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Yemen: Poverty, corruption and young jihadists
THE market at Jaar, a small city in Abyan province in southern Yemen, is on a filthy, dusty road strewn with garbage. Minibuses and donkey carts jostle for space on the crowded street.
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Standing in the middle of the chaos is one of the jihadi gunmen for whom the town has become famous. Thin, short, with a well-groomed beard and shoulder-length hair, he is dressed in the Afghan style: Shalwar kameez, camouflage vest and an old Kalashnikov.
He is either a bandit imposing a protection racket on the merchants or a rebel protecting them from the corrupt regime - most probably a bit of both.
He waves cheerfully to the people passing by, but few give him a second glance. The jihadis - like the chaos and the filth - are an established part of the landscape of south Yemen. They attend state-run mosques and Quranic learning centres and help fill the ranks of the country's security forces.
Recently, their influence has grown more threatening. In the past two years, Al Qaeda has established a local franchise in Yemen, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Recruits can study ideology and take guidance from militant leaders, including the Yemeni-American cleric Anwar Al Awlaki.
With its conservative Islam, ragged mountains, unruly tribes and problems of illiteracy, unemployment and extreme poverty, Yemen has been dubbed the new Afghanistan by security experts. This reporter spent two months in the country. Speaking to jihadis, security officials and tribesmen, it became clear how a combination of government alliances, bribes, broken promises and bungled crackdowns has allowed radicals to flourish and led to the emergence of the country as a regional hub for Al Qaeda.
HOTBED FOR EXTREMISIM
You don't have to go deep into the mountains to hear the jihadi message. One Friday, sitting on the roof of a hotel in Sana'a, I hear the amplified prayers of a preacher ring out at the end of his sermon: "God condemn the Jews and the Christians ... God make their wives and children our slaves ... God defeat them and make the believers victorious."
Ahmad Al Daghasha, a Yemeni writer, says two factors are responsible for the growing influence of Al Qaeda. "First there is the local situation, which is miserable, politically and economically," he says. "Then there is the foreign oppression that we all see on television, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Palestine, that gives Al Qaeda's rhetoric legitimacy."
In the south, government control is slipping away fast. Bandits, lawless tribes, secessionists and jihadis are all fighting against the regime. Though they have few ideological connections, the groups are all contributing to one thing: A failing state where extremism can flourish.
On my first day in Jaar I toured the town with the deputy governor of Abyan province. At the entrance to a neighbourhood, two gunmen stood guard and graffiti sprayed on the walls declared allegiance to Al Qaeda. "None of those men have been to Afghanistan, but it's the look that they want to acquire," said the deputy governor.
The rise of Al Qaeda in Jaar has been a gradual process of radicalisation as generations of volunteer fighters have returned from conflicts abroad: The Afghan war against the Soviets in the '80s, the Nato-led war against the Taliban and the war in Iraq in 2003. These veterans, as well as jihadis who have never fought abroad, are in the streets of Jaar fighting for influence.
In the '70s and '80s, Jaar had been predominantly a socialist town. But when the regime in Sana'a fought the socialists in a short civil war in 1994, the Islamists fought alongside them. When the socialists were defeated, the Islamists were encouraged to take control of the area. Quranic centres, the Yemeni equivalent of madrasahs, were established with government support. Over the next 10 years, the town became a base for the Islamists: They had jobs and they received their salaries from the government and money that poured in from Saudi Arabia.
BIRTH OF A JIHADI
One of the leaders of change in the city during this time was Khaled Abdul Nabi. I met him in his madrasah-like compound. Young men doubling as students and bodyguards lurked in the alleyway in front of his house and at the bottom of his stairwell. Khaled sat on the floor, pulling at his beard. A pistol was placed neatly in front of him.
In 1994, he said, they had been given promises by President Ali Abdullah Saleh that he would implement Syariah law and form an Islamic state, so they had formed special units, operating under army leadership, to fight for him. "But none of the president's promises came true. He lied to us and we believed him, probably because we were naive at that time."
Nevertheless, after the war, the Islamisation of Jaar began. Abdul Nabi went on to form the Abyan-Aden Islamic Army in 1998, one of the first jihad-inspired groups operating in Yemen. It is accused of being behind several violent acts, including assassinations of security officers and the kidnapping of 16 foreign tourists in 1998, which led to the deaths of four hostages.
In August 2008, Yemeni security forces killed five of Abdul Nabi's men and claimed they had arrested 28 Al Qaeda supporters, including Abdul Nabi. After meeting Saleh, Abdul Nabi allegedly agreed to support the president in his fights against the Shia rebels in the north and separatists in the south.
Last year, he was released in a general amnesty, returned to Abyan to rebuild his organisation, which is now affiliated to Al Qaeda, and called for the formation of an Islamic state in southern Yemen.
One of the problems he faced now, he said, was with younger generations of jihadis. When jihadi leaders try to moderate their positions, the young followers will often splinter and form more radical groups, so each generation is more radical than the next. "The problem is that most of them, yes they are true jihadis with good intention, (but) they lack the knowledge."
'MY DREAM IS TO DIE FIGHTING'
A young commander, Jamal, who is attached to Al Qaeda in Yemen, agreed to see me. We followed a thin teenager through dirt alleyways and entered one of the concrete shacks. Jamal was in his mid 20s, with a round face, long curly hair and a pair of thin glasses that gave him the look of an art student. "Who am I?" he asked, repeating my question. "I am a mujahid. Young men dream and have ambitions in life and my ambition is to die fighting for God."
Jamal, a jihadi fighter for six years, had been to prison a couple of times and released each time the president issued a pardon. Now he was a fugitive again. "The director of security accused us of planting an explosive device in front of his house."
How had a young man living in a poor, obscure small town in the south of a poor nation, who had not travelled further than its capital city, become a threat not only to the government of Yemen, but to the world in general? "There are too many Arabic tragedies, in Iraq, in Chechnya, in Afghanistan and in Palestine, that makes us want to fight in the way of God," he said.
In 2003, he said, "after the outbreak of the Iraq war, Jaar became a big training ground for the Saudis going to Iraq. Unlike the Yemenis, the Saudis had no experience in fighting. They were very religious and had lots of money, but they didn't know how to shoot. We started training them - we Yemenis are taught to shoot when we are children - and then a whole ring was organised to send them to Iraq via Syria."
Mr Saleh's government knew about the jihadi training camps, he said, and had no quibble with them as long as they didn't fight in Yemen. "Saleh told us go to Iraq but not to come back and create problems for him here."
ARRESTS, FIGHTS, DEALS
In the winter of 2005-2006, the world began to take note of the flow of jihadis heading to Iraq and the Americans started to put pressure on Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia to stem the flow of militants. In 2006 Jamal was arrested, which led to the first of several meetings with Mr Saleh. The president agreed to release the prisoners in return for their promise of inactivity.
Three days later Jamal was back on the streets, but trust between him and the regime did not last long. "You leave your house and there is a government spy. You come back and there are two." When the government arrested some of the jihadis, fighting broke out again.
A cycle of arrests, fighting and deal-making ensued, escalating the strength and anger of the jihadis. Sometimes they would be promised compensation by the president, but when they went back to Sana'a to collect the money they would be sent from one government department to the other. Weeks would pass, and so the clashes would erupt again.
"Before our last meeting with the president in 2009, Jaar fell under our control. By that time, our brothers stopped going to Iraq. They said if we are not arrested on the way and we reach Iraq, either the Americans will arrest us or we would be tortured by the Shia (Iraqi government). Why not stay and fight here?"
But even this young commander had trouble with the generation of radicals coming after him.
"We were betrayed by the people of Jaar," he said. "When we used to hide in the mountains, some kids from the town used to come and bring us food and clothes. We trained those kids how to use a weapon, how to wire explosive devices, how to build electrical circuits ... Those young kids started looting and beating up people. They destroyed the town."
His voice became a mixture of blame and regret. "Because of the young, we failed in ruling the town and we had to leave and head back to the mountains."
As we walked back through empty dark streets I asked the teenage boy how the young looked at people like Jamal. "He is like a hero for us all, we want to be like him." Why? "Because he stands for his people. He won't let the government do whatever they like." Guardian News and Media
The writer is an Iraqi-born photojournalist who was named Foreign Reporter of the Year at the 2008 British Press Awards. He was one of three journalists kidnapped in Afghanistan last year and released after six days. This is an excerpt of a longer article. 'No 1 urgent threat'A few years ago, this Al Qaeda offshoot in Yemen was all but stamped out, and it is more infamous for its near-misses than for successful major attacks.
Yet Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the group is called, is now being seen by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts as the most urgent threat to the United States - more dangerous than the core group based in Pakistan, according to officials quoted by the Washington Post this week.
Some see the Yemeni affiliate as more agile and aggressive, considering the speed at which it set in motion the foiled suicide bomb plot aboard an aircraft last Christmas.
Then there is English-speaking, Net-savvy cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has transformed the group into a transnational threat, with his purported guidance of Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Hasan.
US officials are calling for intelligence and military operations to be stepped up in Yemen, reported the Post. Todayonline |
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