AQ ON THE MOVE IN YEMEN
My latest at FrontPage.com is about the chaos in Yemen and how Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is taking advantage of it.
A sample:
About 400 Islamic extremists have moved into the southern coastal city of Zinjibar in the lawless province of Abyan with the stated purpose of establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state in Yemen. There are conflicting reports about which group has seized this provincial capital and third largest city in the country, with some residents reporting that it is Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) which has moved in, while other press reports identify a local fundamentalist tribal group known as Ansar al-Sharia. But Yemen scholar Gregory Johnsen tweeted on Sunday that AQAP has begun calling itself by that name recently.
The government fought back, bombing buildings and compounds where the extremists were holed up and sending ground forces in to try and wrest control of the city from the militants. Helicopter gunships may have destroyed up to 200 homes with at least 12 people killed during the counterattack. Thousands have fled the fighting and the prospect of being governed by extremists.
Zinjibar is the second major city in Abyan province to fall into the hands of extremists. The city of Jaar was captured by al-Qaeda in March where the terrorists issued a declaration naming the city an “Islamic emirate.” Professor Saeed Al-Jamhi, a professor at the University of Sanaa, head of al-Jamhi Center for Studies and Research, and an expert on AQAP, believes that al-Qaeda has already “absorbed the blow” to it delivered by the Arab uprisings, and is beginning to turn the revolts to its advantage — especially in Yemen.
Al-Jamhi points out that that AQAP believes that Abyan province will be a central hub due to “ideological considerations.” Apparently, it is part of Salafi belief that Yemen “is a desert of salvation stretching north towards the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant, and from it to the world to form the so-called Islamic caliphate.” In this context, AQAP believes itself well-positioned to exploit the lack of control by the central government and can carve out an independent entity that, for all practical purposes, does not answer to any Yemeni government authority.
The violence in Yemen has increased in recent days and the government is beginning to crumble. An entire brigade of the powerful Republican guard has defected en masse to the opposition and nine generals have signed a statement that urged government forces to stand with the “peaceful, popular revolution.” Abdullah Ali Eliwa, A former defense minister of Saleh’s, has accused the president of ordering the army “to hand over Zinjibar” to the extremists. Witnesses in Zinjibar claim the small military force fled on Friday when the extremists entered the city but it is unclear if they were ordered out, or retreated on their own.
The president has used the AQAP threat in the past to crackdown on dissidents and maintain his dictatorship. For the Yemeni opposition, it has become a question of credibility. Saleh has “cried wolf” so often that even a genuine threat from extremists on one of the nation’s largest cities is met with skepticism and continued demands that he relinquish control of the country immediately. Saleh has already promised three times that he would resign, agreeing to terms negotiated by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. Three times, he has reneged on the agreement, citing the chaos that would descend on Yemen if he were to depart.