Attacks in Yemen
Two attacks in Yemen today, onenear the US Embassy in Sana’a and another in the southern province of Abyan. As of right now, the Yemeni government doesn’t see this as targeting the US Embassy, but rather as a “purely criminal incident”. To be sure, the mortars in Sana’a hit a school, some 500 meters from the Embassy. So well it could easily have been an attack on American interests, it could also have been a local matter.
Now, in the last Yemen post here, the jihadi journal “Echo of Battles” was discussed, and it was noted that the last issue directly presaged an attack. So that does lend some credence that this could have been an al-Qaeda operation, designed to co-incide with the publication of the newest issue. Possibly one could say smart money is on that, but I think it is short-sighted to think jihadism is the only problem or the sole source of violence in Yemen.
The attack in the south is a little different. It does carry the scent of Islamic militancy, but it is unsure whether it is al-Qaeda, the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, or possible any other splinter group. While many- most, even- Islamic militant groups share the same broad aims and are driven by similar motivations, it is wrong to think of them as monolithic. It might be comforting to do so, and possibly fit a pre-conceived political viewpoint, but it does nothing to help the problem. There has no been a single movement in the history of the world that wasn’t beset from conception with dissidents, schismatics, heretics. To imagine al-Qaeda, and Islamic militancy more broadly, to be any different is simply counter-productive.
March 19th, 2008 at 11:12 pm
Yes that’s all true. So to review :UBL who has strong tries in Yemen negotiates a non-aggression pact with Saleh in 1999 to get bin Attash released from jail and Attash is later complicit in the Cole bombing and 9/11. After the Limburg in 2002, there was al-Qaeda’s 2003 offer addressed to Saleh personally that was handled by Judge al-Hittar, and we dont know what the outcome was, only that there were no attacks until the 2006 pre-election thwarted attacks.
Those attacks (wherein four cars explode from the gunfire of alert guards), if we take them at face value, were prompted by Zawaheri’s earlier statement that week to attack the infidel’s oil supplies. So in this scenario, the militants are attacking the regime at the prompting of international leadership, indicating some recognition by the attackers of AQI.
And 35 are tried and 32 found guilty, including Jaber Elbaneh who, despite his ten year sentence, is still free. Many of the Feb 2006 escapees are also free after surrender on a conditional security guarantee. If this strategy is working, then none of this group are involved in the next string of attacks because they promised the regime to renounce violence. Also we can remove from the mix of potential attackers all the jihaddists who were fighting in Sa’ada which reportedly includes some members of AAIA. This group has also reached a detente with Saleh. What they are getting in return (besides the thrill of killing Houthis) is another question. As the AAIA leader (not Nabi the other guy) said in an interview, “The regime only imprisons us to use us later against their enemies.”
In July 2007, a suicide car bomber kills 8 German tourists in Marib and January gunmen open fire on a tour bus, killing the two Belgian women. Now in March, the failed attack on the US embassy.
I understand that you are saying the extremists are fractured into many factions and some do not recognize the legitimacy of dealing with Saleh and therefore are attacking him. But in order for these factions to be attacking Saleh, are they rejecting the international leadership’s prohibition on waging jihad on Yemen (in opposition to UBL’s legitimization of jihad on SA)? Are the tourist attacks a method of negotiating for more releases? Or are they really trying to bring the regime down? Or is it something else? The key question is what effect have the attacks had on the regime.
March 20th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I am a little unsure where you get the information that there was a non-aggression pact between bin Ladin and Salih in 1999 or the deal that al-Hitar handled. I do not think this is common knowledge or something that is widely believed.
There are a number of reasons for the lack of attacks after the Limburg. The US and Yemen had splintered, killed, or arrested much of the leadership of al-Qaeda in Yemen (al-Harithi in Nov. 2002, al-Ahdal in Nov. 2003), massive arrests and a series of local programs designed to deter would-be jihadis, as well as of course the war in Iraq, which attracted many young Yemenis who were not eager for a leaderless jihad at home. Al-Qaeda in Yemen has been reconstituted under the leadership of al-Wahayshi after his escape from jail in Feb. 2006, which is why one has seen more attacks (also it was Spanish tourists not Germans who were killed in Marib in July 2007).
I think you are giving bin Ladin and al-Zawahiri too much command-and-control presence in Yemen.
March 21st, 2008 at 2:12 am
The 9/11 Commission Report on the 1999 deal. The Yemen Times reported the offer and some ongoing negotiations of the 2003, but al-Hittar said some conditions were not negotiable.
Yemen serves a strategic function to AQI whether thats random or by design. I do find it hard to discount entirely the influence of bin Laden considering his physical and ideological presence in Yemen through the 1990’s. And that some of the Cole bombing consiprators were meeting with KSM and other top UBL commanders in early 2000 when both the Cole and 9/11 were planned. Also abu al-Fida who one day announces that AQ did not do the tourist attacks because its not in UBL’s long term plan to bring down Salah and the very next day al-Fida announces the line of sucession for bin Laden. I may be making your point here about the fractured nature of the extremists, but only if you take all the attacks at face value.
March 21st, 2008 at 2:36 am
Al-Ahdal is a good point. Al-Harthi is killed. Al-Ahdal is the number one AQ guy in Yemen. He was arrested on the Cole and admitted to handling funding. He is jailed in 2003 and released in 2006. What was that deal? Saleh released him so he wouldn’t attack Yemen? We know the justice system has nothing to do with justice, and everything to do with politics, especially that court, so its not a lack of evidence. Al-Badawi? Elbaneh? All the guys who escaped and then surrendered are free. You don’t get the impression there’s something else going on? A quid pro quo beyond the non-aggression pact?