By Cynthia Johnston DUBAI – Al-Qaeda insurgents could strengthen their foothold in Yemen and form part of a belt of instability linking Asia to Africa if the government in Sana'a fails to crack down decisively against them, analysts said. An impoverished country that is strategically located on one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, Yemen has declared war on al-Qaeda under pressure from Washington and Saudi Arabia, its oil-producing neighbour. Over the past weeks, it has claimed to have killed six al-Qaeda leaders in an air strike in the north, captured three insurgents close to the Saudi border and shot dead another member in an exchange of gunfire in Lahj province in the south. But even if these early successes prove true – al-Qaeda disputes local leaders were killed in the strike – Yemen faces a daunting challenge containing insurgents who will hunker down and seek to exploit their ties to like-minded groups in Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to sow regional chaos. "Al-Qaeda in Yemen is a regional command. It is not a national command. It is a command for the whole Arabian peninsula. So theoretically at least we are talking about seven states," Dubai-based security analyst Mustafa Alani said. The most direct threat from a stronger al-Qaeda foothold in Yemen is to Saudi Arabia, which shares a 1,500km porous land border with its southern neighbour. Saudi Arabia halted an al-Qaeda campaign in the kingdom in 2006 after a wave of attacks on foreign residential compounds, government targets and energy installations. But last year, the Yemeni and Saudi wings of the group merged to form the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Its Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US-bound airliner made it clear that the merged branch has its sights on targets far beyond mountainous Yemen's borders. Hassan Abou Taleb, an analyst at the Cairo-based al-Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, said one issue of concern is a strengthening of ties between Yemen-based al-Qaeda and insurgents in Somalia, a failed state that is home to pirates who prey on international shipping. Worried about such an alliance, Yemen has already ramped up coastal security to block entry of Somali fighters disguised as Horn of Africa refugees. Somalia's al-Shabab movement, seen by Washington as al-Qaeda's proxy, and with known links to Yemen insurgents, has said it is ready to send backup to Yemen should the US carry out strikes there. "If both al-Qaeda in Yemen and the religious youth in Somalia united ... can you imagine what would happen in the future? I think a lot of damage, a lot of instability," Abou Taleb said. "Also this will encourage al-Qaeda to spread more and more, not only in the Arabian Peninsula but also in Africa."
