FEATURE-Wary Yemen refugees returning to former Qaeda-run towns
Wed Oct 17, 2012 2:00pm GMT
By Andrew Hammond
JAAR, Yemen Oct 17 (Reuters) - Yemenis who fled the fighting after al Qaeda
militants occupied their home towns are now under pressure to go home, but
many are hesitating for fear of the group's lingering influence despite
assurances that the area east of Aden is now safe.
Around 150,000 people left Jaar and Zinjibar after militants calling
themselves the Ansar al-Sharia swept in between March and May 2011, taking
advantage of a security vacuum during an uprising against then-President Ali
Abdullah Saleh.
After Saleh stepped down in February, the army was gradually able to remove
the militants with the help of U.S. forces firing missiles from air and sea.
"We had the army on one side and al Qaeda on the other and our house was in
the middle," said Ali Yousef al-Qarnabi, the head of one of 11 families left
in the scruffy yard of the Balqees school in Yemen's main port of Aden.
"In the afternoon, they bombed houses with shells and we fled. We left
everything, we just left with the clothes we were wearing and ran," said the
father of three.
Of the around 70,000 who sought refuge in Aden, some 30,000 remain, most of
them camped out in schools that want them to leave so they can reopen.
The refugees are resisting, however. They say that many of their homes are
still in ruins and al Qaeda militants are still operating in their
communities, making the resumption of hostilities possible at any time.
Since Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was formed by Saudi and Yemeni
militants in 2007, the group has carried out suicide attacks against Western
tourists and foreign officials, sent a bomber into Saudi Arabia in a bid to
kill a senior prince and tried to send explosive packages on planes bound
for the United States.
The uprising marked the first time they had seized territory. During their
brief period of control, they ran Jaar and Zinjibar, two adjacent towns in
Abyan province, as Islamic "emirates" under sharia law.
Government officials say the area has now been cleared of Al Qaeda and is
safe.
But locals say militants have joined the "popular committees" formed last
year by local tribes to help keep them out. The committees have taken over
security in the towns while the army mans only distant entry points outside.
One committee member in Jaar, who gave his name as Mahjoub, said some Ansar
al-Sharia members who negotiated surrenders with the military in exchange
for their lives remained in the town.
Residents were right to be afraid, Mahjoub said.
"A lot of people here hated them for ruling them by force, and for specific
misdeeds some of them committed while they were here," he said.
"Now you see the same faces of people who are supposedly wanted as (al
Qaeda) leaders but running checkpoints ... You'll see Ansar al-Sharia or
something with another name here again."
STRAIN ON ADEN
The strain the displaced population placed on Aden, a sprawling city of two
million, has been considerable. Of 140 schools, 80 were commandeered for the
refugees and of those around half are still occupied. Until the refugees go
back home, children are crowding into the schools that can open.
Aden governor Waheed Rasheed said the refugees left the schools in a mess.
"They destroyed everything in the schools, they took fans and pulled out
electric fittings," Rasheed said.
Aid groups and refugees said the authorities were applying indirect pressure
by cutting back on food rations and other assistance.
"I can't stand living here in Aden any more," says Fatoum Ahsan Mohammed, an
angry mother of five living in the Balqees school.
"We're not getting enough to feed a family here," she says, pointing to
three children with her. "If the government just gives me pots and pans or
even a tent to live in, I'll go. It's much cheaper than it is here."
An aid worker concurred, asking not to be identified because he did not want
to openly criticise the government.
"They started cutting water and electricity from some schools, and they
stopped paying rations in the last two weeks to pressure them ahead of
school season," he said.
"But it's a questionable situation. Citizens are concerned about the popular
committees. Some are not from there and they could start imposing (Islamist)
rules again."
RUINED TOWNS REVIVE
Inside Jaar, an agricultural town just inland from coastal Zinjibar famed
for its bananas, checkpoints are manned by the volunteer militia.
Many buildings, including mosques, stand half destroyed or covered in bullet
holes. Cars still lie overturned or burnt out on the roads, casualties of
the missile strikes to oust the militants.
"They were bombing buildings around us all the time, from the air, usually
at night. They bombed this," said Mohammed Abdullah, a teenaged member of a
popular committee, driving past a local government building the militants
used as a headquarters.
He said several hundred militants had occupied the town, including what
local residents believed were Egyptians, Somalis, Saudis and Chechens, under
the leadership of a Yemeni named Galal Bil-Eidy.
The black-and-white flag known as the flag of al Qaeda remained on some
walls, but life was clearly returning to normal.
The destruction was worse in Zinjibar. In a bloody fight to win back the
city, buildings were reduced to rubble and militants planted mines before
they finally fled or were killed, making driving or walking off-road
hazardous.
There is no electricity or water, and residents say the main pipe network is
too badly damaged to be used again.
In a windswept building along the sea, the new governor of Abyan province
Gamal al-Aqel recounted a systematic attempt to set up an Islamic government
in the two towns.
The militants appointed officials to oversee employees in public bodies such
as courts, mosques, hospitals, police and postal services, but brought in
their own medical team, he said.
"We couldn't believe the amount of destruction and theft we found after the
fighting," Aqel said. "We had to bring in deminers and a number of them
died. They laid more than 12,500 mines, of the difficult and nasty type."
He expressed confidence that the militants were gone for good, however.
"Now al Qaeda has returned to its original job - kidnapping and carrying out
suicide attacks," Aqel said laconically.
"They found a political environment here, a security vacuum while the army
was split. We'll never let them back in here again at any cost."
Yemeni debate over drones emerges after Saleh's fall
Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:12pm GMT
* Post-Saleh interim leader says approves each U.S. drone strike
* Public anger becomes more vocal over civilian deaths
* Hadi risks losing domestic support for transition
By Andrew Hammond
SANAA, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Yemen's interim president has won U.S. praise for
cooperating in a war on al Qaeda, but his recent public support for drone
strikes that sometimes kill civilians could undermine his domestic
popularity and stir sympathy for militants.
Yemen, an Arabian Peninsula country where al Qaeda militants exploited a
security vacuum during last year's rising against Ali Abdullah Saleh, has
witnessed an escalated campaign of U.S. missile strikes in recent months,
often using the pilotless aircraft known as drones.
In a departure from Saleh's policies, Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour
Hadi spoke openly in favour of the drone strikes during a trip to the United
States last month. Praised by the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa as being more
effective against al Qaeda than his predecessor, Hadi was quoted as saying
that he personally approved every attack.
The comments came after a September strike that killed 12 civilians in
Radaa, a small Yemeni town south of Sanaa, and the storming of the U.S.
Embassy in the capital by protesters angry over an anti-Islam film made in
California.
Youth activist Ibrahim Al-Mothana said Hadi, elected in February for a
two-year transitional period, was trying to win favour with international
donors but imperils support at home.
"He's trying to get international legitimacy, and he needs American and
European support, so I think that's what drove him, rather than being more
open and frank about it," he said.
"Hadi's main task is the national dialogue, which will create a new national
contract. But if the process is undermined by drones, that will be
problematic."
Leaked U.S. diplomatic cables said that Saleh had agreed in 2009 to a covert
U.S. war on Islamist militants and accepted to take responsibility for
attacks when necessary.
Bashraheel Hesham Bashraheel, chairman of the al-Ayyam newspaper group, said
Hadi had won short-term respect from some Yemenis for being more open about
drones than Saleh.
"He wants to make a clear distinction, he wants to say I approved every
raid. It gives the impression he is in control and not the Americans,"
Bashraheel said. "It impressed people and earned him some respect. He's not
lying like Saleh used to."
However, with public anger rising, politicians are becoming more vocal in
their opposition to U.S. operations.
The Shi'ite Islamist Houthi movement and influential Sunni cleric
Abdul-Majeed al-Zindani - on a U.S. terrorism list - have stepped up
criticism of drones in the past month.
"At first people didn't talk, but after Radaa, things have changed, said Ali
Abd-Rabbu al-Qadi, a parliamentarian from Maareb where many attacks have
taken place. "These air strikes prepare the ground for al Qaeda and
terrorism."
Yemenis complain the U.S. focus on militants is a violation of sovereignty
that is driving many towards al Qaeda and diverting attention from other
pressing issues such as unemployment, corruption, water depletion and
economic revival.
Hadi is under U.S. pressure to prioritise the war on militants, who set up
al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in 2007 by merging the Yemeni and
Saudi branches of the network founded by Osama bin Laden.
"The Americans only think of use of violence, they need to think of using
development," said Mohammed al-Mutawakel, a political science professor.
"They failed in Afghanistan and Iraq. I hope they don't make the same
mistake again in Yemen."
PARTIES TACIT SUPPORT
Parties in the post-Saleh interim government have been largely silent or
even expressed muted public support over drone strikes, in an effort to win
the favour of a country seen as the real source of political power in Yemen,
analysts say.
The United States, eager to see Yemen recover from upheaval that put the
impoverished state on the verge of collapse, has said it would provide $345
million in security, humanitarian and development assistance this year -
more than double last year's aid but much less than needed, one government
official said.
Western diplomats say they believe most Yemenis support the operations, but
acknowledge that public opposition is rising.
"Nobody wants to see the drones (but) we have people who are posing an
imminent threat to the security and stability of Yemen as well as
threatening security throughout the world," a senior diplomat said. "The
solution ultimately will be on the basis of building up Yemeni
capabilities."
While Washington usually avoids comment, the UK-based Bureau of
Investigative Journalism, which tracks U.S. operations, says between 36 and
56 civilians have died this year.
At a recent funeral for those who died in the attacks in Radaa, relatives
suggested tribes would take revenge if Sanaa did not do something to stop
them.
"We are just farmers, in our homes, who are disturbed constantly in the
middle of the night by American planes above," said Jamal Abdu al-Sabouri, a
relative of one of the Radaa victims. "We want a solution and we demand that
Hadi pay attention to this issue... We want security and stability but if
they're going to disturb us, we'll disturb everyone too."
In the chaos of the disintegration of Saleh's system of tribal and religious
alliances, tribes have taken steps to express displeasure with Hadi's
government. Electricity lines were attacked in Maarib last month after a
court issued death sentences against kinsmen accused of al Qaeda militancy.
"A strike like this isn't a simple thing. It makes us lose hope in the state
or that there even exists a Yemeni state here," said Muhammed Muqbil, who
lost three relatives.
C Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved
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Received on Wed Oct 17 2012 - 18:31:37 EDT
