Yemeni Jihadists to Syria via Turkey

Yemeni Jihadists to Syria via Turkey

By Nasser Arrabyee, 12/02/2013

Yemen President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi approved this week a bilateral agreement canceling entry  visas between his country and Turkey.

This step is expected to provide further ease for thousands of unemployed Yemeni young people being lured to go for Jihad in Syria through Turkey.

The Turkish airline raised its flights  from 1 to 4  per week from Aden   starting from October 9th , 2013.

 More than 5000 young people recruited by Islamist  leaders and financed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia were transported from Aden to Istanbul over the last four months, according to security  sources in the airport of Aden. Before the Turkish airliner started flights from Aden, Jihadists would go to Egypt where they go to Syria through Sinai and Jordan, the sources said. 

The young people, Jihadists, go from Istanbul to Syria to fight with Al Qaeda.

When asked why, the Yemeni government ignores this issue by saying as long as  they are more than 18 years old and they are not wanted for security, no one can stop them from going wherever they like.

The  semi-ruling party, Islamist party, Islah ( Yemen brotherhood) through its mosque speakers all over the country urge Yemenis day and night to take chance by going  for Jihad in Syria. And sometimes,  middle level leaders go there to encourage more people to go. Sheikh Mohammed Al Hazmi, MP and mosque speaker from Islamist party has been in Syria for weeks now. 

The process of sending "Jihadists" from Yemen to Syria is called now  by observers the " Second Edition of Afghan Jihadism", in a clear reference to early 1980s when thousands of Yemenis of naive  unemployed  young people  were being recruited and sent to Afghanistan by almost the same Yemeni war dealers and wheelers and almost the same financiers.  

The problem of those Yemenis  who came  back from Afghanistan early 1990s   is still unsolved until today. They are still in  on- and- off wars with the government, ad they want to turn Yemen to Taliban-Style Islamic Emirate.    

Islamists who call day and night for Jihad in Syria say what they are doing is not a declaration of Jihad as declaration of Jihad is a decision up to President.

" What we say to educate people is  that Jihad is a must in Syria now, but there was no declaration of Jihad from the Umma," said Abdul Wahab Al Humaikani, secretary general of Al Rashad party, recently established Salafi party.  

Meanwhile, President Hadi set the date of March 18, 2013 as the starting point of the comprehensive  national for y all conflicting parties and groups in the country.

The  US ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstien said this week in a press conference that Sheikh Abdul Majid Al Zandani  must not participate in the dialogue as he is a  global terrorist in the US and UN lists.  

Earlier Al Zandani, one of the main inspirers of Jihadists to Afghanistan and now to Syria, refused American interference in dialogue, saying " we do not want dialogue that contradicts with Islam".

Al Zandani also refused representation of the Yemeni  Jews in the dialogue. The small Yemeni Jewish minority  was given five representatives in the coming national dialogue out of 565 persons representing all groups and parties of Yemen. " They gave Jews five, and gave clerics nothing,"  Said Al Zandani who is one of the influential leaders of the semi-ruling Islamic party ( Islah) and also one of the main founders  of Al Rashad Salafi party.