By Henry Meyer Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) — Yemen may be turning into an al- Qaeda base for attacks on U.S. and other Western targets as the group exploits the disintegration of government control sparked by rebellions in the north and south of the country. Al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch claimed responsibility yesterday for the attempt by a Nigerian man to blow up a Detroit-bound transatlantic flight on Dec. 25. On Christmas Eve, Yemeni warplanes, acting on U.S. intelligence, struck a meeting of al-Qaeda leaders in a remote southeastern mountain valley. A link between the Northwest Airlines plane attack and Yemen is “extremely significant,” said Rohan Gunaratna , head of the Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research. “This demonstrates that Yemen could be used as a forward operating base to strike al-Qaeda’s most important enemy, the U.S.” Yemen is struggling to subdue an insurgency by northern Shiite rebels that has drawn in its neighbor Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, as well as a secessionist threat in the south where the government has little control outside major cities. U.S. National Security Adviser James Jones told CNN on Dec. 5 that al-Qaeda is relocating to Yemen and Somalia in the face of pressure from U.S. and Pakistani forces on the Pakistan-Afghan border, posing “a threat to our national security.” “Yemen is second only to Afghanistan and Pakistan in counterterrorism importance,” said Christopher Boucek , a Yemen expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace . “Potentially we are talking about a failed state right on the border of the world’s largest oil exporter.” Like Somalia Located at the tip of the Arabian peninsula, Yemen has mountainous landscape similar to the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding. It’s instability and the fact it is the poorest Arab nation — the government expects oil reserves which fund 70 percent of the budget to run out over the next decade — provide fertile ground for insurgents. “Al-Qaeda always exploits such situations, you can see it in Somalia, you can see it in Afghanistan,” Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said in a Dec. 7 interview in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. Yemen’s importance for al-Qaeda has grown as other countries step up pressure on the group. Its presence there dates back to the early 1990s. In October 2000, a suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the southern Yemeni port of Aden killed 17 U.S. sailors. An American drone attack in Yemen in November 2002 killed six suspected al-Qaeda militants, including a top figure wanted in the USS Cole bombing. Assassination Attempt Al-Qaeda strengthened its networks in Yemen when a crackdown in neighboring Saudi Arabia that began in 2004 forced many to flee there. The group in August tried to assassinate the top Saudi anti-terrorist official, Prince Muhammad bin Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, in an attack mounted from Yemen. In recent months, al-Qaeda has moved some “significant operators” to Yemen from Afghanistan and Pakistan, Gunaratna said. Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch published an article on Oct. 28 in its official magazine encouraging militants to make their own bombs to target planes, trains and airports in the West, according to IntelCenter, an Alexandria, Virginia-based group that monitors terror groups. U.S. authorities are investigating possible links between al-Qaeda and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , the 23-year-old Nigerian arrested for the attempted plane bombing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Dec. 27. Abdulmutallab spent three months in Yemen this year studying Arabic and left the country earlier this month, the Yemeni Foreign Ministry said yesterday. The suspect told U.S. investigators that the explosive device he tried to detonate was acquired in Yemen along with instructions on when it was to be used, CNN reported, citing a federal security bulletin. Fort Hood Killings U.S. lawmakers say Abdulmutallab is suspected of ties to Anwar al-Awlaki , an American-born Yemeni imam who had contacts with a U.S. army officer accused of killing 13 people at the Fort Hood army base in Texas last month. Al-Awlaki may have been killed in the Dec. 24 air strike on al-Qaeda leaders, Yemen’s government said. It said about 65 al- Qaeda militants, possibly including senior figures, were killed in that attack and another raid a week earlier that targeted a training camp near the capital Sana’a where the Yemen Defense Ministry said the group was planning a suicide attack on the U.K. Embassy. Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch released a statement on Dec. 27 threatening to retaliate for the Dec. 17 attack, which it said was conducted by U.S. jets, IntelCenter said. Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Rashid al-Alimi told parliament on Dec. 24 that the strikes were carried out using intelligence provided by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. The U.S. government allocated $70 million in military and counterterrorism aid to Yemen in the 2009 fiscal year, as well as more than $30 million in civilian aid. In the 2008 fiscal year, Pakistan received about $1.8 billion in U.S. aid, according to Carnegie. The U.S. needs to focus more on building up the Yemeni government, said Boucek. “The degree of al-Qaeda control and Jihadist groups in Yemen will increase significantly unless the Yemeni government is assisted,” he said. To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Dubai at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net
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