Ryan Newcomb
Yemen has been a hot bed of terrorist activity for years. After a bombing and sniper attack outside of the US embassy yesterday that killed at least ten people, Americans are reminded that their enemies are not restricted just to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Al Qaeda operatives are believed by authorities to be responsible for the attack, extremists from both the Sunni and Shiite sects of the Islamic faith are heavily active in Yemen.
Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization that is typically comprised of Sunni extremists of Arab descent, has carried out numerous attacks against foreigners in Yemen for years. Many may recall the terrorist attack on the USS Cole that took place off of Yemen’s shores in 2000. In recent events, eight Spanish tourists were killed in 2007 and two Belgians were killed in January of 2008. In March a school was indirectly shelled after a mortar attack on the US embassy missed it’s mark. In April, following an Al Qaeda rocket attack against a residential compound that housed foreign workers, the US ordered all non-emergency embassy staff in Yemen to leave the country. Also in April mortars were fired at an expatriate residential compound, the Italian Embassy, and the Yemen Customs Authority.
While Al Qaeda terrorizes foreigners, Shiite extremists in Yemen have been pushing for a revolution against a government that they believe should cut ties with the West. Shiite Muslims tend to believe that there can be no separation of their religion from the government, and in Yemen they likely want to establish an Islamic Republic modeled after Iran. In June of 2004 Shiite Muslim insurgents led an anti-US rebellion that has caused the deaths of thousands of people. The violence of the Shiite rebellion continues still. Just this May a violent outburst resulted in 66 casualties around the same time a local imam was the target of an assassination attempt during the bombing of a mosque.
With the highly unpopular situation that the US has created for itself in Iraq as well as the failure of NATO to completely defeat terrorist forces in Afghanistan that have begun to turn the tide of the war, it seems unlikely that any Western government will attempt a military intervention to support the Yemen government in putting down the Shiite rebellion or helping it combat the terrorist activities of Al Qaeda.
VIDEOS:
The Associated Press covered the bombing outside the US Embassy in this news story.
This CNN clip features a phone interview with an eye witness to the attack.
This BBC report touches on Yemen’s history of terrorist attacks.
1 Comment
September 17, 2008 at 4:58 pm
My brother actually lives about 20 minutes from the U.S. Embassy. He said it sounded like an earthquake. I’ll link him to this posting because he may have cool insights to add if he’s not insanely busy.
Yemen is also the ancestral home of Bin Laden and, btw, is the 2nd most heavily armed populace in the world, behind the United States(we’re talking Kalashnikovs).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_countries_by_gun_ownership
I’m not sure but I think the northern region wanted to secede because Yemen is almost 50-50 Sunni, Shia and the country had been two separate states, North and South Yemen, for a long time with one of the two gaining independence prior to the other and also being a former member of the Ottoman empire and having a distinct culture/history as the country straddles the Arab-African spheres of influence.