Thursday, October 14, 2010

Yemen fights Al-Qa'eda Update IV

Al-Qa'eda militants killed the security chief of a town in the province of Abyan.  When the governor of the province went to see the site, his group was attacked too.  And three soldiers were kidnapped in a seperate attack.  Apparently the al-Qa'eda groups in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged last year to form al-Qa'eda Arabian Peninsula (I may refer to them as al-Qa'eda AP or AQAP).

There have also been attacks in Aden, which is where the Gulf Cup will be held in late November.  Some of the Gulf countries are a bit concerned about sending their soccer clubs there, which is probably exactly what al-Qa'eda AP wants.

This is really bad.  AQAP has been stepping up the number of attacks in Yemen, which is further destabilizing the country.  The government has enough trouble keeping the nation together because of Shi'ite rebellions in the north and successionist rebellions in the south.  It wasn't that long ago that Yemen was two separate countries.  An unstable Yemen would be a huge asset to AQAP, and would allow them to launch attacks all over the Arabian Peninsula.

Edit: Forget to include this article from the Yemen Times.  More troops have been sent to Abyan province, and there is some tribal fighting going on near Aden.  This article also lists some smaller attacks that I haven't seen in the regular world press.  I would definitely not visit Yemen, outside of the capital city, right now.

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