Yemen fights own terror war

"You are not the first strangers to come our way," says Mohammad Salah, a young Bedouin, as he adjusts the dagger, cellphone, and beeper on his colorful embroidered belt, lays down his two Kalashnikovs, and recounts the story of three travelers. Five months ago, the men showed up in this remote village and asked for protection. "It is not our custom in this tribe to ask questions," he explains. "We simply welcome our brothers."

The strangers rented three mud-brick houses for $30 apiece. They moved in with their Landrovers, satellite phones, and computers, locked their doors, prayed alone, and refrained from chewing the ubiquitous stimulant, khat. When government officials began asking questions in late November, the men sneaked away in the dark of night.

The men are believed to be top Al Qaeda operatives and are wanted by the US and Yemen. Muhammad Hamdi al-Ahdal is wanted in connection with the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which killed 17 sailors.

Qaed Salim Sunian al-Harithi, and an Egyptian known only as "Ayman," are also believed to be top Al Qaeda officials.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has vowed to track down the suspects and crush their bases of support. But critics say the real battle is ending the grinding poverty that breeds extremism.

"These tribes are not harboring the terrorists out of ideological reasons, but rather financial ones. They want schools, clinics, work. They become extreme only because of these shortages," says Ahmed Al Kibsi, professor of political science at Sana University. He says the US needs to be patient and stop issuing veiled threats. "If the US strikes, it will only weaken its allies in the government here and hurt the cause in the long run," he says.

Yemeni special forces, led by the president's son Col. Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, led an attack on this dusty village of several hundred in December. Eighteen soldiers and 6 tribesmen were killed in the raid. Villagers say six adults and four children were killed. Government forces imprisoned 20 sheikhs and the sons of 43 sheik from the Abida tribe. The suspects were long gone, however. They are believed to be roaming the vast desert dunes.

President Saleh, with intelligence cooperation from the US, has deployed military brigades. He has also cracked down on several known radical Islamic schools. The government has been deporting 115 foreign students who had been attending the schools, either for entering the country illegally or overstaying their visas.

The US has a sense of urgency. "We are working on two tracks now - prosecution of terrorists and prevention of further attacks. And our priority is the latter," says Edmund Hull, US ambassador to Yemen, and the State Department's former coordinator for counterterrorism. "We know these three men are key cogs in the machine that make the Al Qaeda mechanism work. They are directly supported by scores of others, and have thousands of sympathizers."

The US acknowledges the efforts made by Yemen, and counts as a measure of success the fact that the terrorists have been forced to flee their traditional strongholds, Hull says. "But the bottom line," he says with emphasis, "is that we now want results."

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