Word: sanae
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...trained for his mission with al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen has renewed attention on the nation as a breeding ground for extremists. Saleh - a professed U.S. Ally - has promised action and indeed has sent hundreds of extra soldiers to the front lines of al-Qaeda-dominated territory east of Sana'a. But U.S. officials view him as a fickle leader facing a difficult array of threats - from a sectarian rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, to say nothing of dwindling water supplies and oil reserves. In the past, the Yemeni government has been lax about...
...long history of being both a source of militants and a staging ground for jihadist attacks. In 2000, al-Qaeda fighters rammed an explosives-packed speedboat into the U.S.S. Cole in the port of Aden, killing 17 sailors. Militants have also attacked the U.S. embassy in Sana'a several times...
...Without money, Saleh's ability to play patronage politics and buy off the opposition has faded. Though posters bearing his portrait are plastered across Sana'a, his authority doesn't extend very far beyond the capital. About two-thirds of the country is in the hands of either separatist groups or local tribes, some of which have a habit of kidnapping foreign tourists to use as bargaining chips with the central government. Economic and developmental issues - Yemen's most volatile regions are among those hardest hit by drought and government neglect - are at the heart of most of those conflicts...
People who knew Abdulmutallab and Lindh are stunned that those young men turned out to be notorious figures. Muhammed al-Anisi, director of the Sana'a Institute for Arabic Language, where Abdulmutallab studied, was also the director of CALES, another Arabic language school, when Lindh was a student there in the late 1990s. He says he never thought Lindh or Abdulmutallab were capable of violence and stresses that the schools teach language, not religion. "These people cheat us," he says. "It's very bad for us as a school, and Yemen as a country." (See "The Making of John Walker...
...many people believe they are being cheated by Saleh and view him as the leader of a corrupt élite who lives in luxury while almost half of the 23 million people in Yemen subsist on less than $2 a day. In the center of Sana'a, the Al-Saleh Mosque, a gleaming palace that can hold 40,000 worshippers, outshines every building in the area, perhaps in the country. The mosque cost at least $60 million to build, an unheard-of fortune in Yemeni currency, the rial. In stark contrast to the majesty of the mosque, impoverished Yemenis languish...