Counter Terrorism Committee
Al-Qaida Resurgence in Yemen
Yemen has long been an ideal base for jihadists. Yemen offers Al-Qaeda many advantages: the protection of friendly tribal leaders, a weak central government, the support of radical Muslim religious leaders, and porous borders that facilitate covert movements and offer a back door to Saudi Arabia. To combat the growing threat of terrorism in Yemen, threatened countries must work together with the beleaguered Yemeni government to confront the Al-Qaeda threat, disrupt its operations, and diminish its ability to launch terrorist attacks. Concerns about Al-Qaeda in Yemen stem partly from the fact that the government in the capital of Sanaa has so many other security concerns to worry about. These include a civil war in the north of the country and a violent separatist movement in the south. Yemen, Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland, has long been a bastion of support for militant Islamism, Al-Qaeda, and many other terrorist organizations. In the 1980’s Yemenis made up a disproportionate number of the estimated 25,000 foreign fighters who flocked to Afghanistan to join the jihad against the Soviet occupation, and today, Yemenis comprise the largest group of prisoners still being held by the Americans at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Last year the Yemeni foreign minister estimated there were over a thousand jihadist fighters residing in the country.
Al-Qaeda militants have carried out a string of suicide attacks over the last two years against targets in Yemen, including the US embassy and Western tourist hotspots. In September 2008, Al-Qaeda launched a complex attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen that killed 19 people, including an American woman. They have also used the country as a base from which to attack neighboring Saudi Arabia. While the authorities insist they are doing everything they can to crush the jihadist movement, analysts believe that not only is the Yemeni government inadequately equipped to deal with the situation, but that some radical Islamists have friends in high places that turn a blind eye to their activities.
Yemen is not a failed state, but as this trend of violence continues to intensify, its future becoming uncertain. Yemen's oil exports, the chief source of government revenue, peaked in 2002 and will probably run out in the next few decades. Growing water shortages, high unemployment, government corruption, Sunni-Shia tensions, and tribal rivalries have handicapped one of the fastest-growing populations in the Middle East. The regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh perceives the threats from a Shia rebellion in the north and especially the chronic secessionist agitation in the oil-rich south to be greater than the menace of Al-Qaeda. This troubled region of Yemen mounted a bloody uprising in 1994. President Saleh crushed the rebellion with the help of Islamist militants, and is reluctant to burn his bridges to his former allies, many of whom sympathize with or support AQAP (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula).