Internal divide complicates US efforts in Yemen
The concerns highlight the extent to which the US, as it deepens its military engagement here, is teaming up with a government facing internal divisions that in some ways are more complex than those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post News Service
Published: 00:00 January 10, 2010


Members of Yemeni anti-terrorism force take part in a mock kidnap training scenario in the Sarif area near the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on Saturday.Image Credit: ReutersAden:L A hatred of the government in southern Yemen is complicating US-backed efforts to stem Al Qaida's ambitions across the region, according to Western and Yemeni officials, analysts and human rights activists.

The concerns highlight the extent to which the US, as it deepens its military engagement here, is teaming up with a government facing internal divisions that in some ways are more complex than those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In a speech this week, US President Barack Obama said the US has worked closely with its partners, including Yemen, "to inflict major blows" against Al Qaida. But experts familiar with the group here say it is poised to exploit the country's divide to attract recruits and more sympathy from the south's powerful tribes.

"Al Qaida dreams of secession," said Najeeb Gallab, a political science professor at Sana'a University. "It wants to turn the south into the perfect breeding ground for global terrorism." Once two countries, Yemen unified in 1990. But a brief civil war broke out in 1994. From the north, President Ali Abdullah Saleh dispatched thousands of Yemeni Mujahideen who had fought in Afghanistan as well as Salafists, who follow a strict interpretation of Islam, to fight the southerners.

Ever since, tension has gripped this vast region. The government's resources are stretched thin here, as it also grapples with a Shiite rebellion in the north.

Southerners contend the government has denied them their share of oil revenue, and has dismissed many southerners from military and government jobs. A wave of protests has roiled the south, prompting a government crackdown. Many members of the Southern Movement, a loosely knit coalition, now demand secession.

"We no longer want our rights from the government. We want a separate north and south," said Ahmad Qasim, a secessionist leader who spoke in a hushed tone inside a car recently. In May, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate alleged to have masterminded the attempted bombing of an American jet on Christmas Day, declared its support for the southerners' demands for a separate state. The group's leader, Nasser Al Wahayshi promised to avenge the "oppression" faced by southerners.

Al Qaida militants have thrived in Yemen's southern and southeastern provinces. They are shielded by tribal alliances and codes in religiously conservative communities that do not tolerate outside interference, even from the government. A shared dislike of central authority and US policies in the Middle East has strengthened Al Qaida's bonds with southern tribesmen.

The resentment persists here in Aden, where Al Qaida militants bombed the USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 American sailors.

Inside the dented white car, Qasim sat with another secessionist leader, Nasser Atawil. They complained the names of streets had been changed to northern ones. They said Northerners had taken buildings, farms and land from southerners. Northerners, they contended, gain entry into better universities and had better careers.

Atawil, a retired army general, said his pension was half what his northern counterparts receive.

In another corner of Aden, the managing editor of Al Ayyam, the largest and most influential daily in the south, said the government has banned his paper for sympathising with the Southern Movement's cause.

According to Human Rights Watch, Yemeni forces opened fire on unarmed protesters six times in 2008 and 2009, killing at least 11 and wounding dozens. A top Yemeni official recently denied the government was using excessive force and instead said some secessionists have targeted government forces.

Any melding of the Southern Movement and Al Qaida is far from established, said Christoph Wilcke, a Human Rights Watch researcher for Yemen. But that could change if the US-backed war deepens without Washington pressuring Saleh to stop repression in the south.


http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/yemen/internal-divide-complicates-us-efforts-in-yemen-1.565700