Why Yemen is terrorism’s latest battleground

As the ‘war against terror' enters its ninth year in Afghanistan, a new militant training ground is emerging farther afield.

The Nigerian man who attempted to blow up an American plane on Christmas day was trained by an Al-Qaeda faction in Yemen, an obscure country that hardly made it onto the radar while the world's attention was focused elsewhere.

Now, it has well and truly caught the attention of the West.

Yemen is not a big country, only measuring 530,000 km2 in land area – about the same size as Spain. It sits on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula and is bordered by Oman and Saudi Arabia.

It has its fair share of problems. Over a quarter of the population lives on less than US$1.25 a day. That’s largely because of the thousands of illegal immigrants from Africa who use Yemen as a spring board to the oil-rich Arab Gulf or Europe.

The country's internal unrest has provided a perfect distraction to growing numbers of Islamist militants.

Since mid last year, hundreds of Yemenis have been killed and tens of thousands displaced by clashes between government troops and north-western rebels belonging to the Zaidi sect – a branch of Shia Islam in the mainly Sunni country.

These rebels want self-rule in the north and US-backed attacks on them from neighbouring Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government to stop this independence has helped fuel anti-Western feelings.

That the country is an emerging haven for Al Qaeda makes more sense when you note that it is the ancestral homeland of commander-in-chief Osama bin Laden.

In recent years Yemen has been rocked by several anti-Western attacks. Nineteen were killed in a car bomb explosion outside the US embassy in September 2008.

The threat of extremism is growing and has prompted the government to turn to the West for help. Yemeni forces launched several major operations with US backing in December. Suspected Al Qaeda targets were raided and more than 60 militants killed, according to the government.

But after the recent claim by the Yemen-based faction that it was behind the failed attack on a US plane on Christmas day, the government asked for more support from the international community to help quash militancy.

This time, the cry for help was answered. The US and Britain have agreed to fund Yemen's Counter-Terrorism Unit – a special force which in the past has received training and assistance from America. The Brits are expected to give around $100 million to Yemen in 2011.

Washington will no doubt come to the party with a similar figure but it has stressed it wont be sending in troops of its own. It will provide the funding, not the fighters. President Obama has sent his top Middle East general to meet Yemen's president.

These latest announcements have ruffled a few feathers in the Al-Qaeda camp. The AQAP, an Al-Qaeda offshoot based in the Arabian Peninsula, is calling for all-out war against Western interests in Yemen.

In a statement it said: “We call upon every Muslim who cares about his religion and doctrine to assist in expelling the apostasies from the Arabian Peninsula, by killing every crusader who works at their embassies or other places, declare it an all-out war against every crusader on Mohammad's peninsula on land, air and sea.”

Unsurprisingly, the US and Britain responded by promptly closing their embassies for ‘security reasons.’

Whether or not the country will see an increase in attacks remains to be seen, but the stakes are now higher. The Yemeni government has just made some very powerful new friends who are no strangers to fighting extremists.

We've all seen it before. We've been watching it unfold for the last nine years in Afghanistan. One can only hope this impoverished, formerly insignificant Middle Eastern country knows what it's getting itself into.

By Charlotte Whale