24 April: Breakfast Briefing: Focus on Qatar, London
24-25 April: Middle East Real Estate Summit, Abu Dhabi
8-9 May: Euromoney Jordan Conference, Jordan
9-10 May: SMI's LNG 2012, London
13-15 May: WEPower, Saudi Arabia
22-23 May: Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference, Saudi Arabia
23-25 May: Cityscape Qatar, Dubai
13-14 June: 5th OPEC International Seminar, Austria
18-20 June: Iraq Petroleum, London
20 June: GCC and the City, London
18-22 June: World National Oil Companies Congress, London
1-3 October: Iraq Mega Projects, Dubai
Untitled Page
Issue 648, 6 November 2000
Yemen caught between US rock and Islamist hard place
Afghanistan’s Taliban are preparing for a US air strike in retribution for the Kabul regime playing host to Saudi-born renegade Osama Bin Laden—according to many reports the prime suspect behind the 12 October bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 US sailors. According to the version being pushed by US officials, the extent of organisation which went into the attack suggested it was long in the planning, linked to a revival of operations by Bin Laden and his allies, rather than any short-term reaction to events in Gaza and the West Bank.
According to US and Yemeni officials, Islamist radicals were behind the attack—claimed by several groups. In Saudi Arabia on 29 October for border demarcations talks, Yemeni Interior Minister Hussein Arab said the authorities had identified one of the two suspects as an Egyptian. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, anxious not to alienate the USA, has previously blamed Islamic Jihad and Arab veterans of the Afghan conflict. The Yemeni security services have held more than 70 Yemenis, Egyptians, Algerians and other foreign-born Arabs for questioning.
The USA has sought to play down its presence (involving up to 300 operatives onshore) which is resented by radical opinion. Ambassador Barbara Bodine has made efforts to show how lightly “the American footprint” now treads. In Aden, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Louis Freeh diplomatically underlined how US investigators were “junior partners”. “We are not taking over, and we don’t want to look like we’re taking over,” Bodine said. The USA has cultivated Saleh’s Yemen to avoid it becoming what the retired head of US Central Command General Anthony Zinni last week called “rats’ nests or havens for terrorists” like Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia. “We don’t need Yemen to become another one,” Zinni told a Senate committee: “We need to provide every incentive to make sure they don’t.” Refuelling in Aden was one such incentive.
Yemeni officials have confirmed that FBI operatives attended interrogation sessions. The FBI agents were not allowed to question suspects directly—which Saleh recently said would infringe Yemeni sovereignty—but were able to ask questions via local interrogators.
Abu Hassan’s legacy
One theory is that the Cole attack was revenge for the 17 October 1999 execution of Afghan war veteran Abu Hassan, infamous for kidnapping 16 tourists in 1998, when three Britons and an Australian died. Abu Hassan, born Zain Al-Abidine Al-Mihdar in the impoverished southern Yemeni Shabwa region, was leader of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan. He boasted of links with Bin Laden prior to his capture in December 1998. His ally, UK-based Imam Abu Hamza Al-Masri—leader of the Ansar Al-Sharia (Supporters of Sharia) group, whose stepson is among a group of imprisoned British Muslims (GSN 645/14)—had predicted vengeance attacks if Abu Hassan was even convicted.
An Islamic Army attack on the Cole would be a setback for Saleh’s efforts to show that his government had expunged Abu Hassan’s legacy, having dismantled training camps and co-opted his followers (some of whom received government jobs after the leader’s arrest).
According to Abu Hamza, Abu Hassan’s group has recovered from his death and is back in action. But other groups have claimed the Cole bombing, along with the bomb thrown into the British Embassy compound in Sanaa, including the Afghan-linked Yemeni Al-Jihad group. The President discussed Afghan veterans with the MBC television channel: “At one time, they were present in Yemen, especially during the national crisis and the secession war [of 1994]. After that, the Yemeni government deported them. They left. But some pockets remain here and there.” In another interview, Saleh said a Yemeni member of Al-Jihad had been arrested for the Embassy explosion.
Many Yemenis are concerned the Cole incident will open the way for an increased Western presence in their turbulent country—also an issue when the future of Socotra island is discussed (GSN 644/16). Saleh has worked hard to cultivate new Western ties, allowing US warships to refuel in Aden since 1998. Last week he argued that the Cole attack “bolsters Yemeni/US relations in view of the serious co-operation taking place between the two sides to uncover this crime.”
To counterbalance this, he has also worked to avoid alienating a traditionally radical political culture. With the Islamist Al-Haq party’s weekly Al-Ummah warning of a “new colonialism” by Zionists and the USA, Saleh has called for Arab states to arm the Palestinians, if only for “self-defence”. He reassured allies in the Islamist Al-Islah party and other groups that US investigators, troops and a small fleet of warships were only in Aden temporarily.
U.S. officials are sceptical that Saleh has won this battle against Abu Hassan’s legacy, not least given opponents’ ability to melt into Yemen’s lawless lands. US reports speak of at least eight international Islamist groups still operating out of Yemen—and the apparent co-option of veteran Islamists such as Sheikh Tariq Bin Abdallah Tareq Al-Fadhli makes US analysts sceptical about Saleh’s intentions.
The Western governments courted by Sanaa have taken fright, tightening their travel advice. As a result, initiatives such as the UK trade mission planned for 19-26 November by The Middle East Association and sponsored by British Trade International have been cancelled.
Bin Laden link
On 16 October, London-based daily Al-Hayat quoted Abu Hamza saying there were Bin Ladin supporters in Yemen, but ruling out their involvement in the Cole explosion in favour of the Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan. Abu Hamza was careful to differentiate between the two, arguing that Bin Laden had “interests in Yemen and he fears that he will lose them if his followers anger the authorities there”. Abu Hamza said he had failed to resolve differences between the Aden Army and Bin Ladin, who objected to operations inside Yemen.
Bin Laden—whose entrepreneurial family originally came to Saudi Arabia from Hadramout in eastern Yemen—is said to have built relations with various tribes, marrying a Yemeni woman at a ceremony in Afghanistan. It has been suggested he could move into Yemen’s mountainous badlands should he have to leave Afghanistan, but unlike in his current refuge, Bin Laden would not enjoy the regime’s overt support.
Meanwhile Al-Hayat reported that Pakistani authorities had informed the USA about the activities of a prominent Egyptian Islamist Midhat Mursi, known as Abu Khabab—said to be training militants who then went to Yemen.
The Cole bombing and British embassy attack were claimed by Al-Jihad, the little-known Djeish Mohammed (whose name featured in students’ chants during recent Gulf demonstrations) and the hitherto unknown Beirut-based Quwat Al-Rad Al-Islamiya (Islamic Deterrent Forces). Djeish Mohammed’s claim was relayed by another London-based preacher, Sheikh Omar Bakri, who said the group planned to carry out kidnapping and bombing operations against all U.K. and U.S. embassies. Investigations continue even though the damaged Cole has limped out of Aden port.
Regional concerns
Whoever carried out the Yemeni bombings, Western concerns in the Gulf are on high security alert. For the first time in two years—since the Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings—US forces in Bahrain (headquarters of the Fifth Fleet), Qatar and Turkey were placed on the top-level Delta Alert on 24 October.
For the longer term, even more damaging may be the genuine anger of Arab peoples—and many of their rulers—at the extent of Western support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinians. So far this has mainly been couched in diplomatic terms. For example, on 30 October, the UAE news agency WAM reported: “The UAE urged Washington to play a fair role in the Middle East peace process during a meeting between Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and U.S. Ambassador Theodore Kattouf.” Sheikh Sultan said Arabs were “looking forward to a fair stand by the US and hope that every effort to protect peace is made to ensure the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people in order to establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital.” The UAE is among Arab states to demand the creation of an international criminal court to try “Israeli war criminals”.
GCC states, as well as more radical Gulf states, will not bend on the Jerusalem issue. Saudi Arabia guided by Crown Prince Abdallah Bin Abdelaziz is taking a new, harder line towards Western allies who prop up Israel (to be analysed in the next issue of GSN). Defence Minister Prince Sultan Bin Abdelaziz—usually so close to Washington—reacted to a pro-Israeli vote in the US Congress by suggesting that action might be taken against officials and companies whose representatives criticised the Palestinians. Little wonder the Americans are feeling edgy.
