Overview of Jihaddists in Yemen
Yemen has long provided a safe haven for jihadists. And there were some 3,000 Yemenis among the Afghan Arabs. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the Yemeni authorities accepted returning Yemenis, but also jihadists from other countries. North and south Yemen united in 1990, but contradictions between the regime of Ali Abdallah Saleh and his southern Socialist partners were clear. During the 1994 civil war that followed, Afghan Arabs played a leading role in suppressing southern moves towards secession.
Yemen is also the ancestral home of the Bin Laden family. And after 9/11, Yemen came under heavy pressure amid US suspicions that the country was a logistical base for militants. According to a specialist in jihadist networks based in the Yemeni capital Sana’a: “There has been no al-Qaida operation without a link to Yemen: It is always either a source of arms or money, or one of the perpetrators is a Yemeni, or one of the operatives has passed through it.” Fearing a US attack on Yemen, Saleh flew to Washington and agreed to cooperate with the US war on terror. However, Yemeni policy towards jihadist movements was multi-layered: While dozens of jihadists were arrested after 9/11, including the Egyptian jihad theoretician Sayed Imam al-Sharif (better known as Doctor Fadl), others remained at large.
Opening a dialogue
The Yemeni authorities also launched a project to establish dialogue with imprisoned jihadists, led by Judge Hamoud al-Hitar, now minister of religious affairs. “The dialogue project is one of the cornerstones of official Yemeni policies to fight terrorism,” he told me.
“We found that every terrorist movement has an ideological basis, and that ideas can only be countered by an opposing idea. The use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq has failed to bring peace and stability to those regions. Al-Qaida is based on two ideas: takfir of Arab regimes and ejecting foreign armies. In our dialogue we show that the Yemeni government is legitimate. We also show that differences in religion or religious practices cannot justify war.”
The dialogue project was designed to correct these misconceptions based on religious references. Al-Hitar said the project ended in 2005, as a result of pressure from within the Yemeni government, which wanted to use other means to fight “terrorism.” He added that the project had been for Afghan Arabs but not for returnees from Iraq.
Disagreement with the United States
There has been much criticism of Yemen’s “counter-terrorism” policies, mainly from the United States. The US authorities were furious when Jamal Badawi, thought to be one of the masterminds behind the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, was released from prison in October 2007. He has since been returned to prison, but the United States is pressing for his extradition. Another source of contention is the escape of 23 al-Qaida suspects from a high-security prison in February 2006, possibly with the help of prison guards. Among them was Nasser al-Wahayshi, thought to be the new amir (leader) of al-Qaida in Yemen.
One of the main sources of conflict with the United States is Sheikh Abd el-Majeed al-Zindani, a theologian who is said to have influenced Bin Laden during the jihad in Afghanistan. Zindani is the head of Al-Iman Islamic University in Sana’a, and an influential leader of the opposition al-Islah Party, but has close ties with the Yemeni authorities. He is wanted by the US authorities, and is on the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee list. Yet Zindani enjoys broad support among tribal alliances in the north, Salafists and the Yemeni authorities.
Following an attack on tourists in Yemen in July 2007, Nasser al-Bahri (nom de guerre Abu Jandal), one of Bin Laden’s former bodyguards, talked about “a new generation” disconnected from the original organisation: “This is not Sheikh Osama bin Laden’s strategy… The new generation is not the generation of Bin Laden, it is the generation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which is different from al-Qaida, although the word al-Qaida is used by some groups. It is the Iraq generation; they are young people who went there for jihad. They are inexperienced, misguided and wrongly mobilised. They think that the old generation has become unable to confront, and are cowards and agents or are spying on them.”
This idea is shared by Said al-Jamhi, a political scientist and author of a book on al-Qaida. “The government is focusing on groups with links to al-Qaida, and is not paying attention to the new generation,” he told me.
The new generation
A series of mortar attacks aimed at western targets in Sana’a since mid-2007 is believed to be the work of a younger generation of jihadists, calling themselves Kataib al-Jund al-Yaman. They are pressing the Yemeni authorities to release Islamist militants from prison, end their security cooperation with the West, and grant free movement to anyone who wants to seek jihad abroad — in Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia. This new generation is inspired by Zarqawi rather than al-Qaida. Their activities could endanger the existing informal pact between the Yemeni authorities and al-Qaida activists, which amounts to an agreement not to carry out attacks on Yemeni soil in return for permission to provide logistical support for jihad elsewhere.
The Yemeni government needs the support of the jihadist movement in response to the growing disquiet in the south of the country, where some would like to see a return to the independence they enjoyed before unification in 1990. The government also needs its support to counter a rebellion by Zaidi tribal groups in the north of the country, which began in 2004.
What is sure is that, for as long as political vacuums and insecurity continue in Yemen, Lebanon and beyond, young jihadists will find new leaders, new inspirations and new forms of organisation.
Vicken Cheterian is a journalist based in Geneva.
