Source:Reuters
By Raissa Kasolowsky
01\07\2010
Rising al Qaeda militancy, a surge in violence in a secessionist south and crushing poverty will be this year's critical tests for Yemen, neighbour to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.
Yemen, also trying to cement a truce to end a northern civil war, has been a major Western security concern since a Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a December attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane. Worries over instability in Yemen along with widespread corruption mean there is no significant foreign investment outside the country's oil industry and little chance of attracting any going forward.
This is further exacerbating high unemployment in Yemen, with nearly a third of the workforce out of a job, leaving more than 40 percent of the country's 23 million strong population surviving on under $2 a day.
"Yemen's problems are all simultaneous and would be overwhelming for any state," said Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
"Only after the central government is able to address some of these issues more sharply will they start to go away. A lot of the international aid promised is not materialising so Yemen will remain a basket case, if you will, in the short-term."
AL QAEDA AND ISLAMIC MILITANCY
Al Qaeda and the Yemeni government have clashed for many years, but bloody confrontations between militants and security forces are on the rise again as the group stages increasingly bold attacks on international and domestic targets alike.
Yemen's Western allies and Saudi Arabia have long feared al Qaeda is exploiting unrest to turn the country into a launchpad for destabilising attacks in the region, and the failed December plane attack set off alarm bells across the globe.
Rising al Qaeda militancy, a surge in violence in a secessionist south and crushing poverty will be this year's critical tests for Yemen, neighbour to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.
Yemen, also trying to cement a truce to end a northern civil war, has been a major Western security concern since a Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a December attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane. Worries over instability in Yemen along with widespread corruption mean there is no significant foreign investment outside the country's oil industry and little chance of attracting any going forward.
This is further exacerbating high unemployment in Yemen, with nearly a third of the workforce out of a job, leaving more than 40 percent of the country's 23 million strong population surviving on under $2 a day.
"Yemen's problems are all simultaneous and would be overwhelming for any state," said Theodore Karasik of the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis.
"Only after the central government is able to address some of these issues more sharply will they start to go away. A lot of the international aid promised is not materialising so Yemen will remain a basket case, if you will, in the short-term."
AL QAEDA AND ISLAMIC MILITANCY
Al Qaeda and the Yemeni government have clashed for many years, but bloody confrontations between militants and security forces are on the rise again as the group stages increasingly bold attacks on international and domestic targets alike.
Yemen's Western allies and Saudi Arabia have long feared al Qaeda is exploiting unrest to turn the country into a launchpad for destabilising attacks in the region, and the failed December plane attack set off alarm bells across the globe.
Sana'a subsequently declared war on al Qaeda, and Washington stepped up training, intelligence and military aid to Yemeni forces, helping them stage deadly raids on suspected militant hideouts, some of which have also killed civilians.
But an assassination attempt against the British envoy to Sana'a in April and June's brazen suspected al Qaeda assault on the southern headquarters of a Yemeni intelligence agency raised doubts over the reach of the government's crackdown.
Yemen's army has shelled militant targets and fought gun battles in the al Qaeda stronghold of Wadi Obeida in the desert Maarib province, east of Sana'a, that is home to much of the country's oil resources. Both al Qaeda and tribesmen have attacked energy installations there.
Sana'a has battled al Qaeda since before Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, often in concert with Washington, but many saw the Yemeni government's approach to dealing with militants as half-hearted and ineffective.
Wanted suspects went uncaptured and foreign Islamists were able to attend training camps in Yemen's impenetrable mountains and deserts, where they also benefitted from tribal protection.
Al Qaeda activity in Yemen picked up in 2009 after the Saudi branch of the militant group, licking its wounds from a crackdown by Riyadh, merged with the Yemen arm to create a Yemen-based regional wing, now mounting a resurgence.
The leaders of the Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula include Nasser al-Wahayshi, once a close associate of Osama bin Laden. Its declared aim is to target Westerners in the oil-exporting Gulf region and bring down the Saudi royal family.
Last August, an al Qaeda suicide bomber tried to kill Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who headed the Saudi anti-terrorism campaign that derailed militant efforts to destabilise the kingdom between 2003 and 2006.
What to watch
- Any more violent attacks on international and domestic targets as al Qaeda responds to a U.S.-backed crackdown.
- Analysts say increased foreign assistance in Yemen's fight against al Qaeda may backfire as public opinion swings against the government.
SOUTHERN SEPARATISM
Mounting violence in south Yemen in recent months, from separatist ambushes to brutal shakedowns and armed clashes with security forces, has raised fears that a sustained separatist insurgency may be brewing.
North and South Yemen formally united in 1990 but some in the south, where many of Yemen's oil facilities are located, complain northerners have used unification to seize resources and discriminate against them.
People in the south say the government deprives them of jobs and usurps their land. Key positions in the south are typically assigned to Sana'a loyalists, often imported from the north.
Many southerners believe they were better off before unity, when South Yemen was part of the socialist bloc and a welfare state established with Soviet aid. They say discrimination became worse after a brief 1994 civil war, sparked by an attempt by southern leaders to break away from a unified Yemen.
The violence of recent months is the worst the south has seen since the 1994 war and could escalate unless Sana'a quickly moves to address grievances of southerners who say their region is neglected by the state.
Sanaa has offered dialogue with Yemen's opposition, including southerners, but efforts to calm southern unrest have included widespread arrests and extra troop deployments to the region that have actually heightened hostility toward the north.
Suspected separatists have attacked state vehicles while the army has surrounded and shelled the flashpoint southern town of Dalea and clashed with separatist protesters.
Both sides trade blame for the violence in a heavily armed society where state control is weak. Separatists insist their movement is peaceful and any fighting is self defence against a disproportionate clampdown by security forces.
Meanwhile, the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh says armed separatists are a minority of outlaws who indiscriminately and sometimes brutally target northerners, whose businesses have been set aflame.
What to watch:
-- Spiralling violence as a growing number of southerners, angered by government security clampdown, take up arms.
-- Grinding poverty and unemployment may also push more southerners to join armed secessionists.
CONFLICT WITH NORTHERN SHI'ITE REBELS
Yemen is working to cement a shaky truce with northern Shi'ite rebels sealed in February to end a civil war that has raged on and off since 2004 and drew in neighbouring Saudi Arabia last year after rebels seized some Saudi land.
The rebels, who belong to the minority Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam, complain of religious and socio-economic discrimination by the government.
The ceasefire with the rebels, which has included prisoner releases by both sides, has largely held but is fragile and has been punctuated by sporadic violence that has raised fears of returning instability.
Previous truces to end the war, which has displaced 350,000 people, have not lasted and analysts are sceptical whether this one will hold for the long-term.
Qatar brokered a short-lived ceasefire between the government and rebels in 2007 and a peace deal in 2008, but clashes soon broke out again. Saleh unilaterally declared the war over in July 2008. Full-scale fighting resumed a year later.
What to watch:
-- Sporadic violence may deteriorate to full-blown conflict.
-- Rebels regroup and restart their campaign. DECLINING ECONOMY, RESOURCES CRUNCH
Yemen's failing economy is exacerbating all other threats to its survival. Almost a third of Yemen's 23 million inhabitants suffer chronic hunger, jobs are scarce, corruption is rife and oil and water resources are drying up.
The cash-strapped government is almost powerless to meet the needs of its fast-growing population and there are fears that if the state becomes unable to pay public sector wages the country may be tipped into chaos.
Oil revenues are declining steeply and the government said earnings from Yemen's multi-billion dollar Total-led (TOTF.PA: Quote) liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant will be less than expected in 2010 due to a delay in the production start-up.
A recent tumble in the Yemeni rial further added to the country's economic strain, forcing the central bank to inject some $850 million -- around 15 percent of its reserves -- into the market in 2010 to support the currency.
Despite some Western and Saudi support, donor money is hard to come by and once obtained is slow to reach those who need it most. Only a fraction of $4.7 billion pledged at a donor conference in 2006 has been distributed so far.
Corruption also pervades life in Yemen: The country lies near the bottom of Transparency International's corruption index, ranking 154 out of 180 countries last year.
As part of badly needed economic reforms, Yemen has begun reducing fuel subsidies, a huge burden on state finances, but is having to do this gradually to avoid stoking public anger.
In 2005, the government was forced to reverse sudden hikes in gasoline, diesel and kerosene prices after 22 people were killed and more than 300 wounded in resulting riots.
Yemen also faces a water crisis, deemed among the worst in the world and worsened by excessive irrigation by farmers growing qat, a mild narcotic leaf that dominates life in Yemen and whose consumption weighs on productivity.
What to watch:
-- Any signs the central government may run out of cash resources to keep economy and public sector afloat.
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