In the last weeks, there have been several newswire reports about heavy fighting in the Abyan governorate in southern Yemen, where militants control several cities and threaten the important port city of Aden.
According to Sumedha Senanayake, senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at iJet International, Yemen is in ”a state of flux.”
Not only is there a genuine public uprising inspired by the Arab Spring, but there is also a power struggle between the current leader, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and his opponents, some former allies.
Described as the Joint Meeting Parties, the opposition is an interesting mix of the dominant Islah Party, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Yemeni Socialist Party.
The Islah Party, includes the top leadership of the Hashid tribal confederation, which used to be Saleh’s main tribal support,
War in the South
Saleh’s struggle to maintain power is now playing into the war against Islamic militants in the south.
Ever since the uprising against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year-old regime began, government forces have been withdrawn from the restive southern areas, allowing al-Qaeda fighters to capitalize on the situation. Some see Saleh’s withdrawal of troops as part of his struggle to remain in power.
”Many people accused Saleh of allowing them to take over towns in order to scare the international community into backing Saleh again as the only capable deterrent to al-Qaeda,” Charles Schmitz, associate professor of geography at Towson University and a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said in an e-mail.
Schmitz also pointed out that infighting in various army units had become a key factor in the struggle against al-Qaeda. He mentioned that Ali Mushin, the highest ranking defector to the opposition within the military, at one point offered relief to an army unit under siege by Islamic militants, but only on the condition that they too defected to the opposition.
Al-Qaeda Franchise
Last year, the CIA declared that the al-Qaeda cells in Yemen were the most urgent threat against U.S. security. Yet, it is not entirely clear who the militants currently controlling Yemenite towns really are.
Brian Lewis, Middle East and North Africa analyst at iJet International, lived in Yemen until late last year and has focused on al-Qaeda. He told The Epoch Times in a phone interview that the al-Qaeda cell in Yemen is in fact the remnants of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia.
This al-Qaeda ”franchise,” known as al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was formed after the Saudi government’s big offensive to rid themselves of al-Qaeda back in 2008. Two groups crossed the porous southern border into Yemen and eventually joined forces in late 2009 or early 2010.
It is not clear, however, whether all the militants currently operating in Yemen are actually part of this original core of al-Qaeda fighters. With 80 percent of their victims Muslim, and their reputation within the Muslim world deteriorating accordingly, al-Qaeda have since taken to calling themselves Ansar al-Sharia when entering Yemenite towns, Lewis said. Some evidence suggests that other groups have taken up the name as well, loosely associating themselves with al-Qaeda.
“It’s hard to see on the ground what al-Qaeda thinks of other militants in the regions. In a situation like Yemen, where the central authority is so weak, it’s become a haven for militant groups, Islamic or otherwise,” Lewis said.
He also pointed out that it’s very difficult to know, for sure, what is going on in the southern regions, since they are very remote and hard to access. Now they are also technically a war zone.
Earlier this week, Yemen’s minister of defense narrowly escaped death when his car hit a landmine in Abyan, and dozens of al-Qaeda fighters have been killed daily in army air strikes and CIA drone attacks, according to reports.
Charles Schmitz also noted the costliness of this war for al-Qaeda: “Al-Qaeda is losing many, many fighters and leaders. In the long run, al-Qaeda will take a big hit in this operation,” he wrote.
The problem with the airstrikes is that they also kill civilians, which may create a backlash against the government and the West, adding to the already very complicated pattern of shifting allegiances, Sumedha Senanayake noted.
Threat to the West
In terms of a threat to the West, al-Qaeda has so far been mainly focused on building its ”emirate” in the southern regions. There have been a few moves against the West from AQAP, such as the infamous “underwear bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in 2009. However, Brian Lewis believes they will focus on Arab regimes and Western interests in Yemen, such as embassies and industries.
“If an opportunity were to arise where they have the material and the capability to attack the West itself they would take that, but it’s a more efficient use of their resources to concentrate on ‘the near enemy’,” he said.
Ali Abdullah Saleh has declared that elections will be held within the next three months, and regardless of the outcome, few believe that Saleh himself will return to power. Brian Lewis thinks Saleh’s fall is just a matter of time, and all of the major contenders for taking over Yemen would most likely keep fighting al-Qaeda.
Unless the power struggle goes on for several months without a resolution and thereby taxing the military’s resources, it is unlikely that al-Qaeda will manage to gain control over any major city, he said.
The prospect of a failed state and a similar situation to that in Somalia is a possibility, but it is not likely that Yemen’s neighbors would let such a thing happen, according to Sumedha Senanayake.
“If Yemen ends up a failed state, the security implications would be profound in Saudi Arabia as well as the entire Arabian Peninsula. The U.S. will not allow that to happen either,” he said.
