Al Qaeda's chaos strategy in Yemen

NY Times:

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has rapidly evolved into an expanding and ambitious regional terrorist network thanks in part to a weakened, impoverished and distracted Yemeni government.

While Yemen has chased two homegrown rebellions, over the last year the Qaeda cell here has begun sharing resources across borders and has been spurred on to more ambitious attacks by a leadership strengthened by released Qaeda detainees and returning fighters from Iraq.

The priorities of the Yemeni government have been fighting a war in the north and combating secessionists across the south. In the interim, Al Qaeda has flourished in the large, lawless and rugged tribal territories of Yemen, creating training camps, attacking Western targets and receiving increasing popular sympathy.

Al Qaeda’s growing profile in Yemen became clear after a Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, was able to overstay his visa here by several months, connect with Qaeda militants and leave this country with a bomb sewn into his underwear.

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The core of the group here is still thought to be small, perhaps no more than 200 people. But it has the important advantage of being part of a larger, regional structure after it merged a year ago with the Saudi branch of Al Qaeda to form Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And it has been able to originate fairly sophisticated operations here, in Saudi Arabia and now on an airliner headed for Detroit.

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... In the year since the Saudi and Yemeni branches merged, Al Qaeda has taken full advantage of the government’s preoccupation with the rebellions, building support from the tribal structures and traditions in Yemen’s poor and lawless territories.

One big moment came in February 2006, when 23 imprisoned men suspected of being members of Al Qaeda escaped from a high-security prison, reportedly with the aid of some Yemeni security forces. According to Yemeni and Western officials, one of the prisoners, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, became the leader of the group and moved to reorganize it, focusing it on attacks against nearby Western targets. Another prisoner, Qassim al-Raimi, became the military commander.

The next year, Mr. Wuhayshi found a deputy — and, perhaps, a rival for leadership: Said Ali al-Shihri, 36, a Saudi citizen. He was released from six years’ detention in Guantánamo Bay in December 2007 to a rehabilitation program run by the Saudis. He disappeared from Saudi Arabia and emerged in Yemen, and he is considered by many to be the rising star of the local movement. Mr. Shihri had traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 and was apparently wounded there, and he was captured crossing back into Pakistan in December of that year.

Another Guantánamo detainee, also captured in Pakistan in 2001 and later released to a Saudi rehabilitation program is Ibrahim Suleiman al-Rubaysh, 30, who also disappeared and is now described as the mufti, or theological guide, to Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula.

Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born, English-speaking Internet imam of Al Qaeda here, returned to Yemen, his family’s home, in 2004. He was arrested in 2006 on security charges and was released in December 2007, after 18 months in prison. He then went to Britain, and is believed to have returned to Yemen in the spring of 2009.

Mr. Awlaki, 38, is not thought to have a major operational role. Still, American and Yemeni officials say they believe he provided a crucial link to Mr. Abdulmutallab, first through the Internet and then meeting him in Yemen and helping to recruit him to the airliner bomb plot.

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There is much more.

Al Qaeda in Yemen has benefited from an unusually large migration for one of the poorest Arab countries.From the north refugees from the losing effort in Iraq have come to Yemen as well as refugees from a Saudi crack down on al Qaeda operatives in the Kingdom. The story indicates that some 200,000 refugees have come from Somalia across the Red Sea.

Al Qaeda always look for a chaos to exploit when it is trying to establish itself. It used that strategy in Iraq and Somalia. Where there is no natural chaos it attempts to create it then present itself or its affiliates as the answer. That is similar to the way the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. The story indicated how al Qaeda is playing on the fissures of Yemen society as well as taking cover from some of its tribal customs which are similar to those of the Pashtun in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Al Qaeda has also benefited from a Yemeni catch and release program in the past where the government feigned an interest in bringing the religious bigots to justice and then let them go after a few weeks.

I think Awlaki is a more important figure they he is given credit for in the article. He seems to be a facilitator and recruiter for al Qaeda. He has popped up in the Fort Hood shooter case and this case and his house was being used for a meeting of al Qaeda leaders. He would be very high on my target list.