Brent Stirton, Getty Images
Marib is one of the main homes of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. "In our tribal custom, if someone comes among us we have to protect them. If we discover later they are al-Qaeda, we cannot turn them in," says a local sheik.
Richard Spencer, The Daily Telegraph · Friday, Nov. 12, 2010
Sheik Ahmed Shuraif certainly has the tools for the job the Americans and British want him to do. Kalashnikov rifles litter the floor of the spacious lounge where he and his men gather in the afternoon to chew qat, Yemenis' favourite narcotic leaf.
And this is just his town house in the capital Sanaa. In the province of Marib, where he commands one of Yemen's most important tribes, he is reputed to have the country's largest private army, including tanks.
Since Marib is one of the main homes of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Sheik Ahmed should be a useful ally in the war on terror, his men the very people the West hopes will turn on the terrorists in their midst. Unfortunately, it is not that simple.
"In our religion we are against what al-Qaeda does," he says, smiling gently and thoughtfully from his couch in the middle of the room. "What they are doing is very bad. It's not in Islam at all."
His followers line the cushions set against the walls, nodding and hanging on his every word.
"But who is al-Qaeda, and who is not? Even they don't know themselves sometimes. How can we tell? In our tribal custom, if someone comes among us we have to protect them. If we discover later they are al-Qaeda, we cannot turn them in. We would no longer accept him, but we would not give him to the government."
Tribal customs and a deadly ambivalence toward the West mean the hunt for Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the world's most wanted terrorists, will be long and frustrating.
With al-Qaeda recruits inventing devilish ways of smuggling bombs into the homes of their enemies, those taking them on have to plan equally cleverly. The war is as much psychological as physical: al-Qaeda's new strategy is to set the West on edge.
The government has put Awlaki on trial in absentia since two al-Qaeda parcel bombs were intercepted in Dubai and Britain. It has also launched raids to seize or kill the group's local leaders -- without success.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has compared ruling Yemen to dancing on the heads of snakes. Many
"snakes," in his view, are the tribal leaders, who must be constantly placated if they are to cooperate.
In the provinces known to shelter al-Qaeda -- primarily Marib, al-Jawf, Abyan and Awlaki's homeland, Shabwa, men like Sheik Ahmed hold sway. Despite occasional army forays, the rebels seem to operate reasonably freely.
How much Mr. Saleh can do to recruit the sheiks to the cause of chasing the West's enemies is the big question.
"He can't control the whole country, but he can put a squeeze on any sheik he wants to," claims one senior western official. "If he wanted to make it not worth their while to shelter al-Qaeda he could."
If that is true, the ambivalence of men like Sheik Ahmed is an unwelcome sign of how much needs to be done. He claims genuine efforts have not even started.
"There's no discussion with the government, nothing," he said. "They have offered nothing to us."
In al-Jawf, one of the sheiks negotiating with al-Qaeda for the government was more unnerving. Sheik Abdullah al-Jamili made no bones his main concern was to exact compensation for a man killed in an al-Qaeda shoot-out, rather than imposing a new national security regime. He claimed to meet al-Qaeda leaders regularly, including Awlaki "a few days ago."
Today's jihadis in Yemen are largely composed of
disaffected, fundamentalist locals, plus former Saudi inmates of the Guantanamo Bay prison, but they owe their organizational existence to an older generation who served Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Many were recruited by Brigadier-General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, Mr. Saleh's powerful head of security, and he and his apparatus have found it hard to turn their backs on them. After al-Qaeda bombed USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000, the chief planner was seen walking in Sanaa with the deputy head of the internal security service as a manhunt for him was under way.
Even today, Mr. Saleh's government and his judiciary seem to veer between support for engagement, particularly economically, with the West, and radical Islam.
The President has supported clerics on the U.S. list of globally designated terrorists, while his judges have refused to convict insurgents for terrorist acts committed abroad.
Yemen's neighbours are only too well aware of the recruitment possibilities for radicalism provided by a population of which 35% are unemployed and 60% are under 25 -- particularly one surrounded by so much oil wealth.
Yemen's limited oil supplies, which until recently provided 75% of government revenue, are dwindling fast, with production last year falling by almost half.
Mr. Saleh has been in power for 30 years. Most diplomats and aid workers, to say nothing of the locals, agree Yemen has not, of late, flourished under his rule. They also accept there is no real alternative. That makes his ability to force his will on his fractious country key to our fight with al-Qaeda.
"Foreign interference makes things worse -- history shows that," said Faris al-Sanabani, publisher of the Yemen Observer newspaper.
"It should be left to Yemenis to confront al-Qaeda."
