A Radicals’ Haven Sets Out to Change Its Image

The call to prayer echoed over the ancient walled city of Bab al Yaman, capital of a land that legend has it was ruled by the Queen of Sheba. Hundreds of men wearing long white robes, with daggers tucked in their belts, filed into the Ishak Mosque.

The men prayed as their ancestors have for centuries and then received a message from their imam that has lately become as integral a part of the Friday ritual as the prayer itself: It comprised distrust of the West, anger at Israel and a call to oppose America for supporting the Jewish state.

“Look how the Israelis are killing our brothers in Islam every day,” said Nabil Hossein Gharari, the 26-year-old who led the prayers. “When I watch them on television, my eyes want to cry blood, not tears, because these actions are the real terrorism. So I urge people to support the Palestinians’ actions . . . and to stop buying any Israeli or American products.”

In a not-too-subtle reference to battles far beyond the borders of Israel, Gharari added, “Please God, support moujahedeen all over the world.”

A Place to Disappear

The modern dogma of suspicion of the United States and hatred of Israel has taken root in this ancient country, flourishing on the barren, sharp mountains and towering stone cliffs that are home to many of its 18 million people. Yemen’s geographic isolation and its history of violent politics, combined with decades of extraordinary poverty, have transformed it into an outlaw state--a perfect haven for terrorists looking to strike and then hide, to cause devastation and disappear into the shadows.

The U.S. received proof positive of this in October 2000, when suicide bombers blew a hole in the Navy’s guided-missile destroyer Cole while it was anchored in the port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. The attack remains unsolved.

Just Thursday, the U.S. Embassy issued a warning about the “possibility of imminent terrorist targeting of U.S. interests and citizens in Yemen.”

Still, Yemen is trying to change both its image and the underlying culture, built up over centuries, that not only allowed radical Islam to take hold here but also encouraged it. Under longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the government is trying to find and arrest suspected operatives of the Al Qaeda terrorist network and discourage the widespread affinity for extremist ideology.

“Security, stability, civil peace and law and order are among the top missions of this government,” Prime Minister Abdul-Kadir Ba Jamal said at a meeting of his Cabinet not long ago.

At the forefront of the quest for those goals is the military. Yemeni troops have detained more than two dozen suspected Al Qaeda operatives in recent months. But this deeply impoverished country can do only so much alone. So the president asked the United States to help--a request that shocked Yemen’s fiercely independent people.

“Everybody here is against sending American military troops to Yemen,” said Fuad Salahi, a member of the faculty at Sana University who studies the development of civil society. “People think it’s another way to build up their presence in the region.”

The United States already has advance forces in Yemen paving the way for what is expected to be a relatively small contingent whose mission will be to train Yemenis. Fewer than 100 troops are expected, according to U.S. officials.

Washington has also been helping to draw up plans for developing a Yemeni coast guard to protect the country’s long, unpatrolled shoreline. The operative word, though, is “helping,” as the U.S. does not want to offend Yemenis’ sensibilities by suggesting deeper involvement in its internal affairs.

“On the security side, we will help the Yemenis,” U.S. Ambassador Edmund Hull said in an interview at his heavily fortified office on a hill overlooking Sana, the capital. “We are not going to do it. We are going to help them do it.”

Perhaps as important, if Yemen is to succeed in altering a society in which virtually every man has an automatic weapon, is economic development. Yemen is the poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula and, outside sub-Saharan Africa, one of the least developed in the world. Taking into account income, education and health, the United Nations ranks it 133rd of 162 countries.

But on this front, the U.S. has been far more circumspect. Although Washington has sped up the dispatch of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to neighboring Egypt to prop up that country’s ailing economy, it has so far offered little in the way of substantial financial incentives to Yemen. The Yemeni officials are not asking, at least not publicly, for handouts. But they have made it clear that they will never succeed in winning the hearts and minds of their people if they cannot at least provide them with basic services such as running water and electricity, which many rural communities must do without.

“Fighting terrorism is very important first, for Yemen, for stability for attracting investment,” said Abdul Hadi H. Hamdani, an advisor to the president. “We are fighting terrorism because it is our duty and it is important to us.”

But he added: “People will not cooperate unless you give them the necessities to live and a job. The most important thing is not to try to control with soldiers but to convince the people by giving them what they need, to start successful economic programs in the countryside.”

President Saleh’s unambiguous anti-terrorism crusade, his alliance with the United States and his willingness to use force have pushed anti-American--and pro-Osama bin Laden--sentiment underground. Even the messages at the mosques have been muted. Almost everyone on the streets of this bustling if rundown city, as well as in isolated villages, claims to be against terrorism and in favor of the U.S. effort to combat it. But what Yemenis cannot accept is the idea of American troops on their soil.

“We like it 100% that the U.S. and Yemen work together,” said Mohammed Ibrihim Embrah, 57, as he walked through the working-class neighborhood of Shaoub in the old city. But, he said: “I don’t like the idea of bringing American troops to Yemen. It is not necessary to have American troops here in Yemen. I want the USA to help against Israel.”

Change Will Be Slow

In a poor, trash-strewn area beside the Farowa market, where men buy qat, the mildly stimulating leaf that Yemenis chew obsessively, crowds of men echoed that refrain. Then Mohammed Mohsin, 24, elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. His teeth lime-green from qat leaves, he said: “Osama bin Laden is the top Muslim. The only one that faces America and Israel is Osama bin Laden. Who else?”

Many of Yemen’s social, political and economic problems can hardly be expected to be overcome solely in the context of the U.S.-led war on terrorism. As recently as the 1960s, the country was so distrustful of foreigners and so isolated that it closed the doors of the old city at night, safeguarding the inhabitants of what looked like a medieval fortress. Officials and experts here agree that change will have to come slowly.

“If you go back just 40 years, until 1961, there were no paved roads, no secondary schools. The country was entirely cut off,” said James Rawley, the resident coordinator for the United Nations in Sana.

But Yemen’s current difficulties are also a function of modern-day political maneuvering and of a leader’s quest for power and control. Saleh and his circle used Islam as a device to repel the spread of communist ideology from the southern part of the country--much as the United States used vengeful Muslims against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

When civil war broke out in 1994, the president allied himself with thousands of Yemenis and other Arabs who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. He eventually owed a debt of gratitude to these fighters--many indoctrinated by groups that later fed into Al Qaeda and Afghanistan’s Taliban movement--for providing the backbone of his own forces.

Northern Yemen crushed the south in just 70 days, and many of the fighters were brought into key government and military posts, officials here say.

After the threat of communism subsided, the president began introducing institutions of democracy, holding elections, giving women the right to vote and to serve in parliament, allowing a multi-party system and permitting a relatively free press. This process of turning away from his old allies accelerated after the Cole attack on Oct. 12, 2000, and then sped forward after Sept. 11.

“The U.S. is a very important country,” said presidential advisor Hamdani. “We need to strengthen our relationship with the U.S. We need to cooperate.”

But these attitudes are not uniformly shared, on the streets or in the upper reaches of government. Tariq Nasr Fadhli supported Saleh in his battle against the south, and for that he was rewarded with several posts. Fadhli could not be reached, but in comments made after Sept. 11 to the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi, he spoke of his deep devotion to Bin Laden.

“My relationship with Osama bin Laden is very good and very strong, and I thank God for that,” he was quoted as saying.

Fadhli also spoke in the paper about the “Great Sheik” Bin Laden and said, “May God protect him.”

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Hany Fares of The Times’ Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.