Jan 7th 1999
WAS it a local dispute that got out of hand, or part of a larger conspiracy? No answers yet, but the spectre of anti-western terrorism has been raised by the international inquiry into the kidnapping of 16 tourists in Yemen on December 28th. Spurred by the possible involvement of the super-terrorist Osama bin Laden, the FBI lost no time in dispatching an agent to Aden, where he could be seen in starched white shirt, speaking fluent Arabic to Yemeni officials. A full team followed him, arriving on new year’s day, along with four taciturn British detectives from Scotland Yard, three of them from the anti-terrorist branch.
A priority for the British team is to establish whether the gun battle that freed the hostages but killed four (three of them British) was really necessary. Britain’s ambassador to Yemen was urging the minister of the interior not to use force, even as his troops were storming the kidnappers’ hideout. The Yemenis say they had a tip-off that the kidnappers were planning to execute their hostages and had started the killing before the troops went in. Not so, say some of the survivors, who maintain that their rescuers were the first to start shooting.
Over the past six years, Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped more than 100 westerners, demanding economic improvements to their villages (and personal handouts) in exchange for their safe release. But these men were different. They belonged to no particular tribe and, although they stole money and jewellery from their captives, they professed themselves to be devout Muslims, prepared to die for their cause. They said they were from Yemen’s Islamic Jihad, believed to number no more than 200 members, although another group, the Aden Abyan Islamic Army, has also claimed responsibility. The kidnappers demanded the release of members of an affiliated group, who had been arrested a few days earlier, accused of an attempted plot.
Other, unsubstantiated, reports say that they also called for the lifting of the sanctions on Iraq. Although they certainly knew that western tourists were using the road on which they had set their ambush, they did not appear to know in advance what their nationalities were, casting doubt on the theory that they were specifically going after Britons and Americans in retaliation for the recent air strikes on Iraq.
Yet investigators are taking seriously the possibility that the kidnapping was in response to a call made last February by Mr bin Laden, the well-publicised Saudi dissident who now lives in Afghanistan, to attack Americans and their allies anywhere in the world. At the time, Mr bin Laden announced the formation of a new coalition of anti-western militants, including Egypt’s Islamic Jihad. Some Yemenis say that Mr bin Laden has spent time in the country, although the government denies it. According to an official American report, he has admitted to an attempted attack on American servicemen in Aden when they were en route to Somalia in December 1992.
Sceptical Yemeni journalists maintain that the theory of a wider international conspiracy is simply a ploy by the government to save it from embarrassment over the group’s links with the authorities. They maintain that the Islamists were widely used by the president and his security forces in their crackdown on southern socialists during and after the 1994 civil war. The kidnapping, they say, is all about the group’s demand to be rehabilitated, with honour, into the system.
Certainly there are aspects of the Yemeni government’s story that do not make sense. At the height of the furore over its controversial storming of the kidnappers, the government announced that on December 23rd it had intercepted a plot to blow up the British consulate in Aden and attack churches, hotels and a camp used by American military advisers. Why, then, was the British embassy not informed of this at the time, rather than six days later?
Some sceptics believe that the story of the plot is little more than a device to deflect attention from the government’s heavy-handed conclusion to the kidnapping. However, western diplomats in Yemen seem to be coming round to the belief that there could well be some currency in the international-conspiracy theory
WAS it a local dispute that got out of hand, or part of a larger conspiracy? No answers yet, but the spectre of anti-western terrorism has been raised by the international inquiry into the kidnapping of 16 tourists in Yemen on December 28th. Spurred by the possible involvement of the super-terrorist Osama bin Laden, the FBI lost no time in dispatching an agent to Aden, where he could be seen in starched white shirt, speaking fluent Arabic to Yemeni officials. A full team followed him, arriving on new year’s day, along with four taciturn British detectives from Scotland Yard, three of them from the anti-terrorist branch.
A priority for the British team is to establish whether the gun battle that freed the hostages but killed four (three of them British) was really necessary. Britain’s ambassador to Yemen was urging the minister of the interior not to use force, even as his troops were storming the kidnappers’ hideout. The Yemenis say they had a tip-off that the kidnappers were planning to execute their hostages and had started the killing before the troops went in. Not so, say some of the survivors, who maintain that their rescuers were the first to start shooting.
Over the past six years, Yemeni tribesmen have kidnapped more than 100 westerners, demanding economic improvements to their villages (and personal handouts) in exchange for their safe release. But these men were different. They belonged to no particular tribe and, although they stole money and jewellery from their captives, they professed themselves to be devout Muslims, prepared to die for their cause. They said they were from Yemen’s Islamic Jihad, believed to number no more than 200 members, although another group, the Aden Abyan Islamic Army, has also claimed responsibility. The kidnappers demanded the release of members of an affiliated group, who had been arrested a few days earlier, accused of an attempted plot.
Other, unsubstantiated, reports say that they also called for the lifting of the sanctions on Iraq. Although they certainly knew that western tourists were using the road on which they had set their ambush, they did not appear to know in advance what their nationalities were, casting doubt on the theory that they were specifically going after Britons and Americans in retaliation for the recent air strikes on Iraq.
Yet investigators are taking seriously the possibility that the kidnapping was in response to a call made last February by Mr bin Laden, the well-publicised Saudi dissident who now lives in Afghanistan, to attack Americans and their allies anywhere in the world. At the time, Mr bin Laden announced the formation of a new coalition of anti-western militants, including Egypt’s Islamic Jihad. Some Yemenis say that Mr bin Laden has spent time in the country, although the government denies it. According to an official American report, he has admitted to an attempted attack on American servicemen in Aden when they were en route to Somalia in December 1992.
Sceptical Yemeni journalists maintain that the theory of a wider international conspiracy is simply a ploy by the government to save it from embarrassment over the group’s links with the authorities. They maintain that the Islamists were widely used by the president and his security forces in their crackdown on southern socialists during and after the 1994 civil war. The kidnapping, they say, is all about the group’s demand to be rehabilitated, with honour, into the system.
Certainly there are aspects of the Yemeni government’s story that do not make sense. At the height of the furore over its controversial storming of the kidnappers, the government announced that on December 23rd it had intercepted a plot to blow up the British consulate in Aden and attack churches, hotels and a camp used by American military advisers. Why, then, was the British embassy not informed of this at the time, rather than six days later?
Some sceptics believe that the story of the plot is little more than a device to deflect attention from the government’s heavy-handed conclusion to the kidnapping. However, western diplomats in Yemen seem to be coming round to the belief that there could well be some currency in the international-conspiracy theory
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