As Yemen's war intensifies, an opening for al-Qaeda to resurrect its fortunes
“An
ideological hardcore of AQAP will always remain,” said Elisabeth
Kendall, a Yemen scholar at Oxford University, using the acronym for
al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen affiliate is called.
“AQAP has made strong comebacks before, reuniting its scattered
fragments into an ideological whole again. This is no time for
complacency.”
Over the
past decade, al-Qaeda has bounced back a few times, regaining territory
and recruits by taking advantage of security vacuums arising from the
conflicts among Yemen’s myriad warring factions. Now, after a relative
lull in the war, fighting is intensifying in at least four provinces,
including in or near areas where both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State
have a presence or support from local tribes.
Yemen’s
5-year-old war pits northern Shiite Muslim rebels known as Houthis
against a coalition of U.S.-backed Sunni Muslim nations, led by Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which are seeking to restore the
country’s internationally recognized government. The coalition is also
trying to prevent Iran, which is aligned with the Houthis, from
extending its regional influence.
Saudi Arabia and the Houthis
have recently engaged in their most significant efforts yet to end the
war, including prisoner exchanges and a Saudi decision to permit medical
evacuation flights from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. For more than three
months, Saudi Arabia had reduced its airstrikes, and the Houthis had
halted missile and drone assaults on the kingdom.
But
the clashes that resumed last month have prompted top United Nations
officials to warn that peace efforts could implode, especially those
centering on the strategic port city of Hodeida. The officials say this would worsen a humanitarian crisis already described as the most severe in the world.
In Bayda province, which neighbors Marib, AQAP and the Islamic State are in a deadly contest
for territory, recruits and influence. Clashes and ambushes occur
frequently, while the groups are waging a propaganda war on social media
forums and Internet chat rooms.
AQAP,
for years, was considered by U.S. officials as al-Qaeda’s most
dangerous branch. It was behind some of the most audacious assaults
against the West. It tried unsuccessfully to blow up a U.S.-bound
airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, and it claimed
responsibility for the deadly 2015 shootings at the satirical Charlie
Hebdo newspaper in Paris.
AQAP
seized large swaths of southern Yemen in the wake of the 2011 Arab
Spring revolts that toppled longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh. Taking
advantage of the civil war that broke out in late 2014, that eventually
drew in the Saudi-led coalition in 2015, AQAP gained territory and
recruits and deepened its influence and networks among local tribes.
The
Islamic State’s branch also emerged out of the political chaos. Today,
the group numbers around a few hundred fighters and has waged a
guerrilla insurgency in the south, dispatching suicide bombers against
Yemeni government soldiers and officials.
U.S.
airstrikes, which began under the Obama administration and has
continued under President Trump, targeted AQAP leaders and Islamic State
militants. In 2015, a U.S. drone strike killed then-AQAP leader, Nasir
al-Wuhayshi, who was al-Rimi’s predecessor. In October 2019, Trump
declared that the group’s main bombmaker was killed in a drone strike.
“When
we heard the news that Qasim al-Rimi was killed we felt relieved,” said
Hamad Wuhait, a tribal leader in Marib. “AQAP is a threat to our
community in Yemen and we Yemenis have been combating terrorism and
AQAP.”
Still, by
the time al-Rimi was killed, AQAP had already been weakened by a loss of
leaders and skilled militants, as well as by clashes with the Islamic
State and the Houthis, according to analysts. The group’s capability of
carrying out attacks against the West had diminished.
“AQAP
has really focused most of its efforts on sustaining a toehold inside
Yemen, attacking the Houthis and UAE-backed forces while running
pared-down media operations focused on the outside world encouraging
lone-wolf attacks,” said Peter Salisbury, senior Yemen analyst for the
International Crisis Group. “It hasn’t posed the kind of threat to the
West it did a decade ago in a number of years.”
Within
the group, al-Rimi was a divisive figure who didn’t command the same
kind of respect and prestige as his predecessor, analysts said.
“The
impact is limited, simply because AQAP was already fragmenting,” said
Kendall, referring to al-Rimi’s death. “The evidence suggests that
AQAP’s breakaway fragments are increasingly transitioning from holy
warriors into guns-for-hire.”
In
Bayda, a flurry of AQAP militants have defected to the Islamic State,
while others have joined militias and criminal gangs or joined
government-backed forces, analysts said.
“ISIS now looks to have the advantage over AQAP in al-Bayda,” Kendall said, referring to the Islamic State by its acronym.
“ISIS now looks to have the advantage over AQAP in al-Bayda,” Kendall said, referring to the Islamic State by its acronym.
The
question now, according to analysts, is whether AQAP's new leader,
Batarfi, can resurrect the group’s fortunes. He once escaped from a
Yemeni prison — like both his predecessors — and is a former head of
AQAP's external operations, suggesting the group could refocus again on
targeting the West, analysts said.
In
appointing a religious figure, the group could also be turning to a more
ideological focus, perhaps to gain recruits and credibility. Yet that
could alienate AQAP fighters who wanted a military commander or more
pragmatic leader in charge.
“It
will be interesting to see if this leads to further fragmentation
within the group,” tweeted Gregory Johnsen, a former U.N. investigator
and author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America's War in
Arabia.”
There are troubling signs that the conflict could intensify, lessening pressure on AQAP as they seek to regroup under Batarfi.
On Friday, Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted missiles
fired by the Houthis targeting several Saudi cities, two days after the
Pentagon accused Iran of funneling a new type of antiaircraft missile
to the Houthis. The rebels have also been deploying increasingly lethal
drones, with more powerful engines and explosive payloads, according to a report released last week from Conflict Armament Research, a Britain-based group that tracks weapons in conflict areas.
Comments