MUST READ: IS AL-QUEDA IN YEMEN REGROUPING?

Is Al-Qaeda in Yemen Regrouping?
By Gregory D. Johnsen
(from Terrorism Focus, May 22, 2007)

In November 2002, the United States dealt a devastating blow to Al-Qaeda in Yemen when it assassinated Abu Ali al-Harithi with a missile from a Predator drone. One year later, in November 2003, Yemeni forces arrested al-Harithi's replacement, Muhammad al-Ahdal, on a tip from an al-Qaeda member. The two operations effectively crippled the organization, removing its head of operations and its chief financial officer. Yet, more recently, the group has been reorganizing itself and, once again, appears capable of carrying out attacks. On May 1 of this year, Al-Qaeda in Yemen told Yemeni correspondent Faysal Mukrim that it was preparing to strike certain officers within the country's security establishment, whom it accused of using torture against al-Qaeda suspects in Yemeni prisons (al-Hayat, May 1). As proof of the seriousness of its claims, Al-Qaeda in Yemen said that it was behind the March 29 assassination of Ali Mahmud Qasaylah, the chief criminal investigator in the central Yemeni governorate of Marib (al-Hayat, May 1). The unnamed source claimed that the assassination was in retaliation for Qasaylah's role in the attack on al-Harithi, which also occurred in Marib. Yemeni security forces denied that Qasaylah, who was transferred to Marib at the beginning of 2002, had anything to do with the operation that killed al-Harithi (al-Hayat, May 1).

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Pertinent Links:

1) Is Al-Qaeda in Yemen Regrouping?