Contemporary Jihadi Militancy in Yemen
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CONTEMPORARY JIHADI MILITANCY IN YEMEN HOW IS THE THREAT EVOLVING? ELISABETH KENDALL JULY 2018 POLICY PAPER 2018-7 CONTENTS * 14 COMMUNICATIONS CHALLENGES * 15 DECENTRALIZATION AND/OR * SUMMARY FRAGMENTATION * KEY POINTS * 18 PART FOUR: ISLAMIC STATE IN YEMEN * 1 INTRODUCTION * 21 CONCLUSION: LOOKING AHEAD * 2 PART ONE: FORMATION & EVOLUTION * 27 ENDNOTES * 4 PART TWO: AQAP GOALS & GOVERNANCE * 32 ABOUT THE AUTHOR * 5 LOCAL INTEGRATION AND BRANDING * 32 ABOUT THE MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE * 6 TRIBAL RELATIONS * 8 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT * 8 YOUTH ENGAGEMENT * 9 SIGNS OF DECLINE IN AQAP * 11 PART THREE: CURRENT AQAP CHALLENGES & PRESSURES * 11 INCREASING COUNTERTERRORISM STRIKES * 12 DWINDLING SUPPORT * 14 WEAK LEADERSHIP © The Middle East Institute The Middle East Institute 1319 18th Street NW Washington, D.C. 20036 MOHAMMED HUWAIS/AFP/Getty Images SUMMARY KEY POINTS Regional conflict and internal chaos have allowed militant jihadi * The two core goals of AQAP are expelling infidels from Muslim lands and introducing an Islamic regime that would rule groups to rise and flourish in Yemen. This paper analyzes two by Islamic law. While these goals have remained constant, circumstances and experience have refined AQAP’s approaches of the most prominent such groups, al-Qaeda in the Arabian to engaging local populations in the pursuit of these goals. Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State in Yemen (ISY), by * The main challenges and pressures facing AQAP, some of which scrutinizing the factors that led to their respective ascents, and are shared by ISY, include increasingly frequent counterterrorism strikes, dwindling public support, weak leadership, poor examining the challenges and pressures that have caused their communications, and decentralization and/or fragmentation. respective declines. * ISY’s challenges are similar to those of AQAP, but its initial position in Yemen was weaker. Unlike AQAP, ISY never held By comparing and contrasting their operations, respective styles territory and found it hard to integrate itself into Yemeni society. of leadership, and varying levels of community integration, this * The decentralization of Yemen’s jihadists should not be mistaken paper charts the path of jihadi militancy in Yemen and assesses for a lessening of their long-term threat. However, current jihadi decentralization does provide a small window of opportunity to its future in Yemeni politics and society. capitalize on the jihadists’ disarray. Above all, ending the current war is imperative. messaging applications, such as international and domestic levels. It armed forces. This is significant because INTRODUCTION Telegram, and author interviews in explains why conditions on the ground in it hints at possible tacit alliances Yemen with local communities. south Yemen may be setting the scene between AQAP and parts of the Saudi- emen’s rugged topography for a resurgence of militant jihad, even if a backed Yemeni military fighting in the of mountains, wadis, and The paper begins with a brief overview peace deal is finally concluded between current war against Houthi rebels from deserts, coupled with a lack of the formation and evolution of jihadi Y the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition Yemen’s north. of robust government institutions, militancy in Yemen. It then outlines backing the Yemeni government. rampant political corruption, regional AQAP’s goals and governance strategies, Since 2000, al-Qaeda has been the The paper concludes by suggesting marginalization, and simmering tribal focusing on four key areas that help to dominant militant jihadist group in how the short-term opportunity that conflicts have long made it both an explain how AQAP succeeded in running Yemen. The Aden-Abyan Islamic Army currently exists, as jihadi groups reel ideal refuge for terrorists and breeding a de facto state for an entire year, and was terminated, in theory at least, after under recent pressures, might be used ground for terrorism. More recently, why it was not usurped by the arrival of it kidnapped 16 Western tourists in 1998 most effectively to cut off Yemen’s even more favorable conditions for ISY. These areas of AQAP strength are and Mihdar was executed. In practice, persistent jihadi militancy problem at terrorism flourished due to the chaos local integration and branding, tribal however, the group was subsequently the grassroots level. and sectarian polarization brought relations, community development, and linked to several al-Qaeda attacks, about by the current war. Houthi rebels youth engagement. Next, this paper PART ONE: including the suicide boat bombing swept into the capital in late 2014, offers evidence of a recent decline in of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, which killed prompting a Saudi-led coalition of Sunni AQAP as a group, following the peak FORMATION & 17 U.S. sailors. Most likely, the group Arab countries to intervene militarily of its strength, influence, and power in simply melted into al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda’s in 2015. Both al-Qaeda in the Arabian 2015-16. It identifies five challenges and EVOLUTION growth in Yemen was assisted by a Peninsula (AQAP), which formed in pressures that are symptoms of and/ groundswell of anger at the U.S. invasion 2009, and Islamic State in Yemen, or reasons for this decline: increasing Militant jihad in Yemen, as elsewhere of Iraq. This coincided with many which formally declared its Yemen counterterrorism strikes, dwindling in the Middle East, is fueled by war jihadists being released from jail in the province (ISY) in 2014, benefited from support, weak leadership, poor and civil unrest. Former President Ali early 2000s to attend an incompetent the resulting security vacuum. Various communications, and decentralization Abdullah Saleh, who was in power for re-education program which effectively developments from mid-2016 onwards, and fragmentation. ISY has faced similar over three decades until 2012, eagerly let them loose on society.1 Those who however, have placed unprecedented pressures and these are explored in the allied with radical clerics in the ‘80s and remained in jail, including both future pressure on both groups. The gradual following section, which traces ISY’s ‘90s to further his political agenda. He AQAP leaders, Nasir al-Wuhayshi and decentralization and/or fragmentation rise and decline in Yemen and assesses framed southern socialists as godless Qasim al-Raymi, exploited their captivity of Yemen’s jihad movements have made where it is currently. Finally, this paper infidels and enlisted Islamic extremists to recruit fellow prisoners and build a the labels AQAP and ISY no longer looks ahead to the future of jihadi to wage a ‘jihad’ against them. By the strong jihad network. As opposition to the as relevant. This does not mean the militancy in Yemen. The operational and mid-1990s, a significant group calling U.S. invasion of Iraq grew, Saleh agreed terrorist threat is diminishing, but rather organizational capacities of AQAP and itself the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army had to arrest young Yemenis attempting to that it is evolving. This paper traces the ISY as centralized groups look to be in formed around a local Yemeni veteran travel to Iraq or its neighbors without threads of this evolution using primary decline, and the distinction between of the Afghan jihad, Zayn al-‘Abidin al- government permission. Once locked sources, including the jihadist groups’ them is becoming more blurred, despite Mihdar. It operated with support from up in Yemen, they were easy pickings for operational claims, formal statements, the first instance of reported clashes a high-ranking military commander, ‘Ali the jihad networks forming in prisons.2 videos, speeches, lectures, poems, between them in July 2018. Nevertheless, Muhsin al-Ahmar. This is the same ‘Ali So while it looked on the surface like and nashids, or anthems, as well as this paper explains why the terror threat Muhsin who in 2016 became Yemen’s informal communications on encrypted in Yemen remains serious at both vice president and commander of the 1 2 al-Qaeda in Yemen was declining in focusing on military and international in Yemen’s east. AQAP took advantage of the early to mid-2000s, beneath the targets inside Yemen, but also a the security and governance vacuum that surface it was building. handful outside Yemen. Key to such followed the intervention of a Saudi-led operations was AQAP bomb-maker military coalition in Yemen in March 2015. The resurgence of al-Qaeda in Ibrahim al-‘Asiri, whose creativity and As the coalition campaign against Houthi Yemen followed a grand jailbreak in devotion is perhaps best exemplified rebels began, AQAP was able to swell 2006, in which 23 jihadists escaped by his construction of a suicide both its numbers and its coffers by staging from a high-security prison in Sanaa, bomb to insert in the rectum of his another jailbreak, this time of an estimated taking the international community own brother to assassinate Saudi 300 jihadists, seizing military hardware and by surprise. Among the escapees Prince Muhammad bin Nayif in 2009. robbing the central bank of an estimated was Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who quickly The bomb succeeded in blowing up $100 million USD.4 It ran its de facto state became al-Qaeda’s leader in Yemen. his brother but barely scratched the for an entire year until United Arab Emirates He was the ideal choice owing to Prince. ‘Asiri is also thought to have Special Forces, with help from the U.S., his tribal origins, religious schooling, been the brains behind the underwear forced it to withdraw in April 2016. This and solid jihadist experience. Like bomb that an AQAP-trained Nigerian marked the high point of AQAP’s influence many in his generation of Yemeni man tried to detonate in a plane over and power in Yemen. militants, he honed his jihadist Detroit on Christmas Day of 2009, as credentials in Afghanistan, where well as two bombs hidden in printer he became Osama bin Laden’s PART TWO: cartridges and found on cargo planes personal secretary.