operation, involving air strikes, artillery and tanks, began two weeks ago, aimed at crushing the rebels and recapturing the town of Harf .Sufyan. ...

The rebels, from the Zaidi Shia sect, want the restoration of Shia rule in the north of Yemen, which is mainly Sunni.

Yemen's president has accused the rebels of trying to overthrow the government.

[Merlin]

US is putting on the pressure. But Yemen is not responding seriously.

US fears Yemen next staging ground for al-Qaida

15 hrs ago [AP] WASHINGTON — American authorities are pressuring Yemen to counter a rising internal al-Qaida threat more aggressively and improve intelligence-sharing amid growing worries that the country could become the next significant terrorist staging ground.

As insurgent attacks have spiked in the embattled Middle East nation over the past year, the U.S. has bolstered counterterrorism training there, including efforts to shore up Yemen's borders and combat terror financing and arms trafficking.

Al-Qaida's increased strength at organizing and training new recruits in Yemen's vast ungoverned spaces has also led the U.S. to consider boosting financial aid and sales of military equipment to Yemen's government.

Shari Villarosa, senior State Department counterterrorism adviser, said that the security situation in Yemen has "deteriorated significantly" and that the Yemeni government's political will to battle al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations has shifted at times. ....

About a week after U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, met with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh late last month, Yemeni forces launched anti-terrorist operations in a tribal area known as an al-Qaida safe haven.

But that operation was short-lived, as Yemeni forces were diverted days later in a protracted fight against Shiite rebels in the north — a battle that continues to escalate. ...

Al-Qaida's operatives in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged early this year to become al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, a move that U.S. intelligence officials said was followed by more recruiting and efforts by those operatives — mostly unsuccessful — to cross the border from Yemen into Saudi Arabia.

AQAP has also made it clear in communications through the Internet and by other means that it intends to target Western interests across the Arabian peninsula. ...

Defense and counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence reports, said they have seen evidence of lower-level al-Qaida operatives moving into Yemen from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Just a few months ago, an audio message, reportedly from al-Qaida leader Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi, urged Yemeni citizens to unite and fight the government. A former close aide to Osama bin Laden, al-Wahishi escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006, and has emerged as a leader of AQAP. .....

[Merlin]

Warnings after warnings that al Qaeda is moving in. This concerns the US and the neighbors. It is not of much concern to the government.

Yemen's instability could draw regional players into fray

27 Aug [CSMonitor] The impoverished country's battles against Shiite rebels and a growing Al Qaeda threat have heightened tensions between Sunni and Shiite neighbors in the region.

By the standards of terrorism and security, Yemen has a lot to worry about: an explosive Shiite insurgency in the north and a war with Al Qaeda brewing in the south.

How one of the Middle East's poorest and most unstable countries resolves these conflicts has implications for the entire region, observers say, for its sectarian strife is already heightening tensions between Sunni and Shiite neighbors in the region.

The government has launched fierce attacks against the Shiite rebels in the north, known as the Houthis, in the last month, but has failed to defeat them. Yemen's president vowed Wednesday to crush the Houthis quickly, saying reinforcements would be sent to the rebel stronghold of Saada Province after fighting that has killed hundreds and displaced thousands, Reuters reports.

As the government has struggled to contain the north, Al Qaeda is benefiting from the chaos, observers say. A new report on Al Qaeda in Yemen from the Middle East Institute in Moscow warns that Yemen has become a strategic hub for Al Qaeda, reports the Yemen Post. The terrorist organization has strengthened its position in Yemen, the report says, and has turned the ungoverned spaces of the country into a transport hub for fighters going to conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and East Africa.

A month ago The Christian Science Monitor warned:

The Yemeni and Saudi branches of Al Qaeda merged in January this year, prompting the US director of National Intelligence to say that Yemen was "reemerging as a jihadist battleground and potential regional base of operations for Al Qaeda."

Editorials published around the region are warning that Yemen's mess is already pulling regional nations in to the fray. Nasser Arrabayee writes in Cairo's Al Ahram:

The armed conflict in Yemen is also connected to a wider political conflict in the region. After the outbreak of the conflict, Iran accused Saudi Arabia of participating in air strikes against the Shia rebels, who are also accused by the Yemeni government of receiving support from Iran.

Mr. Arrabayee quotes Najeeb Ghallab, a political analyst at Sanaa University:

"Any threat to the Yemeni state will also threaten Saudi Arabia, the only force that can confront Iran. Iran therefore has an interest in promoting threats to Yemen." ....

[Merlin]

They have started a high-profile operation in neighboring Saudi Arabia. It bombed, although unsuccessfully, the security chief who is a Prince.

ANALYSIS-Saudi attack evokes fears of Yemen-based militancy

BEIRUT, Aug 29 (Reuters) - An attempt to assassinate Saudi Arabia's security chief, who is a prominent member of the royal family, appears to mark a new tactic by an al Qaeda network that is exploiting worsening instability in neighbouring Yemen.

A suicide bomber posing as a repentant militant failed to kill Prince Mohammed bin Nayef at his Jeddah office on Thursday in the first known attack on a Saudi royal since al Qaeda began a bloody campaign in the world's top oil exporter in 2003. ....

The Saudi and Yemeni branches of al Qaeda merged early this year to form AQAP. They regrouped in Yemen following a vigorous counter-terrorism campaign led by Prince Mohammed, deputy interior minister, that badly damaged militants in Saudi Arabia.

AQAP is led by a Yemeni, Nasser al-Wahayshi, but it named as commanders two Saudis freed from the U.S. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay who had later graduated from Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation scheme for militants -- run by Prince Mohammed. ...

The attack on Prince Mohammed, a son of the interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz, who is seen as next in line to be named crown prince, was claimed by AQAP and may have been a gambit to show muscle behind its ambitious rhetoric. ....

Earlier this month Saudi authorities announced the arrest of 44 militants and the seizure of explosives, detonators and guns.

In April the Saudis said they had intercepted 11 militants with arms caches near the Yemeni border.

[Merlin]

After Afghanistan, there is Yemen.

Obama tells Yemen its security 'vital for US'

14 hrs ago [AFP] SANAA — US President Barack Obama has told Yemen that its security is vital for that of the United States and has pledged to help the country's development, Saba news agency said on Monday.

"The security of Yemen is vital for the security of the United States," he said in a letter delivered to President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Sunday by John Bernnan, Assistant for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism.

Obama also said that the United States will adopt a new initiative to help Yemen in "confronting development challenges and supporting reform efforts" along with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, donor states and the Gulf Cooperation Council, according to Saba. ...

Yemen has witnessed a number of attacks claimed by Al-Qaeda against foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.

[Merlin]

Saudi Arabia and Iran are likely fighting a proxy war there. Yemen, the poorest Arab country, and next to Saudi, is degenerating into a failed state. The US may be forced to intervene. Al Qaeda has some militants there.

US risks being sucked into Yemen civil war

Tens of thousands of refugees are fleeing a vicious civil war that threatens to turn the key Arab peninsula state of Yemen into a terrorist stronghold and to suck the US into another sensitive conflict zone

10 Sept [Telegraph] The Yemeni government is to try to subdue a rebel Shia army in the north of the country. But its assault is meeting fierce resistance, with the Yemeni air force staging desperate forays to pound the rebels into submission.

International observers fear that even if the US, a long-term ally, can stay aloof, the conflict might be subsumed in a regional war by proxy.

Saudi Arabia helps to finance the government, partly out of fear of its own Shia minority and terrorist elements. The government accuses Iran, which is ruled by a Shia theocracy, of backing the rebels with money and arms, though it has produced no hard evidence.

The government launched a full-scale assault on the rebel stronghold in Saada province last month. Since then, 25,000 refugees have registered with the United Nations refugee agency, but diplomats say as many as 100,000 people may have been displaced by the fighting.

Whole villages are on the move, according to the World Food Programme (WFP), with thousands of people caught in a pocket between the fighting and the Saudi border.

About 35,000 have fled to Saada city, only to find themselves taking refuge in houses under constant shell fire. ....

One analyst warned that the United States might be forced to intervene as the security situation worsened to prevent Yemen becoming a "failed state".

The country has been used as an al-Qaeda base before, and its strategic location between the oil supply routes of the Gulf and the piracy haven of Somalia means its stability is regarded as a key western interest. ....

President Barack Obama sent a letter this week to President Ali Abdullah Saleh pledging to "stand beside Yemen, its unity, security and stability".

"The security of Yemen is vital for the security of the United States," he said.

Previously, the US had urged a return to the negotiating table.

Any American intervention would risk opening a new front in its hostile relationship with Iran, whose rise to power is increasingly feared by Gulf Arab countries, several of which also have Shia minorities.

The rebellion started as a minor conflict with a local tribe, the al-Houthis. But after its leader was killed in 2004, the insurrection, rather than disappearing, began to spread.

The al-Houthis are followers of a moderate Shia sect known as Zaidi, and their followers are now calling for the return of the so-called Zaidi caliphate which ran Yemen until 1962.

A ceasefire broke down earlier this year, leaving the government facing a double conflict against the Houthis in the north and al-Qaeda groupings throughout the country.

The Houthis were also accused of a string of kidnaps, including of a British engineer who is still being held.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world, and since reunification of its northern and southern halves in the nineties it has been mired in both tribal and sectarian strife.

The civil war in the north is also seen as distracting the government from political and economic reforms needed to lift it out of poverty.

Diplomats say there is little evidence of active Saudi and Iranian involvement in the fighting itself. One described a claim that Saudi aircraft had joined in the bombardment of Saada as "far-fetched". ....

[Kernow]

Yemen has always been a 'Hot-Bed' of violence. It attempted back in the 70s' to take Oman; but the Sultan called on Britain for help (Dhofar War). I believe it was Communism back then though.

[Merlin]

The difference now is that al Qaeda militants are coming into Yemen. There is even romour that Osama B L may have slipped back here where he is very much at home.

Do you agree where ever al Qaeda and Osama B L go, the US forces will soon have to follow.

[Kernow]

The difference now is that al Qaeda militants are coming into Yemen. There is even romour that Osama B L may have slipped back here where he is very much at home.

Do you agree where ever al Qaeda and Osama B L go, the US forces will soon have to follow.

They couldn't do, far to stretched at the moment. They would be in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan etc.

[Merlin]

They couldn't do, far to stretched at the moment. They would be in Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan etc.

That is the point. I think the top people in al Qaeda know this.