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From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Oct 27 2010 - 11:31:34 EDT
Drones spur Yemenis' distrust of government and U.S.
By Khaled Abdullah
WADI ABIDA, Yemen | Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:05am EDT
WADI ABIDA, Yemen (Reuters) - An afternoon tribal meeting in a remote desert
valley in Yemen is interrupted by the unmistakable hum of an unmanned drone.
The men, gathered in their chieftain's courtyard, rise to look at the sky.
"I wish I had a weapon that could reach that aircraft," tribesman Salim
Hassan told the other men at the gathering as he squinted against the
sunlight.
The drone is hunting for members of al Qaeda as part of the Yemeni
government's U.S.-backed crackdown on the group, launched after al Qaeda's
Yemen branch tried to bomb a Detroit-bound plane last December.
Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland and a neighbor to top oil exporter
<http://www.reuters.com/places/saudi-arabia> Saudi Arabia, Yemen looked set
to become al Qaeda's latest launchpad for attacks in a strategic region
vital to the shipment of oil and goods, and beyond.
But the government must tread carefully in Wadi Abida, in the volatile
eastern province of Maarib, lest it alienates the very tribes it needs to
engage if it is to defeat the militants who hide and train in their midst.
Until a few months ago, Wadi Abida's harsh climate and impenetrable
landscape meant militants could operate there relatively undisturbed.
Impoverished and heavily armed, local tribes' loyalty to the government had
always been flimsy at best.
But tensions between the government and local tribes are growing in Wadi
Abida, which is dominated by a vast expanse of sand but is also home to some
of Yemen's largest energy reserves; reserves the government needs to run one
of the world's poorest countries.
Earlier this year the valley, on the southern edge of the Empty Quarter, saw
some of the heaviest fighting between government forces and militants yet
and residents say drones still circle their area for hours every day.
The occasional attacks target militants, but have also struck civilians in
the valley that is home to 40,000 people. In May, an errant air raid
targeting al Qaeda killed five people, among them Jaber al-Shabwani, the
province's deputy governor who was mediating between the government and the
militants.
"Now children and women are terrified and can't sleep. After Jaber was hit,
people are haunted. They expect the next strike to hit the innocent and not
the fugitives," his uncle, Saleh al-Shabwani, told Reuters.
The killing so angered Shabwani's tribesmen that in the subsequent weeks
they fought heavily with government security forces, twice attacking a major
oil pipeline in Maarib.
Maarib's governor, Naji al-Zaidi, told Reuters there were only a dozen or so
militants, a mixture of Yemenis and other nationalities, hiding in his
province. Zaidi insisted the drones only gather intelligence and are not
involved in any attacks.
WALKING A TIGHTROPE
The cash-strapped government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh does not itself
own any drones and Wadi Abida's inhabitants -- along with many Yemenis
elsewhere -- are in no doubt about who is behind these operations:
Washington.
What is more, in this isolated part of Yemen, where the near-lunar landscape
is dotted with only a few houses here and there, many believe the United
States' ultimate aim is to come and rule them and their land.
"People are worried. They feel they will be colonized like Iraq and
Afghanistan," local tribal chief Mabkhout al-Eradah said.
It would not be the first time U.S. drones hunted fugitives from the skies
above Maarib. In 2002, a CIA drone flying over the province fired a missile
that killed al Qaeda's then leader in the southern Arabian Peninsula
country, prompting a public outcry.
Yemen has fought al Qaeda on and off since before the September 11, 2001
attacks on the United States, often with Washington's help, but al Qaeda has
continued to plan and carry out attacks both in Yemen and beyond.
In July 2007, a car bomb killed seven Spaniards who were visiting Maarib.
Four months after December's attempted plane bombing, an al Qaeda video
showed the would-be bomber, Nigerian Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, attending a
militant training camp in the desert and apparently being given a martyr's
farewell. It was not clear where the footage was shot but it provided
additional evidence that al Qaeda fighters operate with relative freedom in
Yemen.
Its government, facing multiple political and economic challenges in
different parts of the country, has always had to be careful in publicizing
the extent of its cooperation with U.S. forces in order to keep public
opinion in check.
Apart from battling against a resurgent al Qaeda wing, Yemen is also
struggling to contain simmering unrest from a growing secessionist movement
in the south. A six-year conflict with northern rebels only came to an end
earlier this year, having displaced over 350,000 people.
The government is helpless in the face of grinding poverty and rampant
unemployment, with more than 40 percent of Yemenis living on under $2 a day.
Analysts see the ailing economy as a greater risk to Yemen's stability than
any security concerns.
"U.S. policy in the region is unpopular in Yemen, and Yemenis are very much
politicized, so this is something the government does have to take into
consideration," said Nicole Stracke at the Gulf Research Center.
"At the moment the government is so much under pressure that they don't want
another source of trouble."
Sanaa now denies direct U.S. involvement in the airstrikes on militants,
despite Washington becoming increasingly frank.
In August, U.S. security officials said Washington was looking to increase
air strikes against al Qaeda's Yemen wing in an attempt to emulate what they
consider a successful CIA-run programme using drones in
<http://www.reuters.com/places/pakistan> Pakistan.
The Yemeni government was quick to dispute these statements, insisting Yemen
did not need "foreign parties" to lead its fight against al Qaeda --
assertions that stood in contrast to previous pleas for assistance from
abroad.
When the Obama administration gave the CIA the green light to kill or
capture a leading figure with links to al Qaeda, the American-born Muslim
cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, Yemen's prime minister responded by saying that any
U.S. assassination on Yemeni soil would be unacceptable.
"Public cooperation would also play into the hands of the militants who
argue that the Yemeni government is just a puppet of the United States,"
Stracke said.
Yemen's U.S.-backed campaign against al Qaeda has prompted the militant
group to lash out against state and foreign targets alike and recent
messages the group posted on Islamist websites criticize Saleh's
relationship with Washington.
Back in Wadi Abida, residents say that while they do not support al Qaeda,
they do not accept U.S. intervention on their soil.
"When America is in the sky, the Almighty God is above it. And when it is on
the ground, we are here and it will see only war and destruction," Eradah
said.
(Additional reporting and writing by
<http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=raissa.kasolows
ky&> Raissa Kasolowsky, Editing by Lin Noueihed)
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