The Yemeni army moved against Al-Qaeda activities in the country last week in three simultaneous operations, reports Nasser Arrabyee Al-Qaeda in Yemen has declared that it will strike back against the US and the Yemeni government after the government killed and arrested dozens of its operatives in three simultaneous operations in different places on 17 December. The operations, which targeted an Al-Qaeda training camp in the south and a group of eight would-be suicide bombers in the north, have regional and international support. Nevertheless, they have angered many local people because women and children were also killed in the operations, which targeted the Al-Qaeda training camp in Al-Majalah, a mountainous and remote area in the Abyan province in the south of the country where Al-Qaeda has been enhancing its presence. In a tribal gathering held on Monday in Al-Majalah, tribesmen from the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa demanded an investigation into what they called a massacre of civilians from the tribes of Al-Haidarah and Al-Ambor. Al-Qaeda operatives were present at the gathering, with one defiant speaker promising the tribesmen that victory against America would come very soon. He vowed to strike the US and its agents in retaliation for people killed in Thursday's raids. "The war in Yemen is between Al-Qaeda and the US and not between Al-Qaeda and the Yemeni army," said the man, who was unmasked with a bodyguard standing beside him. Speaking to thousands of tribesmen, he said that "you should understand that we do not want to fight Yemeni soldiers. There is no problem between us and the soldiers. The problem is between us and America, but victory is coming soon." Sources identified the man as Mohamed Saleh Al-Awlaki from Shabwah, a relative of Fahd Al-Kusaa, who was involved in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Observers say it would have been almost impossible for the Yemeni army to strike the training camp without casualties among women and children, who were used as human shields by the Al-Qaeda operatives. "Al-Qaeda is not only fighters. It's always family, organisation, mosque and training camp, so it is almost impossible to discriminate," said Ahmed Al-Sufi of the Democracy Development Institute, an NGO based in Sanaa. Al-Qaeda leader Mohamed Saleh Al-Kazimi, who was killed in the operation along with four family members, was living among the Al-Ambor tribe, according to local sources. The sources said that non-Yemeni Al-Qaeda fighters and Yemenis from outside Abyan had formed a group in Al-Majalah under the leadership of Al-Kazimi, the training camp being only tens of metres from the village where his relatives and comrades from Al-Qaeda lived. Some local residents in Al-Majalah, where government authority is almost absent, denied that there was an Al-Qaeda training camp in the area, though they did not deny the presence of Al-Qaeda itself. "There is no training camp here. Al-Qaeda is working in Sanaa and Aden and everywhere, so why is the army striking here," asked Mukbel Mohamed Ali Al-Ambori in a telephone interview. "Mohamed Saleh Al-Kazimi has the right to live with his family and relatives in Al-Ambor, and if he is a member of Al-Qaeda then he should have been punished alone. But 45 women and children and more than 1,000 animals were killed during the strike, all of them coming from the Bedouins of Haidarah and Al-Ambor," he said. Despite such criticism, the strikes against Al-Qaeda are viewed by some analysts as the beginning of the end of training activities in the country. "The strike was a strategic way of rescuing Yemen from becoming a safe haven for Al-Qaeda," said Al-Sufi, who expected strong retaliation from Al-Qaeda as a result. "The government should stand ready to confront possible retaliation from Al-Qaeda," he said. "If Al-Qaeda is not dismantled and cleared from Abyan, Shabwa, Mareb and Al-Jawf, a disaster for the world, and not only for Yemen, will ensue," he warned. "Al-Qaeda is a tool to internationalise conflicts inside countries, so it must be uprooted from any country that seeks security and stability." However, Abdel-Ilah Haidar Shaya, an expert in terrorism, played down Thursday's operations, saying that they would increase recruitment to Al-Qaeda. "The operations were against civilians, which means Al-Qaeda will gain by recruiting a lot of angry people," he said. While the government says that 34 Al-Qaeda operatives were killed and 30 others arrested in the three simultaneous operations in Sanaa, Arhab and Abyan, local residents in Al-Majalah say 45 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. Autopsies have confirmed that at least 12 of those killed were wanted by the authorities as suspected Al-Qaeda operatives. Mohamed Saleh Al-Kazimi, Mukbel Abdullah Awadh Sheikh, Ahmed Abdullah Awadh, Methak Al-Jalad and Abdullah Awadh Sheikh were all confirmed dead in the Al-Majalah area, according to an official statement. Four others were killed in the operation in Arhab, east of Sanaa, where eight would-be suicide bombers had been planning to target Yemeni and Western interests. Another four were arrested. Two Saudi nationals, Ibrahim Al-Najdi and Mohamed Rajeh Al-Tharan, both wanted as suspected Al-Qaeda operatives, were also found among the dead. Five other foreigners of unknown identity were also found. Four injured men, all suspected Al-Qaeda operatives, Abdullah Salem Ali, Abdel-Rahman Mohamed Kaed, Haidarh Salem, Alia Fatah Al-Amri and Mohamed Ali Salem were later arrested in a hospital where they were having treatment. Inside the Yemeni capital itself, more than 29 suspected Al-Qaeda members were arrested on the same day of the operations. The 29 men, aged in their 20s, were accused of planning to assist the eight would-be suicide bombers in Arhab to implement attacks against Yemeni and Western targets. The arrests took place without clashes and came about as a result of accurate information about the men. The leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arhab area, Aref Mujali, a brother of Hezam Mujali, was also arrested in the operation. Aref and Hezam Mujali are the sons of Yehia Mujali, an Al-Qaeda operative who was killed in clashes with security forces in the Al-Rawdha area of Sanaa in 2003. A leading member of Al-Qaeda, Fawaz Al-Rabyee, was married to the daughter of Mujali before he was also killed in an operation in the outskirts of Sanaa in 2006.
