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.

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.

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.