Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, is fertile ground for radical movements, writes Michael Jansen
AL-QAEDA IN the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) has exploited Yemen's internal conflicts and general instability over the past two years to become the movement's most prominent franchise.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian detained while allegedly trying to blow up a US civilian aircraft over Detroit on Christmas Day, claims to have been trained and equipped by this branch of the organisation.
US army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, accused of killing 13 US military personnel at Fort Hood in Texas on November 5th, had contact with Aqap-connected cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi while the latter served as a preacher in a Virginia mosque. In November, members of Yemen's al-Qaeda ambushed and killed three senior Yemeni security officials and their bodyguards. In August, a suicide bomber dispatched from Yemen tried to kill Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, head of the country's counter-terrorism operations.
The incident on the Detroit- bound flight followed air raids on Aqap sites on December 17th and 24th that killed 60 people.
US forces have been directly involved in the campaign against Aqap for more than a year and $70 million (€49 million) has been allocated to arming and training Yemeni troops and coast- guard over the next 18 months.
Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, is fertile ground for radical movements. The country's difficult terrain makes it hard to impose law and order. The 1990 union between the largely tribal Shia north and the Marxist south has not really taken off and Saudi puritan clerics have exported their views to Yemen's deeply conservative tribesmen.
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden has a close connection with Yemen through his father, who was born and raised there before settling in Saudi Arabia, where he made a fortune in construction.
Unlike many countries that contributed to the US-backed, Saudi-funded war against the Soviets in Afghanistan (1979 to 1989), Yemen welcomed home its battle-hardened and ideologically motivated fighters. For many, there were no jobs, so they drifted into criminal gangs that preyed on foreign workers and tourists.
Politicised veterans created a Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda and in 2000, the group staged a dramatic bomb-laden speedboat attack in Aden harbour on a US warship, the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors.
Under US pressure, the government cracked down on al-Qaeda, arresting many senior figures. In early 2006, however,
23 were freed in a jail-break.
In November 2008, al-Qaeda attacked the US embassy, killing 10 bystanders. A few weeks later, the Yemeni and Saudi branches merged to form Aqap.
The movement's leader, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, is a scion of a wealthy Yemeni family, as well as an Afghan veteran and former personal assistant of bin Laden.
The influential preacher Sheikh al-Aulaqi is the son of a former Yemeni minister of agriculture, while the father of the accused Detroit bomber is a leading banker in northern Nigeria.
Aqap operatives come from upper and middle classes as well as poor backgrounds and from the ranks of released Guantánamo detainees.