the struggle for yemen and the challenge of al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula

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STRATEGIC

STUDIES

INSTITUTE

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Strategic Studies Instituteand

U.S. Army War College Press

THE STRUGGLE FOR YEMENAND THE CHALLENGE OF AL-QAEDA

IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

W. Andrew Terrill

June 2013

The views expressed in this report are those of the author anddo not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) andU.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoy fullacademic freedom, provided they do not disclose classiedinformation, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresentofcial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them tooffer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the inter-est of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared forpublic release; distribution is unlimited.

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Comments pertaining to this report are invited and shouldbe forwarded to: Director, Strategic Studies Institute and U.S.Army War College Press, U.S. Army War College, 47 AshburnDrive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5010.

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The author would like to thank Dr. Steven Metz, Sarah E.Womer, and Mary J. Pelusi for useful and insightful commentson earlier drafts of this work. He would also like to thank JamesMcCready for valuable support as his research assistant in thesummer of 2012. All mistakes in this work of fact, omission,interpretation, and speculation are, nevertheless, entirelyhis own. All the information in this monograph is current as ofFebruary 2013.

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FOREWORD

In recent years, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQAP) has been widely recognized as a more danger-ous regional and international terrorist organizationthan the original al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Ladenuntil his 2011 death. AQAP (which Yemenis simplycall al-Qaeda) grew out of the original al-Qaeda groupand maintains a radical outlook based heavily on binLadens extremist ideology. This radical group becameprominent in the early 2000s when it began terroristoperations in Saudi Arabia, although it was ultimatelydefeated in that country. Following this defeat, AQAPretained its name and re-grouped in Yemen, mergingwith the local al-Qaeda organization operating there.In Yemen, AQAP was eventually able to present astrong challenge to that countrys government. Over

time, the group was also able to become almost totallyindependent of the original al-Qaeda, although it stillpreserves a public veneer of subordination. Thesedevelopments, as well as the lessons from and futureof the AQAP threat, are considered in depth in thismonograph by Dr. W. Andrew Terrill.

Dr. Terrill uses this monograph to explore howYemens Arab Spring uprising paralyzed that coun-trys government and shattered its military into hos-tile factions for over a year beginning in early 2011.This prolonged crisis prevented Yemens government,under President Ali Abdullah Saleh, from doing muchmore than attempting to survive. Saleh used thosemilitary units that remained loyal to him for regimeprotection against anti-government demonstrators

and troops who defected to those demonstrators. The


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uprising subsequently led to a security vacuum thathelped allow AQAP and its insurgent force, Ansar

al-Shariah, to expand their activities beyond terror-ism due to the governments preoccupation with theArab Spring. Although AQAP and the Arab Springdemonstrators felt no kinship towards each other,AQAP was more than willing to take advantage ofthe disorder produced by the uprising. In this newsecurity environment, the militants were able to seizeand hold signicant amounts of territory in southernYemen. Despite this focus on capturing territory, Dr.Terrill also notes that AQAP has remained interestedin striking at U.S. interests in Yemen and especially inimplementing spectacular acts of terrorism against theU.S. homeland.

Dr. Terrill pays special attention to the role of Ye-mens current reform President Abed Rabbu Hadi,

who succeeded President Saleh in early 2012 after aspecial election. In the war against AQAP, Hadi hasmade considerable progress, most notably by usingYemens military to drive the insurgents out of theirsouthern strongholds. In considering these events, Dr.Terrill provides a thoughtful and nuanced discussionof the controversial issue of unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs), more widely known as drones. This mono-graph notes that both the United States and Yemenigovernments now acknowledge that these systemsare being used over Yemen, and President Hadi hasdiscussed their use in considerable depth. While thismonograph acknowledges many legitimate concernsabout the use of U.S. drones in Yemen, it still clearlyendorses them as an interim measure while the Yeme-

ni military is in the process of reorganization and re-building. Dr. Terrill contends, however, that the long-

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term solution is the development of Yemeni militaryand police forces that can address all internal threats

without depending upon U.S. assets.Dr. Terrill further considers the problems that Ye-

men continues to face in restructuring its military andespecially the ground forces so that they can contain,marginalize, and destroy AQAP as an effective insur-gent and terrorist force. Many of his insights have im-portant implications for the use of Landpower by U.S.partner nations. President Hadis efforts to rebuild theYemeni military have been particularly difcult be-cause of the deep factionalism within these forces andthe presence of senior leaders with deep ties to the oldregime. Hadi, therefore, has proceeded forward in aserious but incremental manner. This is an importanteffort since AQAP remains a formidable force evenafter being driven out of the southern urban centers.

Moreover, AQAP continues to strike at the govern-ment with hard-hitting raids and assassinations, andis clearly seeking to make a comeback in southern Ye-men at some point.

The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offerthis monograph as a contribution to the national se-curity debate on this important subject while our na-tion continues to grapple with a variety of problemsassociated with the future of the Middle East andthe ongoing struggle against al-Qaeda and its afli-ates. This analysis should be especially useful to U.S.strategic leaders and intelligence professionals as theyseek to address the complicated interplay of factorsrelated to regional security issues, ghting terrorism,and the support of local allies. This work may also

benet those seeking a greater understanding of long-range issues of Middle Eastern and global security. Itis hoped that this work will be of benet to ofcers of


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all services, as well as other U.S. government ofcialsinvolved in military and security assistance planning.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR. Director Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

W. ANDREW TERRILL joined the Strategic StudiesInstitute (SSI) in October 2001, and is SSIs MiddleEast specialist. Prior to his appointment, he served asa Middle East nonproliferation analyst for the Inter-national Assessments Division of the Lawrence Liver-more National Laboratory (LLNL). In 1998-99, Dr.Terrill also served as a visiting professor at the U.S.Air War College on assignment from LLNL. He is aformer faculty member at Old Dominion Universityin Norfolk, VA, and has taught as an adjunct at a va-riety of other colleges and universities. He is a retiredU.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel and ForeignArea Ofcer (Middle East). Dr. Terrill has publishedin numerous academic journals on topics includingnuclear proliferation, the Iran-Iraq War, Operation

DESERT STORM, Middle Eastern chemical weaponsand ballistic missile proliferation, terrorism, and com-mando operations. He is the author of Lessons of theIraqi De-Baathication Program for Iraqs Future and theArab Revolutions(Strategic Studies Institute, 2012), TheSaudi-Iranian Rivalry and the Future of Middle East Se-curity (Strategic Studies Institute, 2011), The Conictsin Yemen and U.S. National Security (Strategic Stud-ies Institute, 2011), and Global Security WatchJordan(Praeger, 2010). From 1994 until 2012, at U.S. StateDepartment invitation, Dr. Terrill participated in theMiddle Eastern Track 2 military talks, which were partof the Middle East Peace Process. He also served as amember of the military and security working groupof the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group through-

out its existence in 2006. Dr. Terrill holds a B.A. fromCalifornia State Polytechnic University and an M.A.from the University of California, Riverside, both in


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political science. He also holds a Ph.D. in interna-tional relations from Claremont Graduate University,

Claremont, CA.

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SUMMARY

In early 2011, the Arab world began going througha process of systemic political change that initiallycame to be known as the Arab Spring, although lessoptimistic references were increasingly used to de-scribe these developments over time. In this struggle,which began in Tunisia and Egypt, a number of long-standing dictatorships were overthrown or at leastfundamentally challenged by frustrated citizens seek-ing an end to corruption and the abuses inherent inan authoritarian state. Following the Tunisian andEgyptian examples, Yemen rapidly experienced seri-ous street unrest that was directed at the over 30-yearpresidency of Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh struggled forover a year to maintain power but was ultimately un-able to do so in the face of an enraged public and inter-

national disapproval for the corruption and violenceof his regime. Under intense pressure, President Salehturned over governing authority to Vice PresidentAbed Rabbu Hadi in November 2011 under the con-ditions put forward by a Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC) transitional document. He formally remainedpresident (without the powers of the ofce), until areferendum-type election conrmed Hadi as his suc-cessor. As President Hadi took ofce in February 2012,he faced not only serious demands for reform, but alsoa strong and energized insurgency in southern Ye-men. The al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)insurgency had no ties to the activities of the pro-de-mocracy demonstrators, but it had ourished duringthe year-long power struggle in the Yemeni capital of

Sanaa. Just as the AQAP insurgency was not linked tothe pro-democracy movement, it was also not closely


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linked to the larger al-Qaeda movement outside ofYemen. Thus, with local leadership overseeing opera-

tions in Yemen, Osama bin Ladens 2011 death wasnot a serious blow to AQAP.

AQAP functioned primarily as a terrorist organiza-tion prior to 2010, but it later expanded its operationsto include efforts to capture, hold, and rule territory inareas where the Yemeni government had only a lim-ited ability to maintain security. This new strategy ofseizing and retaining territory was implemented priorto the onset of the Arab Spring, although it was lateraccelerated due to the Arab Spring-inspired turmoilin Yemen. As Yemen became increasingly unstable,it was racked by violence between the regime and itsopponents. In such an environment, AQAP used itsinsurgent arm, Ansar al-Shariah (partisans of Islamiclaw), to seize some promising opportunities to capture

and retain Yemeni territory while the governmentwas too absorbed in its own problems to respond ina decisive manner. According to a variety of sources,including Amnesty International, Ansar al-Shariahimplemented an array of extremely harsh punish-ments for any action that was viewed as an infractionof their version of Islamic law. Such punishments in-cluded crucixions, public beheadings, amputations,and oggings.

In his February 2012 inauguration speech, Hadicalled for, the continuation of the war against al-Qaeda as a religious and national duty. AQAP re-sponded to his assertiveness with considerable fe-rocity by striking Yemeni government targets withsuicide bombings and other acts of terrorism. These

strikes were made in order to further challenge thegovernment before Hadi could consolidate his author-ity. Even more signicantly, AQAP won a major battle


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in southern Yemen during this time frame by attack-ing unprepared troops, most of whom appear to have

been asleep after posting inadequate security. Despitethis defeat, the government launched an offensive inthe summer of 2012 to remove AQAP and Ansar al-Shariah from the territory they had seized in southernYemen. The Yemeni offensive was conducted with aforce of around 20,000 regular army soldiers, support-ed by signicant numbers of paid local tribal auxilia-ries. Saudi Arabia provided considerable nancial as-sistance to support the operation, and it appears thata large share of the Saudi funds may have been usedto hire the tribal militia auxiliaries requested to sup-port the army. These types of ghters have often beenhighly effective in the kinds of combat that take placein Yemen. In the face of this attack, AQAP fought backprociently and also conducted several spectacular

terrorist attacks in Sanaa. Fortunately, the military pre-vailed against this resistance, and AQAP forces wereultimately driven from the urban areas that they hadpreviously occupied.

In the 2012 government offensive, the internation-al press reported the widespread use of U.S. drones,which, according to those same reports, may havetipped the tide of battle by gathering intelligence andserving to eliminate key insurgent leaders at impor-tant points in the campaign. While drone use has manypolitical drawbacks, the possibility that it helped de-termine the outcome of the summer offensive is worthconsidering. If the Yemeni military had been defeatedby AQAP in this effort, the government might havecollapsed at an excruciatingly sensitive time, possibly

leaving the country in anarchy. Such a defeat wouldalso create the conditions for an even more deeplyrooted AQAP presence in southern Yemen, with nocountervailing Yemeni authority capable of moving


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against it. The success of the governments southernoffensive would therefore seem to have been vitally

important to U.S. national interests in the region.If Yemeni forces had failed, and particularly if theyhad failed ignominiously, a newly energized terror-ist movement could have plagued the region andthe world.

Unfortunately, despite the 2012 victory, the strug-gle for control of Yemen is still subject to uncertainty,and an AQAP insurgent comeback there remains a dis-turbing possibility. Moreover, the use of U.S. dronesto ensure Yemeni security has already been seen tobe deeply unpopular among many Yemeni citizens.Consequently, drones should not be treated as a long-term solution to that countrys security problems. Amore optimal long-term solution is a Yemeni militarythat is capable of maintaining national security with-

out the direct involvement of foreign forces. Militaryreform, therefore, remains a vital aspect of dealingwith Yemens security issues. Yemeni forces are cur-rently making some progress in this regard, and Presi-dent Hadi has made a strong effort to modernize themilitarys structure and eliminate the warlord-styleleadership of some Yemeni commanders.

During the 2009-12 time frame, AQAP also main-tained a vigorous effort to strike against the UnitedStates, despite its increasing focus on expanding thesouthern insurgency, and then resisting subsequentgovernment advances in that region. AQAP leadersconsidered terrorist strikes against the United Statesand efforts to defeat the Yemeni government as over-lapping priorities despite the potential for a dissipa-

tion of resources with an overly ambitious agenda.Additionally, AQAP leaders did not seem to fearpossible U.S. intervention with ground forces into Ye-

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men in the aftermath of such a strike and may evenhave welcomed it. If the United States had invaded

Yemen in response to a spectacular terror strike, it isalmost certain that large elements of the populationwould have been willing to ght any foreign invader,no matter how valid the reason for intervention mighthave been. In such circumstances, the U.S. leadershipwould have an overwhelming need to strike back hardand might easily choose the wrong way of doing so.

U.S. support for Yemen at this time of transitionremains important, and the United States must not re-gard the ght against AQAP as largely over becauseof the 2012 defeat of insurgent forces in southern Ye-men. AQAP remains a dangerous and effective forcedespite these setbacks. Moreover, there are importantreasons for defeating AQAP and its allies in Yemen,even if this does not destroy the organization and in-

stead leads it to move operations to other prospectivesanctuaries in remote parts of the world. Yemen is oneof the worst places on earth to cede to terrorists due toits key strategic location, including a long border withSaudi Arabia. It also dominates one of the regions keywaterways, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait which controlsaccess to the southern Red Sea. Outside of the region,the problem of Yemen based-terrorism remains an im-portant international threat which cannot be ignored.


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1

THE STRUGGLE FOR YEMENAND THE CHALLENGE OF AL-QAEDA

IN THE ARABIAN PENINSULA

The U.S. military has also been working closely withthe Yemeni government to operationally dismantleand ultimately eliminate the terrorist threat posed byal-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the mostactive and dangerous afliate of al-Qaeda today. Ourjoint efforts have resulted in direct action against alimited number of AQAP operatives and senior lead-ers in that country who posed a terrorist threat to theUnited States and our interests.

President Barack Obama1

June 2012

When the subject of Yemen comes up, its oftenthrough the prism of the terrorist threat that is ema-

nating from within its borders. And for good rea-son: Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, isal-Qaidas most active afliate. It has assassinatedYemeni leaders, murdered Yemeni citizens, kid-napped and killed aid workers, targeted Americaninterests, encouraged attacks in the United States andattempted repeated attacks against U.S. aviation.

John O. Brennan2

Director of Central Intelligence August 2012

The real battle against the terrorist al Qaeda organi-zation [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] has yetto begin and will not end until we have eradicatedtheir presence in every district, village and position;it will not end until internally displaced citizens are

assured that they can return safely to their homes and


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organized terrorist operatives have surrendered theirweapons and rid themselves of ideologies that contra-dict the sacred values of the Islamic religion.

Yemeni President Abed Rabbu Hadi3

May 2012

INTRODUCTION

In early 2011, the Arab world began going througha process of systemic political change that initiallycame to be known as the Arab Spring, although lessoptimistic references were increasingly used to de-scribe these developments over time. In this strug-gle, which began in Tunisia and Egypt, a number oflong-standing dictatorships were overthrown, or atleast fundamentally challenged by frustrated citizens

seeking an end to massive corruption and the otherabuses inherent in an authoritarian state. In the face ofthese challenges, the Egyptian and Tunisian dictator-ships fell rapidly and easily, thereby raising hopes inneighboring countries that their own ossied leader-ships could be ousted as a result of an outpouring ofstreet protests and other popular unrest. Neverthe-

less, when the excitement of these early victories overauthoritarian regimes spread to other Arab countries,the revolutionaries were, in many cases, dramaticallyless successful than their counterparts in Cairo andTunis. Unrest in Bahrain provoked a massive govern-ment crackdown which was assisted by other SunniArab monarchies in the Gulf and particularly SaudiArabia. In the Levant, President Bashar Assad of Syria

implemented a strategy of massive brutality againstopponents in an effort to remain in power, seeminglyat all costs. The Libyan regime also attempted to crush


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initially peaceful demonstrators by force, but it wasdefeated by an armed popular uprising backed by

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) airpowerand other forms of support. In the southern ArabianPeninsula, the ames of unrest also inspired discon-tented citizens in Yemen, where the Arab Springquickly assumed many of the same features found inTunisia and Egypt. Yemeni citizens staged massivecivil unrest and called for the ouster of the regime ofPresident Ali Abdullah Saleh. After over 30 years aspresident, Salehs ability to survive in power was leg-endary, but the ouster of long-serving dictators likeEgypts Mubarak and Tunisias Ben Ali clearly gavehis opponents hope. The Yemeni leader strongly re-sisted calls to step down, but did not have the internalresources or foreign support to implement the samelevel of military repression as occurred in a country

such as Syria.Despite Salehs strong efforts to remain in power,

domestic and international pressures forced him fromofce in February 2012 for reasons that will be dis-cussed later. While the regime often seemed anemicand frail, Saleh managed to retain power for over ayear after the collapse of the Ben Ali and Mubarak re-gimes. During this time frame Yemen became increas-ingly unstable and racked by violence between theregime and its opponents. In such an environment,the terrorist group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula(AQAP), used its insurgent arm, Ansar al-Shariah(partisans of Islamic law), to seize some promisingopportunities to capture and retain Yemeni territory.This effort occurred while the government was too

absorbed in its own problems to respond in a decisivemanner. Throughout this period, Saleh often main-tained that efforts to ease him from power could eas-


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ily lead to sweeping AQAP victories throughout thecountry. While the doomsday scenario that Saleh pre-

dicted never occurred, AQAP did use Yemens unrestto expand its control over most of Abyan province andparts of other southern provinces. In the summer of2012, a new Yemeni government pushed AQAP andAnsar al-Shariah out of many of these strongholds,but the battle for control of Yemen is still subject toconsiderable uncertainty. An AQAP insurgent come-back remains a disturbing possibility. The context, his-tory, and future of this struggle remain of tremendousimportance to the well-being of all states concerned,with the threat presented by al-Qaedas most danger-ous afliate.

THE CRISIS IN YEMENI GOVERNANCE

Yemen is a large and important country within theMiddle East that has a long and porous border withSaudi Arabia and direct access to key strategic wa-terways, including the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.It is currently the only nonmonarchy on the ArabianPeninsula, as well as one of that regions more heav-ily populated countries with around 24,000,000 peo-ple.4The Yemeni population is currently growing byaround 3.45 percent per year, and is expected to reach38 million in the next 15 years.5Unfortunately, Yemenis also aficted with numerous severe internal dif-culties, and a large portion of the Yemeni populationhas problems with grinding poverty and malnutri-tion. Some sources state that the number of malnour-ished Yemeni children is around 750,000, with 500,000

of these children in danger of dying of starvation inthe near future.6Yemens 2011-12 civil unrest has alsoled to soaring prices for food and other staples as well


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as a breakdown of social services according to theUnited Nations (UN) Ofce for the Coordination of

Humanitarian Affairs.7

Increasingly, the UN special-ized agencies involved with supporting Yemen havedeveloped escalating concerns about the potential fora serious famine.8Water and electricity shortages arealso common in Yemen, and the capital city of Sanaafaces the possibility of running out of water in the nextfew years. The water that is available is often unsafeto drink.

Yemens most important political gure from 1978-2012 was former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, wholeft ofce in February 2012 as the result of massiveand unrelenting domestic, regional, and internationalpressure for him to resign. Saleh had become the presi-dent of the Yemen Arab Republic (YAR-North Yemen)in July 1978 and then established himself as the rst

president of the Republic of Yemen which was formedin 1990 when North and South Yemen (the YemenArab Republic and the Peoples Democratic Republicof Yemen [PDRY]) merged into one country.9Salehslongevity in power and his considerable ruthlessnessas president were useful, but never allowed him toestablish himself as the leader of a powerful and ef-cient autocratic regime. Yemeni tribes were too strongand well-armed for this to occur easily. Reacting to hiscircumstances and limitations, Saleh ruled by manip-ulating the often competing concerns of Yemens po-litical factions, tribes, religious groups, and interestedoutside powers, including Western and Gulf Arab na-tions willing to provide economic aid. In this system,Salehs primary approach to governance centered on

his management of a network of patronage relation-ships and subsidies provided to friendly individuals,families, and tribes in exchange for their support.10


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Salehs government sometimes used repression to en-force its policies, but this approach was often a last

resort which could not always be applied effectivelywithin strongly tribalized regions. Salehs Yemen con-sequently ran on a system of threats, subsidies, andbribes, with tribal leaders having consistently shownan interest in money that superseded concerns aboutreligion, ideology, and politics.11 Corruption perme-ated the system from the summit of political powerdown to impoverished junior civil servants or soldiersat checkpoints on Yemens roads.

While Salehs system of governance appeared un-sustainable, the Yemeni leader managed to muddlethrough until the eruption of the region-wide unrestunleashed by the Arab Spring. To understand whatis happening in contemporary Yemen, it is necessaryto consider how Saleh lost the presidency, and what

forces were unleashed by the revolutionary activitythat eventually led to his ouster. As noted earlier, theArab world experienced a political earthquake thatbegan in 2011 with the unfolding of the Arab Spring.The rapid and spectacular ouster of the Tunisian dic-tatorship in January 2011 stunned the Arab world andraised the possibility that many other Arab regimeswere not as deeply entrenched as they might appear.Tunisias revolution helped ignite an 18-day upheavalin Egypt that led to President Mubaraks forced resig-nation on March 11, 2011. Many Yemenis observingthese monumental events were deeply inspired by theTunisian Revolution and then displayed an increasedwillingness to confront their own government afterMubarak resigned.

The crisis in Yemeni governance reached a turn-ing point on January 20, 2011, when mass demonstra-tions against the Saleh government began occurring


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throughout many of Yemens major cities. Like the Tu-nisians and Egyptians, Yemenis felt that their own au-

tocratic regime had done little to improve their qualityof life in 33 years. Also, as in Egypt and Tunisia, manyYemenis were angry about being victimized by thestaggeringly high levels of corruption in their coun-try during the years of Salehs rule. Frighteningly, theregimes mismanagement and the economys down-ward spiral had no obvious end since President Salehappeared to be planning to install his son, Ahmed,as president when he nally did retire. Such a powertransfer would have followed the emerging pattern offather-son succession set by Syria in 2000 when BasharAssad succeeded his deceased father as president.This approach would probably have been replicatedin Egypt and Libya had the pre-Arab Spring dictator-ships survived in these countries. Additionally, before

his removal from power in the 2003 invasion, SaddamHussein appeared to be preparing his younger son,Qusay, to become Iraqs next president. This approachto governance was widely and derisively referred toas republican monarchy by detractors throughoutthe Arab world.12In this environment, the concept ofa Saleh family dynasty was widely unpopular withmany Yemenis, who were proud that they had re-placed a monarchy with a republic in the 1960s.

President Saleh, despite his shortcomings, wasquick to recognize the threat to his regime presented bythe uprisings occurring elsewhere in the Arab world.Following the overthrow of Tunisias dictatorship, hequickly moved to get ahead of the potential for seriousunrest spreading to Yemen which had already started

to experience large but socially narrow demonstra-tions comprising mostly university students and op-position activists.13 As an initial move, he sought to


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shore up the loyalty of the security forces through aseries of promised public sector pay raises and other

benets. Lower ranking civil servants were also prom-ised increased remuneration to reduce the danger thatthey could become a source of discontent. In a moveto contain campus unrest, Saleh exempted public uni-versity students from paying their remaining tuitionfor the year. Then on February 2, he announced thathe would not seek re-election in 2013 when his presi-dential term expired and that his son Ahmed wouldnot run for president.14This last set of promises, whileseemingly dramatic, appeared hollow due to his ear-lier efforts to eliminate presidential term limits justprior to the outbreak of Arab Spring demonstrationsin Tunisia and Egypt. Many Yemenis saw the effort toend presidential term limits as part of a Saleh plan toestablish himself as president for life. They likewise

expected him to return to that priority as soon as itwas practical to do so despite any promises he mightmake at a time of crisis or political disadvantage.

Salehs efforts to contain the unrest, while shrewd,did not prevent the escalation of demonstrationsagainst his rule as he had hoped. Expanding demon-strations were increasingly difcult for the securityforces to contain, and the Yemeni police began ringshots into the air in an effort to break up the unrest.15Additionally, as in Egypt, the government organizedcounterdemonstrations designed to show popular sup-port for the regime and to confront the demonstrators,sometimes with broken bottles, daggers, and rocks.16This countermove led to increased street violencebut in no way discouraged the protestors struggling

against the regime. As Salehs prospects for squelchingunrest appeared to dim, opportunistic Yemeni lead-ers whom he had either bribed or manipulated into


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supporting him, started to distance themselves fromthe regime. These members of the Yemeni elite clearly

had no interest in going down with a collapsing gov-ernment. In the face of the expanding power of theopposition and the erosion of his own support, Salehcontinued using what repression he could manage, aswell as political maneuvering, to remain in power foras long as possible.

The situation then exploded. Regime violenceagainst the demonstrators escalated dramatically onMarch 18, 2011, when the government used plain-clothes rooftop snipers to re into urban crowds as away of breaking up anti-Saleh demonstrations. Fifty-two protestors were killed in Sanaa on that day, withserious casualties occurring in other Yemeni citiessuch as Taiz, Yemens second largest city, 120 milesfrom the capital.17 As the crisis continued, President

Saleh declared a state of emergency, and for the rsttime deployed tanks into the streets to confront thedemonstrators.18 This massive escalation in regimebrutality and killings split the Yemeni government. OnMarch 21, Major General Ali Mohsen, the commanderof the northern military zone and the important FirstArmored Brigade, changed sides and agreed to sup-port the rebels. Prior to his defection, Mohsen waswidely regarded as the second most powerful gurein the Yemeni regime. In accordance with the highlypersonalistic nature of the Yemeni military system,Mohsens troops remained loyal to him after he brokewith Saleh over the massacre. Additionally, a numberof other senior ofcers, including three other brigadecommanders, immediately rallied behind Ali Mohsen

and also defected.19 The regional and Yemeni mediaestimated that around 40-60 percent of the army hadsided with the protesters, while some key units, in-


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cluding the Republican Guard, mostly remained loyalto the regime.20 These troops had the best weapons

and equipment within the ground forces (includingYemens most modern tanks). Estimates of troop loy-alty at this point in time must be regarded as rough,but do indicate a substantial division within the armedforces. General Moshen also pledged that his troopswould defend demonstrators against regime violence.

In another blow to Salehs hopes for remaining inpower, Yemens most powerful tribal leader SheikhSadeq al-Ahmar, head of the Hashid tribal confed-eration (Salehs own tribal confederation), also backedthe protestors. Sheikh Sadeqs brother, Hamid al-Ah-mar, a multimillionaire businessman and importantpolitical leader, also emerged as an important sourceof opposition.21Adding to the presidents troubles, ahandful of members of parliament resigned in protest,

including former legislative allies of President Salehwho were no longer willing to work with him. Sur-prisingly, Saleh appeared energized by his decision tomake a show of strength on March 18 and was pub-licly unfazed by the defections. Rather, he unleasheda torrent of angry rhetoric against his opponents andseemed to take comfort from a large pro-regime rallyin Sanaa that had been called in late March as a re-sponse to the activities of anti-regime protestors.22 Itseems possible that Saleh believed he had gained theupper hand at this point despite the defections due tohis forceful acts of repression. He gave no sign of be-ing willing to resign.

In this toxic environment, Yemens Gulf neighborsbecame concerned about the escalating crisis in that

country and the prospects for spreading instability.The leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)states led by Saudi Arabia rapidly came to believe that


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Saleh would need to leave ofce for stability to returnto Yemen. They may also have assumed that Saleh

would prefer a comfortable retirement abroad ratherthan risk his life attempting to stay in power againstincreasingly long odds, and that he would thereforebe persuadable. Correspondingly, in late April, theGCC offered a road map for Salehs safe exit frompower. The wealthy oil states within the GCC wereamong Yemens most important sources of foreignaid and consequently could not be ignored. Saleh at-tempted to appear cooperative with the GCC leadersbut was essentially playing for time and struggling toremain president. He promised to sign the GCC ini-tiative on three occasions, but then changed his mindand refused to do so when the various promised datesfor signing the document arrived.23 The presidentsapproach to the GCC Initiative was hardly surprising,

due to his opposition to leaving ofce and his hostilitytoward the opposition. In April, Saleh made a speechat the Yemeni Military Academy where he stated thatmost of the opposition was composed of, landgrab-bers, smugglers of oil and gas, corrupt [ofcials,] andfraudsters.24He also claimed that the opposition wasmade up of insurrectionists who would drag thecountry into chaos.25Conversely, Salehs refusal to fol-low through on promises to sign the GCC agreementonly conrmed the oppositions worst fears about hisintention to remain in power.26

Saleh also continued the brutality against streetdemonstrators and may have hoped that he couldsuppress the opposition to the point that internationalpressure diminished if he reestablished control over

urban areas.27Yemens second largest city, Taiz, wasa particularly militant center of anti-Saleh activity andcorrespondingly experienced a great deal of punish-


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ment, including the use of artillery to shell residen-tial areas where anti-regime rallies were being orga-

nized.28

In Sanaa, there were also occasional outbreaksof ghting between pro-Saleh troops and armed mem-bers of the opposition, including troops loyal to Gen-eral Ali Mohsen and tribal forces loyal to Sheikh Sadiqal-Ahmar.29Some of this ghting involved the use ofrockets, heavy shelling, and machine guns.30 Theseare-ups were usually brought under control by hast-ily arranged truces.

Yemens political situation changed dramaticallyon June 3, when Saleh narrowly escaped assassinationas a result of a bomb explosion in a mosque inside thepresidential compound. The president was seriouslywounded during this incident, receiving both shrap-nel wounds and serious burns. Additionally, severalofcials with Saleh at the time were killed and a larger

number wounded. Saleh was own to Riyadh shortlyafter the attack for emergency medical treatment amidspeculation that he would not return due to Saudipressure on him to step down. Some Saudi ofcials,speaking anonymously to the press, stated that thepresident would either remain in Saudi Arabia or set-tle in a third country.31Salehs departure from Yemenand the possibility that he would remain in exile ledto a lull in street ghting in Sanaa, but it did not last.32Moreover, if there was pressure on Saleh not to returnto Yemen, it was not effective, and Saleh unexpect-edly traveled back on September 23 to resume his roleas president. He arrived on the 6th day of renewedghting in Sanaa, which was the worst violence theresince March.33

As the street confrontation raged, internationalopposition to Salehs stalling tactics continued tomount and placed additional pressure on the Yemeni


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president to leave ofce in accordance with his earlierpromises. The UN Security Council passed a resolu-

tion on October 21, calling upon Saleh to accept theGCC agreement immediately and resign.34Saleh couldnot easily ignore this development since the Yemenieconomy depended highly on international goodwilland aid. Finally, on November 23, 2011, after a greatdeal of procrastination, Saleh signed the GCC initia-tive, and legally and bindingly agreed to step downfrom ofce in exchange for an opposition agreementnot to prosecute him for any crimes that may havebeen committed while he was in ofce. The Yemenipresident had struggled to avoid this outcome but alsofeared that any further stalling could lead to wide-ranging UN sanctions being directed at him and hisfamily. Sanctions against individuals in cases such asthese generally involve freezing their overseas assets

and banning their foreign travel.35

Moreover, protest-er demands for Salehs prosecution for such things asordering the use of deadly force against the protesterswere sufciently serious that the president may havedecided to accept immunity while it was still avail-able. It was also widely suspected that Saleh wouldhave reneged on this agreement during the transition-ary phase and remained in power if he had any op-portunity to do so. Such an opportunity never arose.

President Saleh turned over presidential govern-ing authority to his vice president immediately afterhe signed the GCC plan in November 2011. He re-tained the title of president as an honoric that wouldapply until the new president was installed by a ref-erendum-type election (with one candidate) in Febru-

ary. As planned, Saleh was granted immunity fromprosecution for all crimes that he may have commit-ted while in ofce. Opposition parliamentary leaders,


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however, were able to restrict the level of legal immu-nity provided to the former presidents relatives and

close associates within the regime. These individualscan still be prosecuted on charges of terrorism, cor-ruption, or the indiscriminate use of force.36Many Ye-menis were disappointed that Saleh would not be heldaccountable for his actions including the crackdownon dissent and the use of rooftop snipers. Others be-lieved that immunity was an acceptable price to ridYemen of its strongman.37The agreement did not spe-cically demand that Saleh leave Yemen permanently,although U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laterstated that there had been a quiet, informal agreementthat he was to do so, which he chose not to honor.38

The GCC-brokered agreement contained a numberof other provisions that went beyond Salehs resigna-tion. It specied that a new government would be

formed with cabinet posts divided equally betweenSalehs General Peoples Congress (GPC) party and ahost of opposition parties. The new president was tobe Abed Rabbu Hadi, Salehs long-serving vice presi-dent, who would be the only candidate in the Febru-ary 2012 presidential election. The Yemeni Parliamenthad made the decision that political and economicconditions were too difcult for a contested electionto occur. Instead, a caretaker president with a 2-yearterm would be installed, and the Constitution wouldbe rewritten, with competitive elections planned for2014. The details for approaching the task of the newConstitution are supposed to be worked out in a Na-tional Dialogue between the GPC and oppositionparties which are organized in a coalition known as

the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP). Hadi also promisedto hold a referendum on a new Constitution within 18months of his taking ofce.


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Balancing Hadis appointment, the new primeminister was to be opposition politician Mohammed

Basindwa, a former foreign minister who had been amember of the GPC but then left the party in the early2000s. Since leaving the GPC, Basindwa has been a po-litical independent. He had also been strongly criticalof the Saleh regime for the violence unleashed againstcivilian demonstrators and maintained considerablecredibility with the Yemeni opposition.39 Neverthe-less, Basindwas position as prime minister is clearlyinferior in power and prestige to Hadis position aspresident, and Basindwa has much less signicanceas a national gure. At the cabinet level, the GPC re-tained a number of key ministries including foreignaffairs, defense, and oil. The opposition received theinterior, nance, and education ministries.40

President Saleh left Yemen on January 22, 2012,

for additional medical treatment in the United Statesto address lingering health problems associated withthe mosque bombing in June. It is not clear how muchoverseas medical treatment was actually necessary,but many involved parties wanted Saleh out of thatcountry during the election and while Vice PresidentHadi was preparing to enter ofce as the new presi-dent. In a speech given shortly before going to theUnited States, Saleh asked the Yemeni people for for-giveness for his shortcomings and stated that it wastime for him to relinquish power.41More ominously,he also stated that, I will go to the U.S. for treatmentand then return as head of the GPC (which remainedlegal), thus indicating his plan to continue to play animportant political role in Yemeni politics.42He clearly

meant these words and returned to Yemen on Febru-ary 25, 2012, the same day as his successor was sworninto ofce. One day before the elections, Saleh had


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called upon his supporters to vote for Hadi, althoughthis move was of limited signicance, since there was

only one name on the ballot.43

Hadi thus was electedhead of state but did not become the leader of the GPC,the political party to which he belonged.

Yet, if Saleh expected Hadi to act as a puppet, hemust have been crushingly disappointed. Hadi seemedto understand that Saleh was now too divisive a gureto ever return to power, and, despite their many yearstogether, he showed no interest in enabling him to doso, or to collaborate with him in leading Yemen. Acentral reason for Hadis efforts to marginalize Salehclearly involved the March 2011 massacre and thepolitical signicance of the blood on the former presi-dents hands. In a statement that probably reectedmore anger than accuracy, Yemens Ministry of Hu-man Rights released casualty gures on the total con-

ict in March 2012, stating that more than 2,000 peoplewere killed in the turmoil surrounding the upheavaland around 22,000 were wounded.44This number wassignicantly larger than the over 270 killed reportedby Human Rights Watch.45Both the Yemeni govern-ment and Human Rights Watch included a signicantnumber of children in their casualty gures.

The Potential and Problems of the HadiGovernment.

Yemens February 21 presidential election wasproblematic since Vice President Abed-Rabbu Man-sour Hadi was the only candidate on the ballot, andthe process could therefore be viewed with some

skepticism. Under these constrained circumstances,the most important question for the new regimes fu-ture legitimacy rapidly became what kind of turnout


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could be expected. Fortunately, the electoral turnoutat 63-65 percent of registered voters was more than

respectable, especially when considering that vari-ous groupsincluding secessionists in the south andthe Houthi movement in the northhad called for anelection boycott.46 Following the election, Hadi wasquickly inaugurated as president on February 25, 2012.At this point, a fundamental change had occurred inYemeni politics. Whatever its shortcomings, the elec-tion conrmed Salehs departure from ofce and hisnew status as an ex-president.

Hadi is a former general who, at 67 years old (dateof birth, September 1, 1945), is only slightly youngerthan former President Saleh. He served as Salehs vicepresident for 18 years, partially because Saleh wantedto showcase a few high ranking southerners (with nopower base of their own) in a government dominat-

ed by northerners such as himself. Hadi grew up inthe southern province of Abyan in the former PDRYand became an ofcer serving in the southern armywhen that part of Yemen was an independent coun-try. In 1986, he and his troops ed to North Yemenin response to a coup dtatby military rivals in Aden.This coup was particularly bloody, and Hadi wouldalmost certainly have been executed had the plottersbeen able to capture him. Later, Hadis status as anexile changed when the two Yemens merged in 1990,although he remained a loyal supporter of the Salehgovernment. This loyalty was underscored in 1994when he played a prominent role in crushing the effortby southern Yemen to secede from the unied state.47Although one of the key reasons Hadi was initially

selected as vice president centered on his status as asoutherner, he remains widely distrusted in the southfor his high prole role in defeating the 1994 bid to


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reestablish southern independence.48On the positiveside, according to the Yemen Times, Hadi was widely

respected at the time he entered ofce, due largely toa perception that he kept his hands clean of politicaland moral corruption.49 Some friendly sources alsoreport that he distrusts tribalism and favors placingtechnocrats in high ranking positions.50 While suchstatements sound like image polishing, they are alsoconsistent with Hadis upbringing in southern Ye-men, where the Marxist government ofcially viewedtribalism as backward, although they were never ableto rise above it.

President Hadi correspondingly did not begin hispresidency with a strong, tribal, regional, or politicalpower base, which may have been another reason thatSaleh was comfortable placing him in his previous po-sition of vice president. This weakness may also have

been one of the reasons he was chosen as a transitionalpresident, since various political factions may have as-sumed that he lacked the support to move beyond hisconstitutional role and attempt to establish a dictator-ship. Saleh, for his part, may have viewed Hadi as aweak successor whom he could manipulate, perhapsthrough the GPC. As noted, Hadi is a member of theGPC, but Saleh remains the head of that organization.In March 2012, Saleh began using the GPC post as thebasis for injecting himself back into Yemeni politics inways that have troubled the Hadi presidency.51Earlyin the Hadi administration, Saleh was also describedas holding almost daily meetings with security andpolitical ofcials, despite his lack of any governmentalposition.52 Some Yemeni observers even went so far

as to call him a parallel ruler or even suggest that hewas controlling key events behind the scenes.53Salehwas also reported to be making a strong effort to en-


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sure that his own supporters remained in ofce andwas sometimes described as ordering his loyalists to

ignore Hadis presidential decrees when they threat-ened the interest of regime holdovers.54To help bringthis situation under control, the U.S. embassy in Sanaaissued a statement in March, saying that it is not ac-ceptable for any party to interfere in the implemen-tation of the GCC agreement. Saleh denounced thestatement, which he correctly understood as directedat him and could not be separated from earlier threatsof sanctions against him and his political allies.55

Hadi also inherited a governmental system with asignicant number of Saleh holdovers in his cabinetand in other key positions throughout the adminis-trative apparatus and security services. As noted, theGCC-sponsored power transfer agreement speciedthat the GPC would retain half of the seats in the cabi-

net, and some of these people were more loyal to Salehthan to Hadi. Moreover, during his time in ofce, Pres-ident Saleh, like many autocrats, placed his relatives,as well as members of his Sahhan tribe (of the Hashidconfederation), in a number of key national securitypositions in order to protect the regime. Some of theseindividuals remained in ofce for a while, althoughtheir political futures were clearly in danger. The mostimportant holdover of the old regime was BrigadierGeneral Ahmed Ali Saleh, the former presidents old-est son, who remained the commander of Yemenselite Republican Guard force for a while, although hiscommand was eventually abolished, leaving his fu-ture in considerable doubt.

Yet, if Hadis internal power base was uncertain, he

has consistently received the support of Yemens mostimportant foreign allies. The GCC countries, whichbrokered the power transition agreement, are particu-


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larly important sources of foreign aid and investmentto Yemen. Saudi Arabia has been Yemens leading

source of economic aid over the last several years andremains strongly involved with efforts to support theYemeni economy. In the aftermath of Hadis election,Riyadh has stepped up aid to Yemen to help the newgovernment cope with its ongoing economic prob-lems.56The United States, the United Kingdom (UK),and the European Union (EU) also backed Hadi andsupported the GCCs Yemen Initiative.57Hadis sup-port from foreign countries concerned about AQAPcan only increase as a result of his strong military ef-forts against this group, which are discussed later.

As the political break between Hadi and Saleh be-came more prominent, the former president widelydenounced the government as incompetent.58Someobservers also suggested that he was working behind

the scenes to undermine the Hadi government inthe hopes that he could then nd a way to return topower, following a Hadi failure. 59Along with the EUand the GCC, the U.S. leadership took a dim view ofSalehs efforts to disrupt the Yemeni government. Inresponse to the problem, President Obama followedup on earlier warnings and issued an executive orderto freeze the U.S.-based assets of any individual whosought to obstruct the implementation of the GCCplan or threaten the peace, security, and stabilityof Yemen.60 This order put a sanctions mechanismin place, which could be activated on short notice ifnecessary. While no names were mentioned, the orderwas clearly in direct response to the problems createdby Saleh and his supporters. This action unquestion-

ably strengthened Hadis position.


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Hadis government, for all of its later strengths inghting terrorism, has some clear shortcomings. As

noted, the new Yemeni president has only a limitedinternal power base, and he has, therefore, on occa-sion attempted to expand it, using the traditionaltools of patronage and favoritism.61This effort hardlyreects a fundamental change in the Yemeni politicalsystem and also may detract from any future effort atinstitution building. Likewise, the endemic corruptionthat helped produce the Arab Spring in Yemen andelsewhere remains largely unaddressed. Over time,Hadi and his successors may be able to do more tostrengthen Yemeni governmental institutions if theywish to do so, but any such effort in the near futurewould probably be impossible due to Hadis relative-ly weak position and the myriad of other problems heneeds to address.

THE EMERGENCE AND DEVELOPMENTOF AQAP

Yemen, as well as Yemeni citizens abroad, havebeen prominent in the history of al-Qaeda and laterits regional afliate, AQAP, since the emergence ofthese terrorist groups as threats to Middle Eastern andglobal security. Among Yemenis and in the Yemenipress, AQAP is almost never referred to by that name.Rather, Yemenis almost universally refer to the AQAPorganization simply as al-Qaeda. To many Yemenis,distinctions between al-Qaeda and AQAP seem arti-cial and unnecessary. There are some understandablereasons for this outlook. AQAP members frequently

pledge loyalty to al-Qaeda central, and the AQAPleadership had explicitly pledged loyalty to that orga-nization, with bin Laden as its leader. Moreover, after


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an appropriately respectful period of time followingbin Ladens death, AQAP leader Nasser al-Wahayshi

pledged his personal and organizational allegiance tobin Ladens successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.62At leastat the level of formality and ritual, AQAP is a subor-dinate organization to al-Qaeda, although the truth ismore complex, as will be discussed herein. Addition-ally, Yemenis and the Yemeni press seldom refer toAQAPs insurgent force, Ansar al-Shariah, as a sepa-rate entity. Instead, they describe these forces simplyas members of al-Qaeda. As will be illustrated later,Ansar al-Shariah is not separate from AQAP. WhileAnsar al-Shariah acted as a front organization forAQAP early in its existence, this pretense has large-ly been given up, and its lack of independence fromAQAP is no longer hidden.

Yemen has also been described as a near ideal ji-

hadi sanctuary by a number of al-Qaeda writers fromAbu Musab al-Suri to Osama bin Laden.63Numerousideological and military works by jihadist strategistscomment on Yemens value as a sanctuary based onits large rural population, rugged terrain, highly inde-pendent tribes, and other factors. During the anti-So-viet war in Afghanistan, a number of young Yemenisparticipated in the ghting and entered bin Ladenscircle of inuence, often remaining loyal to him foryears afterwards. Yemeni authorities usually viewedthis situation as manageable and not particularlytroubling in the short-term aftermath of their return.Throughout the early 1990s, Yemeni political cultureviewed jihad against Soviet communists as a respect-able undertaking, and returning ghters were often

seen in a positive light. Additionally, many of theyoung jihadists had left Yemen due to that countryssevere problems with unemployment, and Yemens


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political leadership therefore expected that these indi-viduals could be co-opted with government jobs upon

their return. During this time frame, Western nationsshowed little concern about the actions of former anti-Soviet ghters, while other governments were alsoslow to recognize the potential dangers presented byAfghanistan veterans in Yemen.

After Yemeni unication, in May 1990, PresidentSaleh viewed the Islamist veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war as a useful counterweight to southernMarxists in his political approach of playing conict-ing groups against each other in order to remain inpower. The value of these hardened ghters to theSaleh government later skyrocketed when up to threebrigades of tough and experienced Yemeni jihadistswere employed as auxiliaries of the Yemeni army dur-ing the 1994 civil war. This force made an important

contribution to the rapid northern victory againstsouthern secessionists, and many of the jihadists wererewarded with military, security, and other govern-ment positions after the war ended.64Others left Ye-men, and some volunteered to join al-Qaeda in theongoing Afghan civil war on the side of the Taliban.65

Some jihadists who remained in Yemen stayed incontact with other Islamist radicals outside the coun-try and were interested in future armed conicts thatwent beyond ghting Soviet and Afghan communists.Al-Qaeda, which is believed to have maintained ameaningful presence in Yemen since at least the early1990s, was especially interested in striking at the Unit-ed States. Their rst terrorist attack against Western-ers may have been a coordinated strike at two Aden

hotels in 1992. These attacks were apparently aimedat killing American soldiers traveling to their dutystation in Somalia, but instead killed an Australian


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tourist and two Yemenis.66 Al-Qaedas Yemen-basedoperatives are widely believed to have provided some

support for the August 7, 1998, terrorist bombings ofthe U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, althoughno Yemenis directly participated in the attacks.67Themost well-known attack at this stage of the conictwas the al-Qaeda strike against the destroyer USSCole on October 12, 2000.68 While the USS Cole wasnot sunk in the attack, it did have a large hole tornopen on one side, and 17 sailors were killed, with 40wounded. Yemen provided some cooperation in theU.S. effort to investigate the aftermath of this strike,but investigators viewed this support as grudging andcircumscribed due to Salehs efforts to avoid stirringup domestic unrest among anti-American elements ofthe population.

As the Bush administration considered whether

Yemen was a potential security partner or an adver-sary in the aftermath of the USS Cole investigation,al-Qaeda carried out the spectacular strike against theWorld Trade Centers twin towers and the Pentagonon September 11, 2001 (9/11). Under these dramati-cally changed circumstances, President Saleh quicklyunderstood that lenient treatment of Islamist radicalswas now antithetical to his interests. Instead, he rap-idly opted for an increasingly solid alignment withWashington in the struggle against al-Qaeda andquickly deported a number of foreign suspected radi-cals who had come to Yemen to study Islam.69Evenmore signicantly, six al-Qaeda terrorists, includingseveral key leaders in the Marib province, were killedin November 2002 in what the Yemeni government

has now admitted to have been an authorized U.S.Predator drone attack.70 Among the dead was QaidSinan al-Harithi, the head of the al-Qaeda branch


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which was then known as al-Qaeda in Yemen. ByNovember 2003, Yemeni security forces had captured

Muhammed al-Ahdal, who was then al-Harithis re-placement as the head of al-Qaeda in Yemen.71In 2004,with the al-Qaeda problem seemingly contained if notextinguished, the Yemeni government became muchmore focused on its conict with rebellious Houthitribesmen in northern Saada province, while Wash-ington directed its attention at problems associatedwith managing violence in post-Saddam Iraq.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 strikes, Saleh wasforced to cope with an increasingly turbulent regionalenvironment, including domestic discontent createdby the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Like Afghanistan,post-Saddam Iraq became an important magnet andtraining ground for Yemeni radicals. The approximatenumber of Yemenis who fought in Iraq as supporters

of al-Qaeda is uncertain, but many were given ampleopportunity to wage war in that country if they wishedto do so. 72 Some estimates suggest that as many as2,000 Yemeni ghters participated in the ghting forthe rst 7 years of the war, but this gure seems highconsidering that the total number of non-Iraqi jihad-ists was seldom more than 300 at any one time, ac-cording to most reliable estimates.73 Following thishighly unpopular invasion, the Yemeni governmentchose not to challenge various radical clerics, includ-ing the prominent Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani,who openly encouraged young men to travel to Iraqto join the ghting.74

Difculties with al-Qaeda forces in Yemen revivedaround 2006. One of the reasons most frequently

given for this change is that a group of 23 experi-enced and resourceful terrorists conducted a massescape from a Yemeni Political Security Organization


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(PSO) prison in February 2006. The 2006 prison breakhas often been treated as the key event for the revi-

talization of an increasingly autonomous al-Qaedain Yemen, but this evaluation is probably mistaken.In this regard, only a limited number of individualswere involved in the escape, and only of few of theescaped terrorists had much chance to cause seri-ous problems after their escape. Within a year of theprison break, six of them were dead, and 11 had beenreturned to custody. Only six of the former prisonersremained at large in Yemen.75Consequently, howevereffective these remaining terrorists might be, thereremains a clear need to look for additional factorsin al-Qaedas revitalization within Yemen. It is, forexample, apparent that Yemeni jihadists returningfrom Iraq played a major role in revitalizing al-Qaedain Yemen.76

Another factor of much greater importance thanthe 2006 prison break in al-Qaedas revitalizationinvolved the developments in neighboring SaudiArabia in the late 2000s. By 2007, a number of expe-rienced Saudi terrorists were making their way to Ye-men following their defeat in Saudi Arabia, bringingmuch better nanced terrorists into contact with theYemenis.77 The announced merger of the Saudi andYemeni branches of al-Qaeda in January 2009, underthe Saudi name of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,was naturally of the greatest concern to the Sanaa gov-ernment and underscored the danger of strongly re-vitalized radical forces in Yemen. Yemeni authoritiesresponded to this new threat as best they could in theweeks immediately following this declaration, when

the security forces rounded up 170 al-Qaeda suspectsand other potentially dangerous radicals. These indi-viduals were forced to sign pledges that they would


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not engage in terrorism and were then released to thesupervision of their tribal leaders.78While the pledges

themselves cannot be viewed as a serious deterrentmeasure, they were an unmistakable warning to thesuspect individuals that they were under suspicionand could nd themselves facing long terms of im-prisonment (if not a death sentence) for future mis-behavior. Likewise, the tribal leaders involved in thissituation were required to guarantee the good behav-ior of these individuals as a condition of their releaseinto tribal custody. Such actions may therefore haveprovided some limited value in preventing variousradicals and malcontents from drifting into jihadistactivities, but are probably of limited effectiveness ininuencing the activities of hard-core terrorists.

Several U.S. and Yemeni estimates of the numberof AQAP members at large were made in the 2010-

11 time frame, and most of them placed that gureat 200-300.79 By early 2012, the number provided byYemeni sources had grown to at least 700, includingmembers of the insurgent group, Ansar al-Shariah,which the Yemenis and others consider to be part ofAQAP.80Even this larger gure has been proven inad-equate and needs to be put into a broader context. Inthe past, such estimates included only full-time pro-fessional terrorists and not supporters or sympathiz-ers who might be brought into the organization at alater time. Throughout 2011, an increasing number ofAQAPs supporters and sympathizers seem to havecrossed over to become actively involved in the mili-tary struggle against the Yemeni government underthe organizational umbrella of Ansar al-Shariah. Vir-

tually all serious observers will at least acknowledgethat Ansar al-Shariah is afliated with AQAP, and theYemeni government considers it to be a front organi-


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zation for AQAP. This monograph agrees with thatevaluation and will later argue that Ansar al-Shariah

is AQAP-dominated to the degree that it should beconsidered an arm of AQAP and not an independentallied organization.

AQAP insurgents in Yemen could number in thethousands, and provided the foot soldiers for the2011-12 insurgency in southern Yemen. Some seniorYemeni military ofcers have also referred to Ansaral-Shariah as a real army, which demonstrated cour-age and tactical skill during the time frame it was mostactive.81The 200-300 number mentioned above mightalso be dated, since it is often difcult to track AQAPgrowth, which occurs in two ways. The most straight-forward way is when additional Yemenis choose tojoin AQAP or Ansar al-Shariah for whatever reasonsmight be compelling to them. These reasons include

disillusionment and anger with the Yemeni govern-ment or with local tribal leaders allied with that gov-ernment but also because there are nancial opportu-nities for young men who choose to become ghtersfor AQAP.82 The second way is for foreign radicalsto leave their own country or previous foreign basesof operation and join up with al-Qaeda forces in Ye-men. This process has often occurred in waves, mostdramatically with Saudi radicals, but there are alsorecurring claims that radicals from Pakistan and Af-ghanistan have moved some of their operations to Ye-men in response to problems they are facing in thosecountries with local security forces and U.S. droneattacks.83Other statements by Yemeni ofcials claimthat signicant numbers of Somali radicals continued

to arrive in Yemen to join with AQAP.84


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AQAP and Ansar al-Shariah.

The Western press has often described the insur-gent force, Ansar al-Shariah, as al-Qaeda linked oran al-Qaeda afliate. More assertively, the Yemenigovernment has consistently maintained that Ansaral-Shariah is a branch of AQAP, and Yemeni ofcialsand media often use the names al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Shariah interchangeably.85This Yemeni interpretationis clearly correct. After an initial period of ambiguity,AQAP acknowledged that it set up Ansar al-Shariahand controls this force, and no one from Ansar al-Shariah has disputed this interpretation. Accordingto AQAPs then spiritual guide, Adel al-Abbab, An-sar al-Shariah was established by AQAP to imposethe straightforward message that these ghters werestruggling to establish the laws of God as a substitute

for the corrupt misadministration of the Saleh re-gime in the territory that they had seized (in practice,portions of southern Yemen).86 This emphasis on lo-cal issues was calculated to convey the image of anorganization focused on ghting the corruption andbrutality of the Saleh government in ways designed toappeal to at least part of the population. After Ansaral-Shariah was introduced to the southern Yemenis inthis manner, the links with AQAP were to be allowedto become more obvious. Moreover, there was somehope that the message would nd resonance, since thesouthern populations had little reason to be loyal tothe central government. Rather, many southerners be-lieve that government is not only massively corrupt,but also dominated by northerners who care very little

about the south. It is also possible that AQAP soughtto construct Ansar al- Shariah as a mass organizationto make certain it was not left behind by the ArabSpring uprising in Sanaa.


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This use of Ansar al-Shariah as a front organiza-tion was also useful since AQAP is often associated

with a larger internationalist agenda, including strik-ing out at Saudi Arabia, the West, and particularly theUnited States. Such an agenda, even if it appeals tosome Yemenis, can also appear as a distraction fromlocal concerns. Al-Qaeda and AQAP leaders havealso worried about the possible tarnishing of the al-Qaeda name. According to declassied documentscaptured in the Abbottabad raid, bin Laden himselfwas personally concerned that al-Qaedas name andreputation might have been damaged by the informa-tion campaign against it.87Such damage could clearlyspillover to the regional afliates who still pledge for-mal allegiance to the al-Qaeda core, sometimes calledal-Qaeda central (a term bin Laden liked and adoptedafter reading it in the Western media). A related rea-

son for the new name may be AQAPs concern aboutjihadist unpopularity in the southern part of the coun-try due to President Salehs use of Islamist ghters inthe 1994 civil war. Many of these irregular troops hadbeen involved in the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan,and many had associated with bin Laden or his lieu-tenants. Thus, quite apart from international terrorismconcerns, some southerners hold a grudge against binLaden, al-Qaeda, and AQAP because of the actionsof these ghters during the civil war. So, while Ansaral-Shariah appeared on the scene as a jihadist organi-zation, its portrayal as local and spontaneous mighthave involved an effort to distinguish the front orga-nization from some inconvenient aspects of previousjihadi history in Yemen.

Battleeld casualties are another indication of theoverlapping relationship between AQAP and Ansaral-Shariah. In the aftermath of an airstrike against An-


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sar al-Shariah targets in mid-March 2012, Yemeni of-cials claimed that an important AQAP leader (Nasser

al-Zafari) had been identied among the dead.88

Thisevent could be seen as further evidence of the inter-linked relationship of Ansar al-Shariah to AQAP.Additionally, and perhaps more tellingly, signicantnumbers of foreign ghters have been reported amongthe Ansar al-Shariah dead.89The bulk of these foreign-ers are reported as Somalis or Saudis by tribal sourcesin the area. Such reports are not surprising. In Febru-ary 2012, Major General Fred Mugisha of the AfricanUnion forces in Mogadishu stated that Somali radi-cals, and especially al-Shebab ghters, were eeingto Yemen in large numbers because of their increas-ingly perilous situation in Somalia.90 Egyptians andAfghans have also been reported to have been foundamong the dead.91It seems unlikely that these foreign

ghters would nd their way to Yemen in meaning-ful numbers and become part of a local group withoutinternational connections. Conversely, it seems muchmore certain that they could get to the battle front insouthern Yemen by working through a group withpowerful international connections such as AQAP.

Over time, AQAPs limited efforts to portray An-sar al-Shariah as a separate organization seem to havedisappeared entirely. While Ansar al-Shariah initiallyew its own ags, by 2012 there were numerous cred-ible reports that al-Qaedas black ag is being ownin areas controlled by Ansar al-Shariah.92If Ansar al-Shariah is a different organization from AQAP, theyclearly have no problem ying this ag as though itwas their own. Journalists who have visited these ar-

eas state that local people, as well as Ansar al-Shariahmembers, use the terms al-Qaeda and Ansar al-Shari-ah interchangeably. Another indication of the AQAP/


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Ansar al-Shariah relationship occurred following amajor disaster in February 2012 when Ansar al-Shari-

ah defeated Yemeni army forces and captured a num-ber of prisoners. AQAP entered negotiations with avariety of tribal elders on the possible release of thesecaptured solders into the custody of their tribes, andwith a promise not to assist the enemies of Islamiclaw.93 Ansar al-Shariah issued a statement that therelease had been authorized by AQAP Emir Nasseral-Wuhayshi.94Their ultimate authority on importantdecisions was always the AQAP leadership.

AQAP and the Death of bin Laden.

As noted earlier, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaedahave a long history of involvement with Yemen, andmany radical Yemenis have worked with bin Laden

throughout his career. Additionally, a seeminglywarm relationship existed between bin Laden andAQAP during the terrorist leaders nal years, thoughactual command and operational links between al-Qaeda headquarters and AQAP seem to have faded toalmost nothing by the time of his death in May 2011.This change took time to develop. Many of the Ye-meni founders of al-Qaeda in Yemen (which in 2009merged with the Saudi branch of al-Qaeda to formAQAP) fought with al-Qaeda in their youth and weredevoted followers of bin Laden. The current leader ofAQAP, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, worked closely for yearswith bin Laden as one of his most trusted and valu-able aides in Afghanistan.95 Moreover, Yemen waschosen as the site of one of al-Qaedas most impor-

tant early anti-American strikes, the bombing of theUSS Cole. Al-Qaeda clearly dominated the attack onthe U.S. warship, although it may have worked with


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a local radical organization (the Aden-Abyan IslamicArmy [AAIA]). Bin Laden personally supervised the

assault, including the choice of target, selection of theoperatives, and funding of expenses.96He also over-ruled local suggestions that the best course of actionwould be to strike against a commercial ship.

After the 9/11 strikes, changes could be expected.Bin Ladens status as the worlds most wanted fugi-tive would have made it difcult to exert any strongleadership role over AQAP planning, and he wasconsequently relegated to the role of an advisor andletter writer, who communicated sporadically andunreliably through couriers. While bin Ladens adviceto regional afliates may have been valued at somelevels, he did not have the nal word on matters ofany importance. More likely, over time, the AQAPleadership probably viewed him as an out-of-touch

nuisance, who had to be humored to some degree.This collapse of bin Ladens inuence with AQAP waswidely suspected prior to his death in Pakistan, butseems to have been dramatically conrmed by docu-ments seized in the raid on bin Ladens compound.Some of these documents have now been declassiedand provided to the Center for Combating Terrorismat West Point. While this information is incomplete,it has highlighted a number of interesting trends re-garding the difcult and diminishing ties betweenbin Laden and AQAP. Among other things, the docu-ments indicate that the al-Qaeda leader was upsetand disappointed that AQAP had chosen to focus themajority of its effort on ghting the Saleh governmentrather than attacking the United States.97In addition,

bin Ladens declassied letters indicated that he be-lieved AQAP was making some of the same mistakesthat al-Qaeda forces in Iraq had previously made. He


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was especially concerned that AQAP had attemptedto seize territory without sufcient effort to gain the

condence of the local people, and that it alienated ci-vilians with the noncombatant deaths it had inicted.

Also, in a particularly revealing decision, bin Ladeneither sent or planned to send one of his most impor-tant subordinates (possibly Sheikh Yunis al-Muritani)to coordinate with both AQAP and al-Qaeda in the Is-lamic Maghreb (AQIM). In general, this visit seemedto be an effort by bin Laden to emphasize his priori-ties with the local leaders, but it was also somethingof a fundraising tour. While there is no record of themessenger being asked to solicit funds from AQAP,he was asked to request 200,000 Euros from the usu-ally well-funded AQIM.98Such a request suggests thatbin Laden was not supporting the regional afliateswith funding, at least by the time of the request, un-

less AQIM and AQAP were being treated radicallydifferently. His likely inability or unwillingness toprovide funds would have denied him an importantinstrument, which could otherwise be used to inu-ence AQAP and the other afliates. Without funds toprovide to AQAP, bin Laden had almost nothing tooffer that organization, and ignoring his advice waslargely without consequences.

Surprisingly, bin Laden held AQAP propagandistand planner Anwar al Awlaki in low esteem, and wasparticularly distressed over the suggestion that Aw-laki might at some point become the leader of AQAP.This concern was apparently not alleviated by Aw-lakis internet advocacy of the importance of strikingat the United States, as well as local Yemeni forces.99

Bin Ladens reservations about Awlaki may have hadsomething to do with their lack of personal relation-ship, or there might have been as yet unclaried dif-


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ferences between them on substantive issues. It is alsopossible that bin Laden was somewhat irritated with

the tremendous amount of media coverage that Aw-laki received, perhaps fearing that it would eclipse hisown. As noted, bin Laden loved the term al-Qaedacentral, and could not be expected to take to the ideathat others had overshadowed him within the worldof radical jihadists. This concern would be especiallyclear in the case of Awlaki, who never met bin Ladenand could not be viewed as a bin Laden protg.

Bin Ladens death seems to have helped to acceler-ate the decline of al-Qaeda central and ended what-ever residual inuence that organization had over off-shoot organizations, including AQAP. Unfortunately,it was not a serious blow to AQAP itself. Bin Ladensintermittent advice was almost certainly of little to nointerest to AQAP (since they usually did not follow it),

and his apparent inability to provide funds to AQAPmeant that he had nothing of tangible value to offer totheir cause. After he was killed, he also became a mar-tyr to the al-Qaeda cause and could therefore be heldup as a source of inspiration to AQAP members andpotential recruits. Additionally, in a highly symbolicbut probably operationally meaningless gesture, theAQAP leadership, as noted, has sworn loyalty to binLadens successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Emergence of an AQAP-Led Insurgencyin Southern Yemen.

AQAP functioned primarily as a terrorist organiza-tion prior to 2010, but it later expanded its operations

to include efforts to capture, hold, and rule territory inareas where the Yemeni government had only a lim-ited ability to maintain security. This new strategy ofseizing and retaining territory was implemented prior


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to the uprising in Tunisia and the onset of the ArabSpring, although it was later accelerated due to the

Arab Spring-inspired turmoil in Yemen. One of theearliest indications of AQAPs increased willingnessto ght as an insurgent force can be seen during theAugust 2010 combat operations in the southern townof Loder, which is around 150 kilometers (95 miles)northeast of Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyanprovince. Once the insurgents captured territory, thepopulation was almost always subjected to heavy po-litical indoctrination, based on the favored AQAP/Ansar al-Shariah question, Why do you oppose be-ing ruled by the law of God?

Unfortunately for AQAP, no propaganda ef-fort was likely to make their rule palatable to manyindependent-minded Yemeni tribesmen. The formof Shariah law imposed by this group stressed harsh

Islamic punishments for any transgression that thegroup perceives to have occurred. One Ansar al-Sha-riah leader is reported to have stated that their objec-tive was, to apply Gods laws in Abyan, the Talibanway.100This goal was apparently fully met in Yemeniterritory controlled by AQAP/Ansar al-Shariah. Ac-cording to a variety of sources, including Amnesty In-ternational, Ansar al-Shariah implemented an array ofextremely harsh punishments for any action that wasviewed as an infraction of their version of Islamic law.Such punishments included crucixions, public be-headings, amputations, and oggings.101One womanwas even executed for sorcery.102Moreover, while itis possible that government-friendly media in Yemenexaggerated the brutality of Ansar al-Shariah, stories

told by refugees from these towns overlap a gr

the struggle for yemen and the challenge of al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula

Documents