Damage is seen after a car bombing near the U.S. embassy in Yemen in this frame grab taken from Yemen TV on Sept. 17, 2008.

Jangling nerves

The Economist ,Oct 2nd 2008

Resurgent terrorist groups are just a symptom of broader troubles

THE wreckage of twin car bombs outside the American embassy in Yemen’s mountain capital, Sana’a, confirmed fears of a resurgent jihadist movement in a strategic country at the foot of the Red Sea, just across from chaotic Somalia. The attack in mid-September was the second on the American embassy in six months. A misfired mortar that hit a nearby girls’ school in March had prompted the evacuation of non-essential American staff.

Jittery diplomats had been back at their desks for less than a month when six suicide-bombers blew themselves up outside the embassy compound’s gate. American staff promptly packed their bags once again. Yemen’s interior ministry rounded up dozens of suspects but is said to be refusing to adopt some of the State Department’s suggested extra security measures.

Yemen is an increasingly fragile state, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh tries to neutralise enemies and troublemakers by binding them into loyalty bargains, offering freedom in return for information and good behaviour. Though such surrender-and-release deals for prominent jihadists annoy Western governments, especially America’s, Yemeni officials say it is better to entice jihadists back into the fold than tackle them head on.

Be that as it may, al-Qaeda is flourishing in this dirt-poor country. Many Saudi Islamists have fled across their southern border into Yemen to escape tighter controls at home. An influx of experienced insurgents back from Iraq, where al-Qaeda has been hard hit, has pepped up the movement. Yemen’s foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, recently told the Washington Post there were 1,000-1,500 al-Qaeda and like-minded fighters in the country, both Yemenis and Arabs from elsewhere in the region. Angry young radicals are turning their aggression against an ageing, corrupt regime that gets millions of dollars of direct military finance from the United States.

Since September 2001 Mr Saleh has sought to convince Western allies that he alone can guarantee Yemen’s stability. He marked 30 years in power this July by declaring an abrupt end to a four-year civil war in the northern province of Saada. He has also taken the sting out of a southern separatist movement that started with riots on the streets last summer. But sceptics doubt whether this victor’s peace will hold. The oil receipts that pay for Mr Saleh’s wide network of patronage are dwindling. Yemen is the smallest oil producer in the Middle East and has begun to extract less. State revenues from oil and gas are forecast to plummet in 2009-10 and may dry up by 2017 without big new finds.

Three-quarters of government income comes from energy sales but efforts to diversify the economy by promoting tourism will fail as long as the country is dangerous. Foreign investors are deterred by the insecurity as well as by Yemen’s shaky politics. The constitution requires Mr Saleh to step down in 2013, in theory leaving Yemen to face its first ever peaceful transition of power; parliament, however, is pondering an amendment that might extend the 66-year-old’s term of office. Party politics is riven with factionalism and feuding; the risk of violence is ever-present.

Foreign aid-givers want drastic reform but lack of political will and the civil service’s general incompetence mean frustratingly slow implementation. Food and water shortages, plus burgeoning inflation, are causing widespread disgruntlement, which will worsen if Yemen’s population of 22m nearly doubles to 43m by 2035, as some projections suggest. Yemenis manage to struggle along. But with jihadists active and the political succession uncertain, the outlook jangles the nerves.

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