Of militants and Yemen
A leading Yemeni judge has gained wide international praise for his "reform" of alleged terrorists in his country, but the government still has a long struggle ahead. John R Bradley reports from Sanaa
Adopting a subtle but highly successful approach to correcting the fanatical beliefs of arrested Yemeni extremists, Judge Hamood Al-Hitar heads the Intellectual Dialogue Committee. The committee holds discussions and debates with detained militants to "reform" their thoughts, mainly by encouraging a more balanced understanding of the Qur'an and Islam.
The government says it has killed or captured dozens of militants during the last two years. However, more than 100 of those arrested have since been released, although they remain on bail and are closely supervised. They are said to have renounced violence after being convinced that their Islamist leaders had brainwashed them into hatred for the West and non-Muslims.
Not everyone is happy with the government's tactics. The government crackdown itself has drawn sharp criticism from Amnesty International, which accuses the authorities of using the pretext of the so-called "war on terror" to crack down on opposition figures. But while there is criticism of the Yemeni government for indiscriminately rounding up suspects, most analysts agree that Al-Hitar has probably succeeded in preventing a number of low-level militant attacks.
At the same time, some have also labelled Al-Hitar a government lackey, and he often receives death threats. Extremists in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama Bin Laden, still pose a serious threat, as arms are plentiful and sympathy for the Al- Qa'eda network runs high. Al- Hitar concedes that the programme, launched in 2002, is unlikely to convince die-hard supporters of Bin Laden to lay down their arms.
"So far we've had a positive experience, but the problem is those with the Al-Qa'eda mentality," he said in a recent interview.
The authorities in this impoverished country of 21 million are also using US aid to improve education and healthcare to bolster support for the government. In the meantime, its crackdown on militants continues. Yemen recently released footage showing government troops storming a remote Al-Qa'eda stronghold this summer.
Sanaa has also rounded up hundreds of militants and launched a campaign to disarm a largely tribal population with an enormous cache of automatic weapons and grenades. Roads linking cities bristle with army checkpoints, where travellers are required to deposit their weapons before carrying onto their destination.
A major battleground of the so-called US "war on terror" since the 11 September attacks, Yemen has undoubtedly scored some major successes with the help of military training and funding from Washington. Last year, the authorities arrested Yemen's number-two Al-Qa'eda suspect, Mohamed Al-Ahdal. In November 2002, Sanaa turned a blind eye while the US Central Intelligence Agency assassinated a top leader of Al-Qa'eda in an air strike there.
The last major attack in Yemen was the bombing of the French supertanker Limburg in 2002, which occurred two years after Al-Qa'eda suspects killed 17 American sailors in a suicide attack on the US destroyer Cole.
But while Yemen may be safer today than a few years ago, in the minds of many people it remains a place where tribesmen kidnap foreigners and Islamist fundamentalists slay missionaries and Western expatriates.
This image was reinforced in the wake of the arrest of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, when a Yemeni national, enraged by media coverage of the event, stabbed three Westerners walking in Sanaa's old district. All three needed hospital treatment, and one nearly died.
