Our first guest contribution comes from Andre Castillo, an MA Candidate at Johns Hopkins SAIS, where he is concentrating in Middle East Studies and International Economics. Among other achievements, Andre sold his fully paid-off Ford Focus to study in Yemen in 2008. Below he discusses the increasing attention Yemen is receiving for its alleged links to terrorist activity.
“Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.” – Senator Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
According to U.S. officials, Yemen today is second only to Pakistan in its importance to Al Qaeda. Both the Christmas Day would-be hijacker in Detroit, Michigan and the November 5 Fort Hood attacker have been linked to Yemen in one way or another. The Pentagon went so far as to spend $70 million in military aid this year to fight Al Qaeda in Yemen, helping the Yemeni government to raise the profile of its anti-terror operations. The most visible example of this has so far been the Yemeni government’s December 17 air strikes that killed 34 militants in Sana’a, Abyan, and Arhab. December has been a busy month for terrorism in Yemen, and there’s little doubt that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) will soon attempt retaliation. Rather than provide a synopsis of recent terrorist activity in Yemen, for which I refer you to the excellent Waq al Waq blog, instead I will try and take a step back to place Yemen into the greater global regional context of the terrorism issue.
Why Yemen? Explaining why Yemen is the way it is, and why it appears to have become such a breeding ground for terrorism, is no simple task. Most analysis of Yemen’s terror problem emphasizes the lack of state capacity to confront and eliminate Al Qaeda. It’s true that Yemen is a fragile state. It fails to meet the Weberian criteria of maintaining a monopoly over the legitimate use of violence. Successive regimes have had difficulty maintaining their armies as instruments of coercion that could be used to instill domestic order, and Yemeni tribes have consistently challenged the authority of the government. Today, Yemen is considered one of the world’s most heavily armed societies, and most tribes possess weapons which are estimated to kill about 2,000 people each year. It is often said that there are 60 million weapons currently in Yemen, or about three to a person, children included.
This analysis is certainly true, but it’s not the whole story. There are other factors behind the “breathing space” that Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, has afforded a group like al Qaeda. Though Yemenis as a rule do not support terrorism – a 2008 poll found that 93% of Yemenis supported a law against it – I found in my brief experience there that Yemeni views of al Qaeda can be altogether different, and quite sympathetic. Hearing Yemenis praise bin Laden’s “defense” of Arabs and Muslims was not uncommon, even in educated, Western-friendly settings like the Yemen American Language Institute I taught at or at the secular Arabic school where I studied. (Al Qaeda memorabilia could often be found alongside that of Saddam Hussein’s or Hassan Nasrallah’s in the suuqs as well.) I also learned in my interactions there that people of a religious bent, like the Detroit hijacker, saw in Yemen a certain religious and linguistic ‘purity’ that attracted them to the country, even if they were not al Qaeda-leaning extremists.
Yemen’s Islamic pride derives from its history as a place of traditional Islamic learning that goes back centuries. Yemen is older than Islam itself, having been mentioned several times in the Qur’an and the hadith. Zabid, a town on Yemen’s Western coast, had been the site of a Qur’anic university since the beginning of Islam (the word “Algebra” is also said to have been coined by a Zabidi scholar.) The oldest known Qur’ans in the world, dating back to the 7th and 8th century, were found in Yemen less than forty years ago.
It is clear that Yemen also has a very strong Arab identity. Yemenis like to refer to themselves as “the original Arabs” from whom all other Arabs are descended. Speaking proper Arabic in Yemen, unlike in Egypt or the Arab Levant, is widely seen with pride and maintains a large amount of social currency in both secular and conservative circles alike. It is the language of history and knowledge, poetry and culture. Many Arabic learners, myself included, have been attracted to Yemen for precisely the quality of Yemenis’ Arabic. This also includes religious migrants, both moderate and extremist, who come to Yemen to learn the proper fusha Arabic with which to better understand the Qur’an.
Religious migrants view Yemen with fondness for other reasons as well. Yemen is home to prominent religious clerics, ranging from moderates, like Umar bin Hafeed, to extremists like the infamous Anwar al-Alawqi, the correspondent to the Fort Hood attacker, who utilize Yemeni’s strong inter-communal bonds to advance religious goals. Islam has more breathing space in Yemen than elsewhere, and the lack of state penetration into daily life, moreover, gives religious leaders a large degree of autonomy elsewhere unavailable in the Arab world. Altogether this makes Yemen a convenient place for religious study.
The power of Yemen’s ethnic-religious identity, shared throughout Yemen and across Yemen’s various sects, informs Yemeni views of regional and world politics. Being in Yemen, you would hardly know that the country has had little to no involvement with Palestinians or the Arab-Israeli conflict. When I was in Sana’a in 2008, street demonstrations supporting the Palestinians were more frequent than any other. These identity politics frequently impaired government policy, particularly its policy of pragmatism toward the West. Enormous domestic support for Saddam Hussein during the 1990-91 Gulf War, for example, impelled Yemen’s government to vote against the U.S. at the U.N. Security Council, ultimately costing Yemen millions in U.S. foreign aid. To Yemenis, Saddam was a defender of the Arab people and a hero; his posters continue to fill Yemeni shops, cars, and houses to this day. Most important of all to Yemenis perhaps are the dozens (formerly hundreds) of Yemenis detained in Guantanamo Bay, which have fueled al Qaeda’s growth in Yemen. The issue of unfair detainment (real or perceived) drives many extremists, and is reported to be behind the Fort Hood cleric’s transformation (undertaken after his stay in Yemen) from 9/11 denouncer to radical proponent of violence against Americans.
Ultimately, the identity issue fuels support for Al Qaeda in so far as Yemenis see Al Qaeda as defending Arab and Muslim interests in a broad sense. The Palestinian issue is one example. More particularly, Al Qaeda’s ability to exploit certain Arab customs has also worked to its advantage. One example is the Arab custom of protection of guests, which been cited as one reason Al Qaeda has been able to find safe harbor in Yemen.
The solution to the terrorism issue must go beyond simple analyses of state capacity. Yemenis’ historical sense of connection to the greater Arab and Muslim world and their perception of their mistreatment at the hands of the U.S. appears to be at an all-time high. Popular hostility to the U.S. animates many Yemenis and has been the fuel that lights the fire of Yemen’s weak central government. As Gregory Johnson of Waq al Waq has stated, this means that there is no easy solution to the terrorism problem: greater U.S. or Yemeni government action, done poorly, could end up pouring more fuel onto the fire, as the example of al-Alawki illustrates, if it is perceived to be unfairly targeting Arabs, Muslims, or Yemenis.
Al Qaeda must be confronted, unquestionably, but effectively and productively. The U.S. and Yemen have a careful balancing act to follow.
Today from CNN: Yemen: Al Qaeda ‘most dangerous’ arrested, http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/12/31/yemen.alqaeda.arrests/index.html?eref=rss_latest&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+Most+Recent%29
Its too often that we simplify events going on throughout the world, especially within the Middle East. Thank you Andre for your refreshing insight into the events that have been occurring as of late involving Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Very interesting article, America need to focus on Yemen more often and need to get the Yemeni government involved in targeting this Terror network around the Middle-East.It is possible Yemen could become the next Pakistan, a safe-haven for all terrorist, the United States must work with the Yemenis to insure safety and security cooperation and to further advance peace talks in Palestine.
Very informative Andre. The article is written with intelligence and wisdom and is something all students should read. Thank you.
Great article, Andre. I wonder if there is still so much sympathy for AQ in Yemen because major attacks have largely focused on outsiders so far. (Think USS Cole, random attacks on tourists and so forth) I know in Saudi Arabia public opinion did not really turn against AQ until many Saudi citizens were killed in a series of suicide bombings in Riyadh a few years ago. But it seems that Yemen has not yet come to that point.
I completely agree Lauren. Yemenis are some of the poorest educated in the Arab world, and many simply do not know much, if anything, negative about Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein (many have never heard of the Halabja gassing, for example, and anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracies appear to be common). Other than some modern media like satellite television, for those who can afford it, Yemenis generally rely on their own experience and the communicated experiences of their relatives to form their opinions. The absence of any personal negative experiences with Al Qaeda, combined with the heavy coverage of Arab casualties in Iraq in Palestine on satellite TV, I think, as you rightly point out, forms a large part of this equation.