Training | 2010.01.03
Al-Qaida alert forces UK to close Yemen embassy
Britain and the US closed their embassies in Yemen because of fears of an imminent terror attack by the local wing of al-Qaida blamed for the failed attempt to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day.
Officials in London and Washington said the decision to close the missions was a result of specific intelligence. John Brennan, the US counterterrorism chief, said the American embassy, which was attacked twice in 2008, was shut because of "indications al-Qaida is planning to carry out an attack against a target inside of Sana\'a [the capital] – possibly our embassy.We\'re not going to take any chances with the lives of embassy personnel," he said.
Referring to al-Qaida, he said the US would do "everything to hold these individuals accountable". Asked whether that meant possible military action in Yemen, he replied: "Everything is possible."
The Foreign Office said a decision on whether to reopen the British mission would be made tomorrow morning. Spain also said it was restricting access to its Sana\'a embassy.
The embassy closure came a day after the top US commander for the Middle East, General David Petraeus, visited Yemen to pledge support from Barack Obama for the government\'s campaign against al-Qaida and a doubling of America\'s $67m (£41.5m) counterterrorism assistance.
Gordon Brown told the BBC today that "we\'ve got to do more" to combat terrorism in Yemen, and called for a conference in London at the end of the month to discuss what more the international community could do to contain the growing al-Qaida threat from there.
Brown also said Britain would step up its own support for counter-terrorist units and Yemeni coastguard operations, but Downing Street later said the money would be allocated from within the existing Yemen aid budget.
The US has been training Yemeni counterterrorist forces for several years, and Petraeus said that support would be doubled.
But experts on the region said without more help Yemen risked becoming a failed state, similar to Somalia. Ginny Hill, a specialist on Yemen at the Chatham House thinktank, said the attacks were "a symptom of a much deeper underlying problem, the collapse of the state system".
She said Yemen was reliant on oil revenues which are expected to dwindle to nothing over the next decade.
"It\'s not as if you\'re starting at a static position, you\'re working on a downward trajectory," she said.
Over the weekend, Barack Obama named al-Qaida in the Arabian peninsula as the group behind the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a commercial airliner landing in Detroit, by a 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Claiming responsibility last week, the al-Qaida affiliate urged Muslims to "killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places".
Amid the heightened al-Qaida threat against western targets, several international aid and development agencies working in Yemen have begun to restrict their operations and tighten security.
Naseem ur-Rahman, a spokesman for UNICEF, the UN children\'s fund which is providing aid to tens of thousands of impoverished families displaced by the war against the northern Huthi rebels, said the agency had been working with a reduced staff in San\'a since the heightened security threats last month.
"All our frontline UN staff are still in place and we will not move any until we receive a signal from the government," said Rahman. "But we are working with a reduced staff in Sanaa because of the latest security concerns."
Andrew Moore, British director of Save the Children in Yemen, said his agency had pulled out all foreign staff from their office in Abyan, scene of a US-backed air strike on 17 December aimed at al-Qaida leaders , but which local sources said killed as many as 50 people, including women and children.
Moore said staff were avoiding high profile restaurants and hotels in San\'a, were traveling in unmarked cars and had recently hired am international security consultant to travel to Yemen to oversee their operation.
"There\'s quite a lot of anger in Abyan and this is a nervous time," said Moore. "The expectation is that al-Qaida will try and do something big in revenge [for the Yemeni attacks]. The big question is will they try hit a soft targetBoth American and British embassies have been targeted in recent years. In 2008, 19 people were killed by a bomb attack on the US embassy while an al-Qaida plot to bomb the British mission was foiled three years earlier.
Since then, security has been stepped up dramatically. Perched on a hill in northern San\'a, the British embassy is surrounded by blast walls, security cameras and razor wire, while its main buildings are dug deep into the hillside, meaning key offices are underground.
A few miles away, the US embassy is also heavily guarded, set back from the main road and surrounded by heavily fortified checkpoints with blast walls, ramps and several layers of heavily armed security.
Yemen deployed several hundred extra soldiers to two mountainous eastern provinces todaythat are al-Qaida\'s main strongholds in the country. But Ali Seif Hassan, director of the Political Development Forum thinktank in San\'a, said a military approach alone would fail to defeat al-Qaida.
"This is a war that will be won on intelligence gathered in co-ordination with the international community," he said.
He said the stakes for the Yemeni authorities in their war against al-Qaida could not be higher, but warned against the deployment of international troops to the country. "Yemen will win this war. There is no other option, or we lose the state as in Somalia. But the difference between winning and losing the war will be the presence of foreign soldiers. If foreign troops are deployed in an actual and visible way all the tribes and people will fight against them," he said.
Gregory Johnsen, an expert on Yemen at Princeton University, said American involvement could extend to carrying out military strikes itself. But he warned "Al-Qaida in Yemen is far too entrenched and strong for a military miracle to work". Even the targets would be problematic - there is no postal address for an al-Qaida headquarters as al-Qaida lives among the Yemeni people."
Johnsen addied that "airstrikes that lead to a large number of civilian deaths would act as a powerful recruiting ground for al-Qaida."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan[...]alert-embassies-in-yemen-close
