Sunday, July 11, 2010

The US Helping Al Qaida Gain Foothold In Yemen

US bombing will be Al Qaida's most powerful recruiting tool.

"The missile had struck in one of the most remote and inaccessible valleys on earth, in a place where Al Qaeda has been trying to establish a foothold. Quso was the local cell leader and had been recruiting young men for years. Ahmed knew him well.

I met Ahmed several weeks later in Sana, the Yemeni capital, where he works part time as a bodyguard. By that time, Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch had claimed credit for a failed effort to detonate a bomb in a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day, igniting a global debate about whether Yemen was the next front in the war on terror. Yemen's once-obscure vital statistics were flashing across TV screens everywhere: it is the Arab world's poorest country, with a fast-growing and deeply conservative Muslim population of 23 million. It is running out of oil and may soon be the first country in the world to run out of water. The central government is weak and corrupt, hemmed in by rebellions and powerful tribes. Many fear that Al Qaeda is gaining a sanctuary in the remote provinces east of Sana, similar to the one it already has in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

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