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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sat Jan 02 2010 - 07:19:41 EST
Yemen's multiple wars - A growing worry for the West
Dec 30th 2009 | CAIRO
From The Economist print edition
A tribal rebellion in the north and al-Qaeda elsewhere are jangling nerves
STRUGGLING to fend off many threats, Yemen's government has looked
increasingly beleaguered. Yet over the past few weeks it has taken the
initiative, scoring what amounts to a hat trick. In concert with
neighbouring Saudi Arabia, Yemen's air force has hammered rebellious
tribesmen in the north. Some reports claim that the leader of the uprising,
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, was among those who have been killed. Security forces
have also raided al-Qaeda targets in the south and centre of the country,
killing several commanders and arresting others, in their most sustained
offensive yet against the jihadists.
That campaign parried a third dangerous challenge. Foreign donors have
grumbled that their crucial support for the government has not been matched
by action, even as evidence accumulates that Yemen's rugged fringes have
become a secure base for jihadist terrorism. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the
Nigerian student who tried to down an American airliner with explosive
underpants on Christmas Day, had been in Yemen since August. Al-Qaeda's
local affiliate claimed responsibility for his failed attack.
Yet in the context of Yemen's complex politics, all these apparent gains
come with caveats. Despite the army's superior firepower and help from the
far better-armed Saudis, little headway appears to have been made on the
ground in the north. The Houthi rebels, an alliance of tribesmen who
complain of state neglect and discrimination against the minority Zaydi Shia
sect, have pressed their claims in a bitter, five-year-long guerrilla war
that has generated more than 175,000 refugees.
The involvement of Saudi Arabia, a regional Sunni power whose dominance
Yemenis tend to resent, simply adds to their grievances. Some Yemeni
commentators, meanwhile, worry that a mooted ceasefire, whose terms Mr
Houthi had apparently agreed on, could be postponed by his
as-yet-unconfirmed demise. Others in the region fear that the Saudi
intervention may draw the Iranians indirectly into the fray; they have
already been accused, so far without independent corroboration, of arming
and financing the Houthis.
Clobbering the jihadists
Bolder action against al-Qaeda may, however, have produced more solid gains.
The government claims that five separate raids, including air attacks on
December 17th against an alleged training camp in Abyan province and others
on December 22nd and 24th that targeted jihadist conclaves in Shabwa
province, have killed at least 60 fighters. Its says a further 29 are now in
custody, including members of a suicide cell that had planned to hit the
British embassy. Several of the alleged al-Qaeda people killed in the
bombing raids belonged to the Awlaki tribe, so were kinsmen of Anwar
al-Awlaki, a fugitive American-born Yemeni preacher who is accused of
inspiring a killing spree by a Muslim American major in Texas in November.
These are big blows to al-Qaeda, considering that Yemen itself has, by the
government's own tally, suffered some 61 al-Qaeda attacks since 1992. Until
recently, the state had shied from all-out conflict with the jihadists,
adopting instead a carrot-and-stick approach that created such
embarrassments as the suspiciously easy escape of 23 al-Qaeda convicts from
a maximum-security prison in 2006. But early last year the group's Saudi
branch, many of whose members had fled to safety in Yemen, formally accepted
Yemeni leadership under a new name: al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Since
then it has launched numerous small-scale attacks against Yemeni security
forces and has struck in Saudi Arabia too. And it appears to have secured
tribal protection as well as some political backing from groups in southern
Yemen which demand a repartition of the country, which was formed from two
chunks in 1990.
Yet though the offensive against al-Qaeda shows a new determination, it also
carries risks. America has admitted to providing only intelligence and
logistical support for the bombing raids. But local witnesses say they have
also sighted American drone aircraft or cruise missiles. As in Pakistan,
reports of foreign interference anger many locals, particularly since women
and children were among the victims of the Abyan raid. The south of the
country, which contains oil and gas, is already roiled by unrest. So further
fighting against al-Qaeda could provoke a wider civil conflict, which in
turn could undermine a regime that has rattled many of its own people by
throwing in its lot with the West.
