| Ander Nieuws week 8 / Midden-Oosten 2010 |
The Washington Post
February 11, 2010
Sudarsan Raghavan
Even as it fights a U.S.-supported war against al-Qaeda militants here, the Yemeni government is engaging Islamist extremists who share an ideology similar to Osama bin Laden's in its own civil war, adding new complications to efforts to fight terrorism.
Yemen's army is allying with radical Sunnis and former jihadists in the fight against Shiite rebels in the country's north. The harsh tactics of those forces, such as destroying Shiite mosques and building Sunni ones, are breeding resentment among many residents, analysts said, and given the tangle of evolving allegiances could build support for al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch, which plotted the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S. airliner.
The alliance with the Sunni radicals is one of the most vivid examples of the tangled loyalties within Yemen's fragile government and raises concerns about the nation's long-term commitment to U.S. goals to eliminate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni branch. Those entanglements are evident even at the highest levels of the government, including President Ali Abdullah Saleh and the second most powerful man in Yemen, Ali Muhsin, who commands the armed forces fighting the rebels.
Muhsin, responsible for deploying the Sunni fighters, follows the ultraconservative brand of Sunni Islam known as Salafism. Salafists follow a strict interpretation of the Koran. Many reject violence, but hard-liners, including bin Laden and al-Qaeda followers, see Salafist codes as justification for targeting the West and its allies.
Jihadism and radical Islam have tenacious roots in Yemen, and Saleh has long aligned himself with Salafists and ex-jihadists, to assert authority and deepen his grip on power. "The Salafists and al-Qaeda are like the two faces of the moon," said Muhammad al-Mutawakil, a political science professor at Sanaa University. "The Salafists are the light face and al-Qaeda is the dark face. They have the same culture."
Saleh's patronage of Salafists has helped fuel Islamist extremism in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation. Senior military, security and religious figures in the country are widely thought to be Salafi sympathizers, some with past links to bin Laden. Some are exercising their authority to limit the U.S.-Yemen relationship.
Senior Yemeni officials do not deny that Saleh and Muhsin deploy Salafists to fulfill their agenda. But they say the Salafists are now being mobilized against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, helping gather intelligence and fighting suspected militants in the north. Yemen's government has charged that al-Qaeda members support the Shiite rebels, though it has not provided evidence, say Western diplomats and analysts.
Still, some top Yemeni officials are wary about the relationship with the Salafists. "Using these extremist people, if they are with you today, they are prone to be against you tomorrow," said Abdel-Karim al-Iriyani, a former prime minister and current political adviser to Saleh. "That comes not without danger."
Salafism in Yemen
Salafism grew out of Yemen's close relationship with its ultra-religious neighbor Saudi Arabia. Tens of thousands of Yemenis poured into the kingdom for jobs and brought back Saudi values to an already conservative tribal society. Religious schools that taught Saudi Wahhabism, which experts equate with Salafism, spread across Yemen; Saudis funded many of the schools.
In the 1980s, tens of thousands of Yemenis traveled to Afghanistan to wage jihad, or holy war, against the Soviets, partly encouraged and financed by the United States. There, many were introduced to the Salafist ideology. Upon their return, Yemen's government treated the former fighters as heroes.
Saleh also recruited Salafists and ex-jihadists into his inner circle. They included Tariq al-Fadhli, who became a key government adviser and a colonel in Yemen's military, and Muhsin, who had recruited fighters for bin Laden in Afghanistan.
In 1994, four years after U.S.-backed North Yemen merged with Marxist South Yemen, a vicious, if brief, civil war broke out. To quell the southern rebellion, Saleh dispatched Fadhli, along with thousands of Salafists and ex-jihadists.
The Salafists view themselves as the protectors of Yemen's Islamic identity, and their loyalty to Saleh runs deep because they view him as able to keep Yemen unified under sharia, or Islamic law, without Western interference.
In the north, the Shiite rebels, known as Hawthis, rose up six years ago to push back the government-sanctioned influence of hard-line Salafis, who viewed the Shiites as heretics.
Yemen's tolerance for extremists persisted even after al-Qaeda militants bombed the USS Cole in the southern city of Aden in 2000, killing 17 American sailors. U.S. officials say Saleh started to take al-Qaeda seriously only after they convinced him that the group posed a threat to his ability to stay in power. Yemeni officials say the United States and its Western partners provided far too little assistance to tackle al-Qaeda.
Ties that trouble
Abdul-Ghani al-Iriyani, a political analyst who is the nephew of the former prime minister, said Saleh "miscalculated the result of this association with Salafis and ex-jihadists, which is now coming to haunt him."
"He has squandered his credibility with the international community, especially after having maintained this relationship after the USS Cole," he said.
Today, Muhsin is emerging as Saleh's most significant rival. Muhsin has strongly signaled that he does not favor the succession of Saleh's son Ahmed to the presidency, according to Saleh's political advisers and Western diplomats.
Muhsin is "building up his ambitions. If he becomes president, it will be a bad sign," said a senior Yemeni official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "Muhsin sides more with the religious extremists, not necessarily al-Qaeda, but with extremists like" Sheik Abdul Majid al-Zindani, whom the United States has classified as bin Laden's spiritual mentor and a terrorist.
Zindani and Salafi clerics he leads have warned that U.S. intervention in Yemen could lead to "foreign occupation" and that they would order jihad against America. In the wake of such rhetoric, Saleh announced that he was open to entering "a dialogue" with al-Qaeda militants, raising concerns among U.S. officials.
It's not the first time this has happened. In 2003, the government adopted a strategy to rehabilitate suspected militants in a prison-based program. It led to the release of high-profile extremists involved in the Cole bombing. Judge Hamoud al-Hitar, a Salafist, ran the program. Today, he is Yemen's minister for religious endowments. Last year, he and Zindani led a rally of hundreds of Salafists to declare opposition to the secessionist movement in the south.
Fadhli also haunts the government. Last year, he broke with Saleh and joined a movement of southerners seeking redress for grievances against the regime, which is led by northerners. Many are seeking outright secession. Fadhli's arrival has injected energy into the movement: Anti-government rallies have grown larger and more unruly in recent months.
Saleh's Salafist ties, many Yemeni officials and analysts say, force the Obama administration to walk a tightrope as it deepens its partnership with Yemen. If the United States treads too lightly, there might be a temptation for the Yemeni government to backtrack on its efforts to combat al-Qaeda.
"If they push too far, the backlash is going to be massive," said Abdul-Ghani al-Iriyani, the analyst. "Then people like the extremists in the army, extremists in the society will capitalize on that and derail the whole campaign."
© 2010 The Washington Post Company
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