Word: yemen
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...There are no more camel caravans from Damascus or leaky boat journeys a la Lord Jim. Only pilgrims from Red Sea ports in Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Yemen are allowed to come to the Hajj in ships. The rest, about 80%, arrive by air at a massive terminal near Jeddah. Saudi authorities are always keen to pick out drug smugglers and thieves; this year they are more determined than ever to prevent any terrorists from slipping in. (In 1987, Iranian pilgrims went on an anti-U.S. riot that caused more than 400 deaths.) An American security firm specializing...
...After Pakistan, Yemen is rated next most likely to attract clusters of al Qaeda leaders, because the country offers an inviting mix of political weakness, corruption, pro-Jihadism and military impotence...
...Until recently, Yemeni officials had refused even to give the FBI and CIA a list of the prisoners incarcerated in Yemen for the Cole bombing and other terrorist activities. Then, at about 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 11, the FBI released an urgent warning and BOLO - be on the lookout - for 17 Yemenis and Saudis whose names had come up when a Yemeni held at Guantanamo told FBI agents that an attack was being planned for the next day, Feb. 12, either in the US or Yemen. But within 24 hours after the BOLO went on the FBI website...
...Some background: The decision to redeploy agents inside Yemen is being made with some trepidation. As we have reported before, a contingent of FBI agents investigating the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole was abruptly pulled out of San'a in June 2001, because of what FBI officials termed a "specific and credible threat" on their lives and those of their local translators and security guards. Being in country wasn't worth the high risk, FBI headquarters officials decided, since Yemeni authorities were cooperating only "grudgingly and slowly," as one official put it. Officials believed some elements...
...preserve the fiction that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was backing the investigation. In fact, Bodine and FBI on-the-ground supervisor John O'Neill clashed so heatedly whenever O'Neill wanted Bodine to press Saleh for help that Bodine refused to allow O'Neill to return to Yemen after he left the country around December 2000. O'Neill retired from the FBI in the summer of 2001 to take a job as security chief of the World Trade Center complex; he died on September 11 as he was trying to lead his staff to safety. But even with...