“Yemen’s Terror Problem”
The WSJ finds the US under Bush and Obama oddly reluctant to push Saleh on the Cole bombers (lets not forget al Quso), preferring to indulge him instead, while Yemen descends into a failed terrorist state.
The root of the problem is the government’s tacit non-aggression pact with al Qaeda. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh tells American officials he can’t push too hard, and for too long the U.S. has indulged him. The Saudis used to play this same double game. Then al Qaeda attacks killed some 200 people and jolted them into a crackdown. The Kingdom has been free of terrorist violence for the past three years.
But the threat is now regathering in Yemen. In 2002, a CIA Hellfire missile took out Abu Ali al-Harithi, the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen. His replacement was also captured, but then the government backed off. A new generation of leaders emerged after 23 Yemenis, including at least a dozen al Qaeda members, dug a tunnel out of a Yemen jail cell to a nearby mosque. The escape had all the signs of an inside job, and most of the escapees are still free.
Among them is Nasir al-Wahayshi, a 33-year-old who now runs al Qaeda in Yemen. In January, the group “merged” with the Saudi al Qaeda chapter, with al-Wahayshi now “emir of the Arabian peninsula.” By the Yemen foreign minister’s own estimate, between 1,000-1,500 al Qaeda and like-minded fighters are in the country. The U.S. embassy was attacked with a mortar last March and six suicide bombers blew themselves up in front of the compound in September, killing 13.
The U.S. is in talks with the Saudis and Yemenis about the Gitmo detainees. American officials favor putting them through a Saudi rehabilitation center before release. That’s almost as risky as sending them directly to Yemen. Eleven former Saudi Gitmo inmates who went through rehab are back on the government’s most wanted terrorist list. Said Ali al-Shihri turned up in a January video as al Qaeda’s No. 2 man on the Arabian peninsula based in Yemen. If some of the Yemenis rejoined the global jihad — and the odds suggest they would — all that alleged “global good will” won for closing Gitmo will have come at far too high a price.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has other unfinished terrorist business in Yemen. Jamal al-Badawi has confessed his role in recruiting the suicide bombers and renting the skiff used in the U.S.S. Cole attack, in sworn testimony to the FBI admissable in U.S. court. Seventeen Americans died in the 2000 bombing. A Yemeni court convicted and sentenced him to death, but he twice escaped from prison. Recaptured, he supposedly pledged loyalty to President Saleh and was freed in 2007. In response to U.S. pressure, Yemen only last fall put al-Badawi back in custody.
For unexplained reasons, the Bush and Obama Administrations have been reluctant to push Mr. Saleh to hand over al-Badawi and others behind the Cole bombing to the U.S. for trial. The al-Badawi case is a good test of Yemen’s willingness to stand up to al Qaeda and reverse its descent into a failed terrorist state.
