Word: al-qaeda
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...real and imagined - of the primary Shi'a power in the region, Iran, which is happy to take credit even if its actual influence may still be negligible. When Iran is mentioned, however, both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the predominant Sunni power in the region, start quaking. And al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, no friend to any of the parties, is happy to sow destabilization so it can thrive. (Is Iran causing trouble in Yemen's hidden...
...thrives off the ruins of Yemen's economy, which is in tatters; its population complains of neglect and development woes; and 50% of Yemeni children suffer from malnutrition. Observers warn that poverty and unemployment are prime recruitment factors for al-Qaeda, something they say the U.S. and other foreign powers should have done more to address. Yemen also struggles with a severe water shortage, in large part because of the national addiction to khat, a shrub whose young leaves contain a compound with effects similar to those of amphetamines. The top estimate is that no fewer than...
Meanwhile, analysts say Yemen has been slow to confront the al-Qaeda threat with the gusto that the U.S. has been pushing for, in large part because going after the Islamist group hasn't always been in the government's best interests. Indeed, some experts say that al-Qaeda seeks not to overthrow the government but only to establish a base in Yemen - a link between the Horn of Africa and the rest of the Arabian Peninsula - and that so long as Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh leaves al-Qaeda alone, they'll do the same...
...Yemeni government insists it is doing its utmost in the war against al-Qaeda. "We have been cooperating closely with the U.S., much more than the Pakistanis, for instance, in the fight against al-Qaeda," says a Yemeni official. "The strike last week [that killed top al-Qaeda commanders in Yemen] was a huge blow to them. With one strike, we cut off their head. We are investigating [Abdulmutallab] according to what the FBI told us. If there was a plot from Yemen, it's possible that it happened before last week's strike. Is al-Qaeda using Yemen...
Indeed, one of the jihadi commanders reportedly killed in the pre-Christmas raids in Yemen was al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula founder Naser. But though that head may have been cut off, the claim of responsibility made it clear that the voice and the ambitions of al-Qaeda in Yemen have...