YEMENI OFFICIALS ADMIT THEY ARE LOSING THE BATTLE AGAINST AL-QAEDA *** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Yemeni officials have admitted they are losing the battle against al-
Qaeda and the terror group is extending its reach into remote regions
where state control has all but disappeared.
By Adrian Blomfield in Zinjibar
The Telegraph, UK
Monday, January 11, 2010
[Caption] Men claiming to be Al-Qaeda members address a crowd
in Yemen's southern province of Abyan Photo: AFP/GETTY
Regional politicians have presented a much bleaker prognosis than the
authorities in the capital Sana'a, who have repeatedly sought to play
down the threat posed by extremists in the wake of the Detroit terror
attack.
They say al-Qaeda has forged its strongest relationship with local
tribes in the sparsely populated mountains and desert of the south,
where long simmering resentment of the government has given way to
near-rebellion.
On the outskirts of Zinjibar, the ramshackle principal town of Abyan
province, the gates of an ageing villa set deep in a banana
plantation are guarded by more than a dozen Yemeni soldiers and
policemen.
Sitting inside his heavily protected official residence, Ahmed al-
Misri, Abyan's governor, is a gloomy man who frankly admits he
regrets ever having taken up the job.
As well he might, Yemen observers say. Along with the provinces of
Shabwa and Marib, Mr Misri's fiefdom forms an ungovernable crescent
east of Sana'a and Aden, Yemen's main cities, which many commentators
have described as "the new Waziristan".
With al-Qaeda growing ever stronger and local secessionists gaining
such momentum that many commentators predict civil war, Mr Misri is
so besieged by enemies that he is said rarely to leave his residence.
That is not entirely true. Protected by a local tribal code under
which his kinsmen would be entitled to avenge his death, Mr Misri
does venture out into the province.
The same is not the case, he conceded, for government forces, who
were so weak and poorly equipped that they had effectively
surrendered control of much of Abyan to al-Qaeda militants.
"To speak plainly, [government control] is not so strong," he told
The Daily Telegraph from Abyan, normally a closed security zone.
"We don't have enough weapons. We don't have enough soldiers. Our
resources are so few that if something happens in the countryside, we
can't respond because there are no helicopters or aeroplanes."
Such analysis will cause deep disquiet in Washington, which has
indicated it has no choice but to leave Yemeni forces to lead the
fight against al-Qaeda.
Since the Detroit attack, responsibility for which has been claimed
by Yemen's al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, government officials in
Sana'a have been quoted as saying thousands of troops had been
deployed to provinces like Abyan.
But in a disclosure that will raise worrying questions about the
Yemeni's government's commitment, the governor claimed the deployment
was a charade, with troops being rotated between provinces to give
the impression that a major offensive was under way.
Al-Qaeda has emerged as a particularly potent force in the past eight
months after it was reinforced by an unknown number of new arrivals
from Saudi Arabia who had access to considerable funding.
Dividing themselves into small cells, they embedded themselves among
nomadic Bedouin tribes in the mountains so cut off from the modern
world that many had not heard of al-Qaeda, the governor said.
The new arrivals, with assistance from their Yemeni counterparts,
found it easy to win acceptance. Introducing themselves as religious
scholars, they proved they had deeper pockets than the government,
digging wells, offering religious schooling to unemployed youngsters
and doling out AK-47s to weapons-hungry tribesmen.
Mr Misri conceded the government had been outmanoeuvred: "If the
government gives them $50, al-Qaeda gives them $100," he said.
With unemployment in his region at 50 per cent, the American and
Yemeni governments may find that outbidding al-Qaeda for tribal
loyalties may be the most effective course to victory.
The use of force has so far has had mixed consequences. An air strike
against a Bedouin mountain encampment called Maajala on Christmas Eve
killed 14 al-Qaeda members, including the leader in Abyan, the
governor said. But it also killed 45 tribesmen, among them 18 women
and 15 children, who may have had no idea of whom they were
sheltering, he added.
Yaslam Abu-Sit, the first Abyan official to reach the encampment said
he discovered a scene of carnage: "There were just five survivors;
three girls, a woman and a youth of 16."
News of the attack enraged many southerners. Future strikes, analysts
warn, only risk deepening sympathy for al-Qaeda and turning people
both against the United States and the Yemeni government.
Already deeply disillusioned, the ranks of the south's main
secessionist group, the Southern Movement, could swell, tipping the
country into full-scale civil war -- an outcome that would make the
task of defeating al-Qaeda much more difficult than it already is.
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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harmony
<use...@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)> wrote in
message news:20100111I8f7Zkp9G6z96XUew39dRSF@B1sQ2...
> Yemeni officials admit they are losing the battle against al-Qaeda
>
which tells you mainstream muslim society is terrorist.
this same story in most muslims countries.
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
"harmony" <a...@hotmail.com> posted:
> Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
>
> > Yemeni officials admit they are losing the battle against al-Qaeda
> > . . .
> which tells you mainstream muslim society is terrorist.
> this same story in most muslims countries.
And soon to be so in the U.S. if the Islamization of America
is allowed to continue. It must be stopped.