Al-Awlaki, the Translator of Jihad -- How Influential Is Yemen's Mystery Man?

[FarCenter]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,671188,00.html

By Yassin Musharbash, Volker Windfuhr and Bernhard Zand

Yemen is not only home to a deadly al-Qaida group, but also to influential Muslim preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who had contacts with two of the 9/11 attackers and the Fort Hood killer. But can the US-born imam be persuaded to distance himself from al-Qaida?

The place where everything began and, if the Yemeni government has its way, where everything will also end is near the city's new mosque on Street Number 60 in the Hadda neighborhood of San'a, the capital of Yemen. The city's high-security prison, with its clay brown-colored walls and white trim, looks like a modern, albeit heavily guarded gingerbread house.

Anyone who approaches the prison faces the suspicious gaze of soldiers, who record the license-plate numbers of any vehicle they see more than once. The country's security forces have been nervous since Christmas Day, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian who was trained in Yemen, tried to blow up a US airliner as it approached Detroit.

On Feb. 3, 2006, 23 members of al-Qaida escaped from this building, probably with the help of guards. The outbreak marked the birth of the second generation of al-Qaida in Yemen. It also led to a resurgence of the Arabian Peninsula's role as a training ground for militant Islamists. Until then, the Yemeni branch of al-Qaida appeared to have been defeated. A US drone killed its last leader in 2002, and his successor was arrested in 2003.

Since the 2006 prison break, though, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's militants in Yemen have attacked embassies, bombed oil production facilities and murdered tourists. They also trained and dispatched the 23-year-old Nigerian with explosives in his underwear, aiming to prove, with a spectacular attack, that no one in the West was safe from them.

San'a Is Awash With Rumors

The ensuing power struggle that has erupted in Yemen pits the terrorists against the Yemeni state. The terrorists have already boasted of further plans to launch attacks, while the state -- officially, at least -- intends to eliminate the terrorists and, together with American security forces, already launched two air strikes against presumed al-Qaida camps last month.

San'a is now awash with rumors. Last Thursday, for instance, some said that a 16-year-old al-Qaida recruit with explosives strapped to his body was on the loose in the port city of Aden. According to another rumor, security forces are missing several trucks filled with explosives and weapons. And, finally, it is said that an al-Qaida leader who was allegedly killed by security forces recently may not be dead, after all.

After ignoring it for years, the world is suddenly turning a worried eye to this unstable country on the Gulf of Aden, arid and lacking natural resources, poorly governed, overpopulated and plagued by insurgents in the north and the south.

And the problems in neighboring countries can be added to the mix. In Somalia, the Islamist Al-Shahaab militias that control large swathes of the country are calling for the imposition of Sharia law and are seeking an alliance with the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). To Yemen's north lies the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the world's most important oil producer, home of al-Qaida's most generous financial backers and, at the same time, one of the terrorist organization's targets.

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