The new Yemen is the West's latest failed state, discovers Nasser Arrabyee Al-Qaeda was the biggest beneficiary of Yemen's unrest during 2011. Now, with Yemen returning gradually to normal with regional and international support, Al-Qaeda has become the biggest target to destroy as a condition of Yemen's stability. More than 40 Al-Qaeda fighters were killed on Tuesday, when Yemeni forces restored a military position controlled earlier in the week by Al-Qaeda militants in the southern province of Lahj. About 50 soldiers were killed, 23 of them were executed after being arrested, when Al-Qaeda surprisingly attacked the military position of Al-Haroor, between the Al-Qaeda-declared Islamic Emirate of Jaar and the province of Lahj, close to Aden, capital of the south. In an obvious retaliation for killing four senior operatives in their hiding place of Shabwah by a US drone attack last Friday, Al-Qaeda implemented at least six terrorist operations in Shabwah, Lahj, Sayoun and Mukalla. And according to security sources, Al-Qaeda is trying to implement terrorist operations against senior military and security officials and government and Western interests in the Yemeni capital Sanaa. With these terrorist attacks increasing in Yemen, US Ambassador in Sanaa Gerald Feierstein repeatedly accused the spiritual leader of the largest Islamist party Abdel-Maguid Al-Zandani of supporting terrorism. However, Al-Zandani's party, Islah, defended his leader in an official statement on Sunday, saying the accusations were based on wrong information given to the US administration by the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime. Last week, Ambassador Feierstein said in press statements that the US and international community are concerned about Al-Zandani and his followers and his supporters. Al-Zandani's party, Islah, now leads the political coalition which rules Yemen after Saleh left. The coalition, locally known as Joint Meeting Parties (JMPs), includes four other parties: the Socialists, Nasserites, and two small Islamic Shia parties. Some leaders of Islah party like Al-Zanafani and the majority of its members always say that Al-Qaeda doesn't even exist in Yemen and it was only Saleh who made it up to get money from America and the West. This position has not changed after Saleh left power. Some leaders and members of Islah say clearly in all meetings and arguments: that there are people who claim to be Al-Qaeda but they are in fact only working with Ali Abdullah Saleh, and there are people who are doing Jihad, and those must be supported by every Muslim. They are not Al-Qaeda but they are Mujahideen. Those people, who call Al-Qaeda Mujahideen, started to demand the new President Abdel-Rabu Mansour Hadi to stop any cooperation with the Americans that would violate Yemeni sovereignty, in a very obvious reference to the cooperation between Yemen and US to fight terrorism. Al-Zandani now is hiding in his tribal area Arhab, 35km north of Sanaa international airport. Local sources from Arhab said that the tribal leader Mansour Al-Hanek is now leading groups of militants against a number of check points in Arhab and Nehm. Al-Hanek is leading member in the Islamist party, Islah, and a number of his relatives were killed in Arhab and Zinjubar as Al-Qaeda members. The last one was the middle level leader of Al-Qaeda Mohammed Al-Hanek who was killed last month in Zinjubar, the capital of the southern province of Abyan, an Al-Qaeda-declared Islamic Emirate. The sources told Al-Ahram Weekly if the militants succeed in removing and controlling the military check points, then they would start to attack the main military camps like Assama and its 63 brigades, and this will enable them to control the international airport of Sanaa and all eastern and northern exits and entrances. The sources also said that Al-Qaeda and tribal militants under the leadership of Al-Hanek continued shelling on Monday from the hill of Wasel to the military camps of the republican guards in Arhab, 35km north of the airport of Sanaa. The trenches and barricades are being built everywhere nowadays in preparation for a big battle against the government troops in the areas of Arhab and Nehm where about four brigades have been positioned since early 1980s, the sources added. Minister of Defence Mohamed Nasser Ahmed said on Sunday in Parliament he would resign within two weeks if the security and military tension is not calmed down inside and outside Sanaa. The minister of defence has no real power as long as the army is split between the rebel general Ali Mohsen and the son of former president Saleh who leads the republican guards, the most highly trained and qualified force, which represents more than two-thirds of the army. Al-Qaeda and rebel troops and tribesmen loyal to the Islamist party Islah continue to attack the military camps positioned in northern and eastern outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, said a statement by tribal leaders on Monday. "Those who repeatedly attack the military camps in Arhab and Nehm areas are rebel troops of the first armored division, Al-Qaeda fighters, and a few mercenary tribesmen from Arhab and Nehm," said the statement which was sent to local media in the name of the tribal leaders of Arhab and Nehm. Earlier in the week, a similar statement also in the name of other tribal leaders of Arhab and Nehm, was issued to deny any presence of Al-Qaeda in these two areas. The statement said it was the republican guard troops who were shelling the areas of Arhab and Nehm for about one year now because the tribesmen in these areas supported the uprising against the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. It's not just locals who are suffering. Three men from Philippines kidnapped two weeks ago in eastern Yemen appealed Tuesday to the Yemeni and Philippine governments to rescue them. The 40-year-old Gonet Alcantara, one of the three hostages, told the Weekly by phone from Mareb where they have been held for two weeks now, "The captors keep telling us if their demands are not met, they will kill us. So we implore the Yemeni and Philippine governments to do everything to help us," said Alcantara, the oldest of the three hostages. "The captors are very serious, and our situation is very bad now." Gonet Alcantara, and his colleagues, Roque Soriano, 36, and Fredrick Dadives, 25, were working with the Sanaa-based company Yemen Catering International. The three were kidnapped in Mareb two weeks ago while on their way to the far eastern city of Mukalla, the capital of Hudhrmout. The kidnapper, the tribal leader Ali Hussein Al-Zaydi, is demanding in exchange the release of two men: his son and another man from the same tribe who are in the prison of the government in Sanaa. "Our people, Abdel-Ghani Ali Hussein Al-Zaydi, and Khaled Al-Kebsi, were put in prison by the security director of Sanaa [Rezk Al-Jawfi] one month ago without any reason," said a relative Abdel-Aziz Al-Zaydi in an interview with the Weekly. "The three hostages will be released unharmed when our men are released," he said. The hostages complained about the deterioration of their health. "We have been here for 14 days now without any shower or any change of our clothes," said Gonet Alcantara. "The three of us are in one small hot room without electricity, and we cannot go outside at all," he added.
