| New York Times | - |
Al Qaeda's takeover of Yemen's
fifth-largest city in April was the most direct indication yet that the
group's most potent regional affiliates are evolving after years of
American drone strikes killing their leaders and changing to meet the
challenge ...
BEIRUT, Lebanon — After they routed the army in southern Yemen, fighters from Al Qaeda
stormed into the city of Al Mukalla, seizing government buildings,
releasing jihadists from prison and stealing millions of dollars from
the central bank.
Then
they surprised everyone. Instead of raising their flags and imposing
Islamic law, they passed control to a civilian council and gave it a
budget to pay salaries, import fuel and hire teams to clean up garbage.
The fighters receded into the background, maintaining only a single
police station to arbitrate disputes.
Al Qaeda’s takeover of Yemen’s
fifth-largest city in April was the most direct indication yet that the
group’s most potent regional affiliates are evolving after years of
American drone strikes killing their leaders and changing to meet the
challenge posed by the Islamic State’s competing and land-grabbing model
of jihad.
While the image of Al Qaeda has long been one of shadowy operatives plotting international attacks from remote hide-outs, its branches in Yemen and Syria are now increasingly making common cause with local groups on the battlefield.
Map
U.S.-Supplied Cluster Bombs Used in Yemen
Annotated maps showing the Houthi rebels’ drive south, U.S. airstrikes and historical divisions.
In
doing so, they are distancing themselves from one of Osama bin Laden’s
central precepts: That fighters should focus on the “far enemy” in the
West and not get bogged down in local insurgencies.
In recent weeks, the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen has allied with armed tribes to fight Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, putting that alliance on the same side of the country’s civil war as the United States and Saudi Arabia. In Syria, Qaeda-allied fighters are important members of a rebel coalition against President Bashar al-Assad that includes groups supported by the West.
This
strategy has clear benefits for a group that has long been near the top
of the United States’s list of enemies by allowing it to build local
support while providing some cover against the threat of foreign
military action.
But
despite Al Qaeda’s increased involvement in local battles, American
officials say the group remains committed to attacking the West, a goal
that could be easier to plot from sanctuaries where it enjoys local
support.
Cooperating
with others could also give Al Qaeda a long-term advantage in its
competition with the extremists of the Islamic State, analysts said.
Since its public break with Al Qaeda last year, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, has stolen the jihadist limelight by seizing cities in Syria and Iraq and declaring a caliphate in the territory it controls. This has won it the allegiances of other militant cells from Libya to Afghanistan.
The
Islamic State has insisted that other groups join it or be considered
enemies, a tactic that has alienated many in areas it controls. And its
public celebration of violence, including the beheading of Western hostages, helped spur the formation of a United States-led military coalition that is bombing the group.
Al
Qaeda’s branches in Syria and Yemen have taken a different route,
building ties with local groups and refraining from the strict
application of Shariah, the legal code of Islam, when faced with local resistance, according to residents of areas where Al Qaeda holds sway.
When
Al Qaeda took over Al Mukalla in April, it seized government buildings
and used trucks to cart off more than $120 million from the central
bank, according to the bank’s director, Abdul-Qader Foulihan. That sum
could not be independently verified.
But
it soon passed control to a civilian council, giving it a budget of
more than $4 million to provide services, an arrangement that made sense
to local officials seeking to serve their people during wartime.
“We
are not Qaeda stooges,” said Abdul-Hakeem bin Mahfood, the council’s
secretary general, in a telephone interview. “We formed the council to
avoid the destruction of the city.”
While
the council pays salaries and distributes fuel, Al Qaeda maintains a
police station to settle disputes, residents said. It has so far made no
effort to ban smoking or regulate how women dress.
Nor
has it called itself Al Qaeda, instead using the name the Sons of
Hadhramaut to emphasize its ties to the surrounding province.
One
self-described Qaeda member said that the choice of name was
deliberate, recalling that after the group seized territory in southern
Yemen in 2011, the country’s military had mobilized to push it out with
support from the United States.
“We
were in control for a year and six months, we applied God’s law, we
created a small state and the whole world saw it, but they did not leave
us alone,” the man said in an interview with a Yemeni television station. “So we came here with the name the Sons of Hadhramaut, but the people here know who we are.”
American officials have long considered the terrorist group’s Yemeni branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
the most dangerous to the West. It has sought to carry out attacks
against the United States, and it retains sophisticated bomb-making
expertise.
Now, Yemen’s civil war has given the group an opportunity to expand, analysts said.
After Houthi rebels seized the Yemeni capital
and forced the president into exile, Saudi Arabia began leading a
bombing campaign aimed at pushing the Houthis back. With all that going
on, no one has tried to dislodge Al Qaeda from Al Mukalla, although
American drone strikes have killed top Qaeda leaders nearby.
April
Longley Alley, a Yemen analyst with the International Crisis Group,
said there was reason to worry that the close ties between Qaeda
fighters and other armed elements meant that any foreign military
support given to fight the Houthis could eventually end up in Al Qaeda’s
hands.
“It
is very likely that if the war continues, we’ll see a dynamic like we
have seen in other parts of the region, where money and arms given to an
opposition movement bleed out to other groups,” she said.
An
American intelligence official said that Al Qaeda’s senior leadership
had suffered losses in recent years, diminishing its importance and
giving greater autonomy to the affiliates, some of which still pursue
attacks on the United States and its allies.
While
Qaeda networks in South Asia and North Africa have struggled to recover
from the losses of leaders, resources and territory, Yemeni and Syrian
branches have “gained momentum and, in some cases, more resources due to
ongoing instability,” the official said, on the condition of anonymity
because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
Syria’s
Qaeda affiliate, the Nusra Front, has made itself an essential
component of the rebel forces seeking to oust Mr. Assad. It recently
joined a rebel coalition called the Army of Conquest, putting itself in
the same trenches as groups that receive support from the West.
“They
are Muslims, no different from us,” said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the
Nusra Front’s leader, in a recent interview with Al Jazeera.
He also said his group had been ordered by Ayman al-Zawahri, Al Qaeda’s global leader, not to carry out foreign attacks that could disrupt the fight against Mr. Assad.
American
officials called that propaganda, and the United States has bombed
Nusra bases, saying it is targeting operatives focused on attacking the
West. But the strikes have been criticized by other rebels, reflecting
the Nusra Front’s importance to the rebel cause.
The
group has worked to strengthen those ties to bolster its might against
the government and the Islamic State, according to a Nusra Front
coordinator based in northern Syria.
Such cooperation also allows the group to benefit from arms given to other rebels.
“The
mujahedeen need sophisticated weapons, and the West provides these
weapons to whomever it thinks is able to carry out its agenda,” said the
coordinator, who goes by the name Abu Omar al-Muhajir and was
interviewed via text message.
Civilians living in Nusra Front areas, too, say the group has built local support, refraining from imposing Shariah when residents resisted.
Meanwhile,
its fighters have distributed food and fixed plumbing systems. In the
village of Binnish, it recently fielded a team in a friendly soccer
match against another rebel group. Nusra’s team wore fatigues in line
with Islamic modesty, and it lost against players wearing shorts.
“Nusra
are not extremists,” said an activist who attended the game and gave
only his first name, Najid. “They distribute leaflets at checkpoints and
call people to the religion.”
Others worry that the group is merely laying the groundwork to eventually impose its will.
“I
am worried that after all the gains the Nusra Front has made in the
past four months and the notable increase in popular support, locals
will tolerate and accept the Nusra Front’s way of governing the
liberated areas,” said Hasan al-Ahmed, an activist in the town of Kafr
Nubul.
No comments:
Post a Comment