Update: death toll of convoy ambush rises to five.
In 1993 through May of 1994, over 150 Yemeni Socialist Party officials were assassinated. The attacks were thought organized by Yemen’s Central Security forces, then headed by President Saleh’s brother, Mohammed Abdullah Saleh, who is now deceased. The president’s son Ahmed now heads the CSF. The 1993 assassinations were the work of the Afghan Arabs who had returned to Yemen following the Soviet defeat. In return for the attacks, the Saleh regime had promised the al Qaeda leadership to install a more fundamentalist, neo-Salafi doctrine on the nation. The deal went from General Ali Mohsen al Ahmar to Usama bin Laden. This is well documented history. Likely not all of the assassins knew the terms of the deal or even that there was a deal. The rationale of the supposed apostasy of socialists was enough for their leaders to motivate the hit men. The string of murders then looks very similar to what is going on now in the south of Yemen, where dozens of security officers have been killed, primarily from the Political Security Organization.
The policy of diversion through crisis generation has worked well for Saleh for a long time. The failure of the state to achieve any noticeable progress against AQAP since December may be due to its fragmentation, incompetence and corruption. Often when the Yemeni government fails at implementing even the most basic policy, it is because competing intra-governmental interests are threatened. In Yemen, generally, different militant factions liaise and negotiate with different government intermediaries and presidential relatives. The 2009 battle of Ja’ar was largely a red on red confrontation where the state’s jihaddists including al Nabi fought other jihaddists to return control to the state’s designated proxy. The string of current assassinations targets largely the PSO. Some southerners suggest its a purge. Most people though interpret the bloodbath as hostilities between AQAP and the state, specifically al Qamish, head of the PSO. The last news article about direct state facilitation of AQAP (al-Wahishi) was last year when he was helped out by members of the National Security. (If I have time, I’ll try to find the link to the article. Its posted here somewhere.) The external landscape evolved significantly since then. Currently some element of the state is at war with some element of AQAP. Its the status of the other elements that is unclear.
CNN: Al Qaeda in Yemen is suspected of being behind three separate attacks that have targeted Yemeni security officials, according to a government official.
“In the past 72 hours, there have been three attacks in the south of the country,” the Yemeni official, who was not authorized to speak to the media, said Thursday. “The attacks are getting worse and the scene is getting bloodier.” (Read on …)
