Al-Ahram Weekly | Region

		13 - 19 June 2002 Issue No.590 Region	Current issue Previous issue Site map
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Recommend this page

Satanic roots
Conflicting official statements about Al-Qa'eda's presence in Yemen have become a source of concern for Yemenis, Nasser Arrabyee reports from Sana'a

Yemeni officials have been making conflicting statements about the accuracy of reports that several members of the Al-Qa'eda organisation, led by Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden, are hiding out in Yemen. While some officials conceded that a small number of secret cells linked to Al-Qa'eda were operating from Yemen, others vehemently denied their presence.
The conflicting statements have made Yemenis anxious, especially in the wake of a series of blasts that rocked the capital, Sana'a, in April and May. A previously unknown group calling itself Al-Qa'eda Sympathisers has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The most recent bombing took place near the house of Yemeni Prime Minister Abdul-Qader Bajamal last month. He told reporters that "satanic forces" were behind the blasts.
Yemen and the United States signed an agreement, earlier this year for deployment of US army officers in Yemen to help its government hunt down suspected Qa'eda members. Bin Laden is of Yemeni origin, and scores of Yemenis were arrested in Afghanistan while fighting with Al-Qa'eda. They were later flown to the US-run Guantanamo camp in Cuba, where they are being held as hostages in inhumane conditions. No official charges have been brought against them.
Reflecting Yemeni concern over the presence of Al-Qa'eda, journalists, writers, MPs, lawyers and university professors held a seminar last week on "Al-Qa'eda in Yemen: Fact, Phenomenon, and the Future".
"Officials neither denied nor confirmed whether Al-Qa'eda was here or not," journalist Ahmed Al-Haj said. "But I think the US could not have reached any results in its investigation of the 11 September events without information from Yemen. This is evidence that Al-Qa'eda groups are spread out in Yemen."
Al-Haj referred to the case of Khaled Al- Mehdar, one of the 19 suspects who carried out the 11 September attack. Al-Mehdar used to live in Yemen before his departure for the United States, and his wife still lives there. Al-Haj said, "She [Mehdar's wife] has been interrogated and she was an important source of information."
Al-Haj believes that Al-Qa'eda's main presence and its leadership are still in Afghanistan. "But Al-Qa'eda's network is spread in every Arab nation, if not in the whole world. In Yemen, there are a number of cells," he said. The US and several Arab countries, like Egypt and Algeria, that have suffered attacks by armed extremists have pointed to Yemen as being a stronghold for these groups. The tribal links of Yemeni militants have enabled them to provide protection for several Arab militants. This has prevented the authorities from tracking them down.
Ahmed Al-Hubaishi, a Yemeni writer, said he could not see that there was a big problem in having Al-Qa'eda cells; the problem lay in their ties with the people.
"If the issue was that of a number of cells, they could easily be hit [by Yemeni security]. The problem is that these few cells are part of a political structure, and they have strong connections with influential forces in power and the strong Islamist movement in Yemen," Al- Hubaishi said. "So, what must be done is complicated and it needs an integrated national strategy drawn up by all the forces in the country."
Lawyer Mohamed Al-Mekhlafi, speaking about the roots of Al-Qa'eda in Yemen, charged that it was the Americans who provided facilities to transfer some of its members from Afghanistan to Yemen, especially after the union of North Yemen with the socialist south in 1990. These militants were mostly young fighters who took part in the Afghan war against the former Soviet Union. Al-Mekhlafi claimed that these so-called "returnees from Afghanistan", had been integrated into educational institutions, security forces and the army. They had played an influential part in backing conservative tribes, who were fighting against the former socialist government in the south in the 1994 civil war.
"After the 1994 civil war, the militant groups who took part in the war against the communist south considered that the victory was a great triumph for them. Perhaps they thought Yemen was better than Afghanistan," Al-Mekhlafi said.
However, political analyst Hamoud Monasar confirmed that, after the 1994 war, the Yemeni government began to sense the danger of these groups and it started to break them up. It deported their members or integrated them into society.
Monasar claimed that the number of suspected Al-Qa'eda sympathisers arrested after 11 September was much higher than the figure declared by the government. "The detainees in Yemen after 11 September are not 85, or 100 [as the government claims]. This goes against the constitution and the law because there are hundreds of detainees being held without trial," Monasar argued.
As for the "Al-Qa'eda Sympathisers" who claimed responsibility for the blasts that took place in Sana'a in the last two months, Monasar said they could be perpetrated by the relatives of the detainees who were being held. He believed that those being detained by the Yemeni authorities were mostly sympathisers or low-ranking members of Al-Qa'eda. He said he thought they were not part of an organisation,
Ahmed Al-Daghshi, a university professor, attributed Al-Qa'eda's emergence in Yemen to internal reasons, including repression and oppression by the political system.
For his part, Faris Al-Saqaff, chairman of the Yemeni Centre for Future Studies, which organised the seminar, saw Al-Qa'eda as a group of individuals whose main allegiance was to their leadership in Afghanistan, He thought they remained dormant until from time to time they were assigned certain tasks.
"When the tasks are over, they go back and form dormant cells, until they are asked to carry out another task," Al-Saqaff said.
Nabil Al-Basha, an MP and vice- chairman of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, said it was in Yemen's interest to uproot terrorism.
"It is in the interest of Yemen to take part in international efforts to combat terrorism," Al-Basha said. He confirmed the official line that such cooperation with the "international community" (a clear reference to the United States) was not in conflict with Yemen's constitution and laws and did not harm or affect its sovereignty.

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