YemenWatch: Yemen vs. Al-Qa'eda

I've decided to keep a closer eye on Yemen, because of the deteriorating situation there.  The Yemeni military is having major problems in Abyan province.  People are evacuating some towns and the government is using airstrikes against AQAP (al-Qa'eda Arabian Peninsula).  This is a really good article (in the Yemen Times) detailing what has been happening Abyan:

“We are engaged in what amounts to a guerrilla war with Al-Qaeda,” the deputy head of security in  the Abyan province town of Mawdia, Colonel Mohamed al-Khodr told AFP on Tuesday.

and

President Saleh blamed third world countries’ media and accused them of “blowing out of proportion” events in Yemen, which he termed as “rare and carried out by limited terrorist cells.” He added, “we know about them and our security is hunting them down as we speak.”

I do not believe that we are all blowing things out of proportion.  Several Yemeni officials have been assassinated, and a British diplomat was attacked too.  Yemen is in trouble, and Saleh is trying to hang on to his control.  If things continue this way, President Saleh is in danger of becoming like President Karzai of Afghanistan (the Mayor of Kabul) - he'll be the Mayor of Sana'a.  Yahoo! also has information about the situation.  So far, I have seen very little about this in the US media, I'm not sure why.  Even the BBC News website had nothing on their main Middle East page.

For all of the people out there who don't care what happens in Yemen, or don't see the danger: one of my friends pointed out that the African pirates operate in the Gulf of Aden, the waters around Yemen.  So imagine al-Qa'eda operatives working with Somali pirates, and then tell me that Yemen doesn't matter.