The older more "moderate" generation of Al-Qaeda activists is being replaced by a younger generation of zealots, reports Nasser Arrabyee from Sanaa The suicide bombing which killed eight Spaniards and two Yemenis at a tourist site east of Yemen last week raised many questions about the growing presence of Al-Qaeda which has been accused by the government of being behind the widely-condemned Marib attack. Although Al-Qaeda did not claim responsibility for the attack, a threatening statement attributed to it was published by local newspapers just one week before the Marib bombing. Furthermore, security officials said they knew that Al-Qaeda was planning to strike four days before the operation, but they did not know where or when. An Al-Qaeda man who is under house arrest in the Yemeni capital Sanaa denied that "Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda" was behind the attack. But he said a "new generation" pretending to be Al-Qaeda might have been behind that attack. "This is not Osama Bin Laden's strategy at all," said Nasser Al-Bahri, alias Abu Jandal, in an exclusive interview with Al-Ahram Weekly. Condemning the attack and describing it as a random act against innocents, Abu Jandal divided Al-Qaeda in Yemen into two generations: the older and the newer. "The new generation is not the generation of Osama Bin Laden, it is the generation of Abu Musaab Al-Zarqawi, which is different from Al-Qaeda, although the word Al-Qaeda is claimed by both groups," said Abu Jandal who served for four years as Bin Laden's bodyguard before he returned to Yemen where he was arrested after the suicide bombing of the US destroyer, the USS Cole in late 2000. "It is the Iraq generation; they are young people who went there for jihad. They are inexperienced and misguided. They think that the older generation has become unable to confront and are cowards," said the Saudi-born Abu Jandal, who went to Bosnia, Somali and Tajikistan for jihad before he became Bin Laden's bodyguard in Afghanistan in 1997. Following his release in early 2003 by Yemeni security, Abu Jandal has declared a truce with the "enemies" of his idol, Bin Laden. He has been working as a taxi driver to support his family in Sanaa although he and some of his Al-Qaeda colleagues continue to live under security surveillance. They report to the security agencies on a monthly basis and have ceased armed activity as part of a deal reached with the security forces. "Sometimes, I feel I'm in conflict with myself. Was I right to stop jihad? But my answer is... this is only temporary," said Abu Jandal who is taking a nine-month business management training course at a Dutch institute in Sanaa. From time to time he receives death threats from the "younger generation" of Al-Qaeda who regard him as a traitor. Only last month, an Al-Qaeda suspect was assassinated on the southern outskirts of Sanaa shortly after he was released from prison. His parents and Abu Jandal said he was killed because he refused to carry out the instructions of his leaders who wanted him to undertake operations in Yemen. The strategy of Bin Laden, Abu Jandal said, was that the armed struggle should not take place in Yemen at present. "I call upon the youth to be prepared for the coming battle ahead and if it does not happen in our generation, it will happen in the time of our children," said Abu Jandal who believes that Bin Laden is still alive "from many indications that only we understand." He blasted the fatwas issued by some religious scholars and their inciting speeches, in addition to the brutality of security forces, as the main reasons behind the extremism of the younger generation of Al-Qaeda. "So, if the new generation was behind the Marib bombing, and I don't exclude any possibility, then it does not belong to Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda which rejects such random operations. They are divided and there will be further divisions. It seems that every one of them sees himself as an the lone representative of Al-Qaeda," he said. He praised Nasser Al-Wahaishi and Qassem Al-Raimi, the most dangerous Al-Qaeda fugitives, who escaped from a maximum security prison in Sanaa along with 21 others early last year. They released statements on the Internet introducing themselves as the Al-Qaeda leaders of Yemen before the Marib suicide bombing. "I know them well, I respect them, I know their morals, but this is not their mentality," he said referring to the Marib attack. "Al-Qaeda in Yemen as an organisation is very weak, but the individuals and their sympathisers, are strong." Nabil Khouri, former US deputy ambassador to Sanaa, said if Al-Qaeda does not agree on the current relations between Yemen and the US, it must express that politically not by killing innocent people who have nothing to do with that relationship. "How are the Spanish tourists and their Yemeni guides related to the relationship between the countries?" asked Khouri who ended his term in Yemen last week. "Everyone has the right to oppose the relationship of Yemen with any country, but this has to be addressed through political channels, not through terrorising or killing those who disagree with him." A Yemeni diplomat said that in his opinion the reason behind the violence and extremism of Al-Qaeda was incitement by the Arab media and some extremist religious scholars who encouraged naive youngsters to blow themselves up in order to enter paradise. "I don't know what passes through the minds of suicide bombers who blow themselves up and kill innocent tourists and their Yemeni guides," said Mustafa Noman, the Yemeni ambassador to New Delhi. "But I am convinced that this killing is a result of the Arab school of thought which glorifies such acts," said Noman. "The Arab media, which glorifies these people as heroes and uses vocabulary describing their behaviour as acts of bravery and resistance, bares partial responsibility for the killing of tourists who merely come here to relax and sightsee." The diplomat added that, "the Arab world is entering a stage in which madness, violence and killing will predominate because of misinformation disseminated by the media and educational facilities. "How can we expect a young boy to be a moderate and man of peace and look for positive role models in his life when fanatical scholars fill his head with stories of jihad against infidels and atheists, especially when he is looking for the quickest way to enter paradise," the diplomat wondered.
