YEMEN: Vexed by Al Qaida and sectarian troubles
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It’s been a bad week for Yemen. The the Arabian Peninsula nation has been fighting hard to lure tourists, international donors and foreign investors to give its struggling economy a lift. But it’s been beset by turmoil.
First there was a fresh outbreak of sectarian violence that left hundreds of people displaced in the country’s impoverished north. Then came the Jan. 18 killing of two Belgian tourists visiting the country, allegedly at the hands of Al Qaeda.
The renewed clashes between security forces and a small Shiite group caused the most consternation. A 2004 uprising by a group of Shiites rebels led by Sheik Abdul-Malik Houthi had ended in June 2007 with a peace agreement moderated by Qatar. But the peace fractured in December. Dozens of people on both sides have died.
Yemen, a U.S. ally, was the site of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole by alleged associates of Osama bin Laden, who traces his roots to this country. Recently Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch launched a 24-page e-journal, which is partly translated and described by the website Memri:
...its centerpiece is an interview with Abu Humam Al-Qahtani, a fighter in Al Qaeda in Yemen. Abu Humam explains that he chose to wage jihad in the Arabian Peninsula, rather than in Afghanistan or Iraq, because the Prophet ordered ‘to expel the non-believers from the Arabian Peninsula’... He further explains that ‘by striking the enemy’s interests in the Arab Peninsula, and by stopping [his] oil supply and the activity of the oil refineries, [it is possible to] destroy the enemy. If this happens, the enemy will not only withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan but will be completely crushed.’
As if all this weren’t enough, dozens of Somalis fleeing their war-torn country drowned off the Yemen coast in the Gulf of Aden.
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut