YEMEN, THE NEW HOPE FOR TERRORISTS                         Prof Dr Colonel (Retired) K Prabhakar Rao 

                    Ever since USA and its allies launched worldwide hunt for the AlQaeda terrorists and killers after   9/11, 2001 attack on WTC in New York, these infamous blood thirsty criminals are running from pillar to post. The strong hold of AlQaeda in Afghanistan amply abetted by the fundamentalist and mischievous Taliban has been demolished by the US led forces and the AlQaeda leaders and some cadres ran away to the inhospitable Waziristan in Pakistan. The war against terrorists has been going on ever since the attack on Taliban ruled Afghanistan was carried out. Pakistan has been a staunch ally of USA in this global war against terrorism and Pakistan being strategically being important in this war against AlQaeda and Taliban, it has been preferred by the Americans while India has been kept at arms length. Pakistan is being paid large amount of money in US dollars for its cooperation in this fight against the terrorists. The whole world now is fully aware of the fact that Pakistan is harboring the AlQaeda and Taliban cadres and leaders in its territory. Pakistan under severe pressure from USA is conducting certain operations against Taliban and AlQaeda criminals and they have no way out. The position of Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf is precarious with serious problems in his country for which desperately he needs support of American President George W Bush. However, he is putting a brave face. Pakistan always has been a good training ground for the international terrorists, criminals and mischief makers and was a safe place for them. It has been an American stooge and camp follower and is completely dependent on American aid for the survival. It being on the right side of American administration, enjoyed great protection and in turn, the international terrorists have found a good sanctuary in that country. It is something like a thief being sheltered in a police station.(1)

                               Pakistan outwardly expresses its difficulty in tackling and flushing out the terrorists out of Waziristan and gains American sympathy. In the struggle for power balance in the sub continent, America is forced to appear contended with Pakistan mostly ignoring it’s role in abetting terrorism. However of late with intervention of American senate members seriously criticizing Pakistan, there has been strong action against the in- house terrorists in Pakistan (2). Thus, these criminals are on the run and finding difficult to hide in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Their training camps are difficult to be operated in Pakistan and are looking for new places outside Pakistan.

                              Most of the Islamic countries are potential or actual abettors and sympathizers of fundamentalists and terrorists although outwardly they show lip sympathy to American effort against terrorism. Those who are sympathetic to these terrorists see America as the greatest villain in the world and consider that it is conducting a crusade against Islam. The Wahhabi Islam has deeply penetrated their nerves and they are obsessed with hatred towards west. One need not be Sunni Wahhabi to harbor ill will against America and Christian world. Even Shiites are looking at America with yellow eyes. Example is Shiite Iran which   does not let go a single minute in a day without expressing American hatred and death to America. Thus, the terrorists have ample places to hide in Muslim world such as Middle East, Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Muslim dominated areas in India including Kashmir. Yemen is one such country in this context. Such countries and societies outwardly show lip sympathy to USA while heart in heart, they hate and harbor deep ill will against Americans. Their youth try all means to go and study in USA and England by getting Visas while deep in heart hide vengeance against the American nation and some of them plan terrorist activities against the nations which have helped them to rise in their lives.                      Yemen (Arabic:  al-Yamian), officially the Republic of Yemen (Arabic:  al-Jumhuuriyya al-Yamaniyya) is a Middle Eastern country located on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia. With a population of about 20 million people, Yemen is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the North, the Red Sea to the West, the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden to the South, and Oman to the east. Yemen's territory includes over 200 islands, the largest of which is Socotra, about 415 kilometres (260 mi) to the south of Yemen, off the coast of Somalia. North Yemen became independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 and became a republic in 1962. In 1839, the British occupied the port of Aden and established it as a colony in September of that year. They also set up a zone of loose alliances (known as protectorates) around Aden to act as a protective buffer. In 1967, the British withdrew and gave back Aden to Yemen due to extreme pressure of battles with the North and Egyptian allies. After the British withdrawal, this area became known as South Yemen. The two countries were formally united as the Republic of Yemen on May 22, 1990 (3). Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. The World Bank estimates that just over 40 percent of the population lives in poverty.                             While Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq, Yemen played greater role in terrorist activities and was an accomplice in these activities.. On Jan 3, the Daily Telegraph, reported on the UK/US investigation into the Dec 29, kidnapping of 16 UK, US, and Australian tourists and fatal shooting of four , by fundamentalists in Yemen.  The Telegraph said that authorities suspected that the Anglo-Saxons "were kidnapped as' direct retribution' for last month's air strikes on Iraq, and not to achieve the release of local Islamic militants as Yemeni authorities claimed originally.  The detectives suspect that the tourists may have been kidnapped to 'shield' Saddam Hussein from further bombing raids, with a warning that they would die if Iraq was attacked again. "It is said that the contribution made by Iraqi Army soldiers and security personnel in the war in southern Sudan and in south Yemen has had the effect of fostering Baghdad's relations with the extremists who happened to be there in Sudan and Yemen, both of which are 'allies' of Iraq.

                          In fact, Hasan al-Turabi and Ali Abdallah Salih, the president of Yemen, have continued to play a role on behalf of Iraq, winning over Islamic groups for the Baghdad government.  Yemen had been regarded as a rearguard base for those extremists who came from various nationalities. Yemen had been using them as much to advance its own national interests as to help Iraq, which viewed the presence of those militants on Yemen's soil as leverage with which it could bring pressure to bear on Gulf states.  The abduction of 16 Western hostages    by the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army was to retaliate for the US-UK air strikes against Iraq (4)

                             On Monday November 4, 2002, the US campaign against al-Qaeda entered a new phase. A car in a remote part of Yemen carrying six suspected al-Qaeda members, including Qaed Sinan al-Harithi, said to be a senior al-Qaeda operative, was destroyed by a missile fired from an unmanned Predator drone. Although the United States has stopped just short of publicly acknowledging responsibility for the strike, officials have made it perfectly clear that it was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said on CNN that the killing of al-Harithi and his associates was "a very successful tactical operation". However there were some criticisms in the press and certain quarters that these killings amounted to summary executions by America and amounted to violation of human rights. It was also presumed that the strike was approved by the government of Yemen as it was not possible to carry out such operation in a sovereign country without the approval of its government.

                             The war against terror has really gone global. Some of the critics even argued whether the US action was an act of war that was legitimate and the jurisdiction of CIA was also questioned. In fact USA and AlQaeda was at war although undeclared. The gravity of attack on WTC on 9/11, 2001 and the planning that has gone into is nothing but an act of war and as per President George Bush, this was an act of war against America and it had all the right to retaliate against this act of war. USA went hammer and tongs to apprehend the terrorists globally. When it is not possible to apprehend the terrorists it is very legal to shoot and kill them. There is no need to shed tears for these criminals who are trying to hold civilization to a ransom.  In the process Yemen that was very far away from Al Qaeda head Quarters in Afghanistan also was involved where AlQaeda based its network.(5). These acts are not isolated one.  The dangers grew more after      bombing of Battle ship USS Cole in the harbor of Yemen.

                                   AlQaeda net work is finding Yemen a favorable country as a breeding and training ground for the Islamic terrorists. The numbers of terrorists captured or killed in Iraq are reportedly more   Yemen based or have roots there. American battle ship USS Cole was attacked in one of the Yemen’s harbor as stated earlier killing 17 sailors in 2000 (6). Fortunately, al Qaeda's top maritime specialist is in custody. Al Qaeda's chief of naval operations was "Prince of the Sea," Abdul rahim Mohammed Abda al-Nasheri (also know as Mulla Ahmad Belal). Western intelligence believes that al-Nasheri masterminded the October 12, 2000, USS Cole attack while the ship was refueling in Aden, Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed and at least forty others injured in al Qaeda's first successful naval attack, which blew a forty-foot hole in the port side of the ship. Repairs eventually cost US$287 million. U.S. officials concluded that al-Nasheri telephoned orders to the USS Cole bombers from the United Arab Emirates. According to U.S. intelligence, al-Nasheri subsequently fled to Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence believes that, after the 9-11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and al-Nasheri were "promoted" within al Qaeda, taking over operational planning for future attacks (7).  Infact, the families of sailors killed in the terrorist attack on USS Cole in the harbor of Yemen are now suing the Government of Yemen in a court of law for compensation. Some of the terrorists who escaped US action in Afghanistan are reportedly allowed to stay in Yemen under the condition that they   would not indulge in any such illegal activities. Can we really believe these things? Such people would be indulging in underground and clandestine terrorist activities against Western nations. It is generally opined that many training camps have been now become inoperative and the government of Yemen appears to mean business. Can it be trusted? Can all these activities be taken as isolated incidents and Government had no control on these. Can AlQaeda activists stay and plan these activities without enjoying the sympathy of the administration?

                      David Wright-Neville from Monash University in an interview to Lisa Miller believes the large religious and military training camps that once existed are gone, but the threat is still real He stated in an interview, “Well, we have some evidence that there's certainly some training going on, but certainly not on the scale in which it was occurring before. And I guess some of the most significant evidence is coming from the fact that we're now getting a much higher degree of cooperation between the authorities in Yemen and the Americans, and to some extent some of the European countries as well.
We have greater access to different parts of the country and so on, but the difficulty is, given the nature of the country, the terrain, the topography of the country and so on, but also its proximity to other trouble spots means that it's very, very difficult to get a complete handle on the situation in Yemen and to monitor as precisely as perhaps we might like, the sort of comings and goings of key people in the region”. Expert Clive Williams is of opinion that many of the people who were in al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, who fled from Afghanistan, but couldn't go back to their home countries, were welcomed in Yemen. So there is a core of people in Yemen who are a problem. But what the Government has tried to do is to strike a balance with them, or strikes a deal with them that as long as they don't conduct illegal activities they would not be disturbed. This would ensure aid from USA that it desperately needs (8). Thus, Yemen although far flung from Afghanistan and Waziristan in Pakistan, the center of AlQaeda activities, is in its network along with Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Bangladesh and other Muslim countries in Africa. There is always a great danger to the American and western battle ships in the harbors of the Muslim countries although every thing appears calm and cool. The danger of dirty bomb being exploded in one of the harbors is frightening. This has already been demonstrated by USS Coles bombing. Although Yemen is a small country in the Arabian Peninsula, it is a great threat to US vessels and its defense and gulf interests and thus greater importance has to be given in containing and hunting down the terrorists in Yemen.