As a break from my series on the upcoming Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) policy in the United States (parts one, two, and three), I interviewed Charles Burnard of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). Charles is a Research Analyst with RUSI Qatar's Middle East and North Africa program (full bio at bottom). I spoke with Charles about Yemen in the wake of the Christmas Day Plot in an effort to put things in a broader perspective than we are getting in the ongoing media coverage.

Charles, what do you think the broader impact of the Christmas Day Plot will be on Yemen?

I would not be surprised to see an increase in support and popularity for AQAP, both locally and abroad. The movement has very effectively harnessed local grievances such as poverty and government corruption, as well as external issues such as the Yemenis held in Guantanamo, to feed its narrative. In this sense, even though the Christmas plot failed, it will be construed as a victory for AQAP and a demonstration of this movement’s ability to severely disrupt Western security and transport infrastructure.  
 
It will be also be interesting to see how the Yemeni Central Government reacts to the promise of increased support and cooperation from the US and the UK. In the past it has been willing to collaborate with Western governments after significant attacks, only to loosen its grip once the furor has died down. Recent statements by Yemeni officials do not sound promising - Yemen's Foreign Minister Abubakr Qirbi recently stated in local newspapers that although he welcomed intelligence-sharing initiatives with the West, he is not committed to joint counter-terrorism operations. This may, however, simply be a case of preserving the domestic image of independence from the West.

How do you think recent events will shape US and Western involvement in Yemen?

We hear a lot of talk about conferences, special ops support, intelligence support, so on and so forth.
As you just alluded to, the US has already promised to double its 2009 financial aid figure of $70m and promised increased military support. Gordon Brown has promised a £100m commitment as well as increased intelligence support. I think it is important to ask whether simply proving more money and military aid is the most effective means of addressing Yemen's insecurity. Channeling additional funds to a government plagued by corruption (and often concerned more with its own survival than the prosperity of its citizens) strikes me as an ineffective approach.  

There has been much talk in the media of Yemen as the 'next-Afghanistan' or the next front in the War on Terror. These are convenient taglines, but they oversimplify a very complex situation. The worst thing Western states could do at this point is increase their military presence in the country beyond special operations and advisors (or adopt these taglines) and, thankfully, I get the sense that there is recognition of this fact. The central government walks a very fine line. On the one hand, it needs external support to address this challenge and on the other, it needs to maintain an image of independence from the West to be credible.        
 
With all the focus on al Qaeda, it feels like other issues are getting lost. Do you think the issue of AQAP and the recent Christmas Day Plot has overshadowed other, perhaps more significant, issues in Yemen?

Without a doubt. Yemen has been plagued by a whole host of political and economic issues which, if you’ve been following recent coverage of Yemen, I’m sure you’ve head all about: conflicts in the north and south, dwindling water and oil resources, rampant poverty and human rights violations. Recent talk of counter-terrorism has been at the expense of these issues. Just recently, the next chapter in Saleh's quest to suppress uncooperative elements of the media played out when a group of citizens were machine-gunned in front of al Ayyam newspaper HQ in Aden. Outside of local and regional media, this event received almost no coverage.   
The recent frenzy surrounding Abdumutallab's exploits has become part of the all-too-familiar reactionary approach to counter-terrorism strategy. While terrorism in Yemen clearly has the greatest capacity to affect Western security, it simply cannot be isolated from the other issues I've just mentioned. Broader security concerns drive AQAP’s narrative. We need to move away from knee-jerk reactions and adopt a smarter, more nuanced understanding of local issues and how these issues interact with terrorism.  

Bringing it back to the UK, do you have high hopes for the upcoming international conference in London on Yemen, to be held parallel with one on Afghanistan?

I am relieved to finally see Yemen on the agenda, but am equally concerned about the Western approach. Simply pumping additional financial support and military aid into the country will prove to be an ineffective strategy -  before any effective counter-terrorism and security initiatives take place, the Yemeni Central Government needs to function in a responsible and transparent fashion, and the economic and political infrastructure of the country needs to be developed. There is no quick fix – we cannot decapitate the organization (as we did in 2002) and expect [it] to vanish. AQAP today is more complex than ever and thoroughly rooted in Yemeni society.
 
Scheduling the Yemen conference in parallel with one of Afghanistan, one would hope that governments will discuss and heed the lessons learned from the latter. This is not to suggest that Yemen is analogous to Afghanistan, far from it, rather it is a call to understand that an effective approach to counter-terrorism rests on understanding local complexities and recognizing that terrorism cannot be separated from wider security concerns.     




Charles  Burnard is a Research Analyst with RUSI Qatar's Middle East and North Africa program. He has an MA in Intelligence and International Security from King's College London and a BA in International Relations from the Australian National University. Prior to moving to London, Charles held positions in the Australian Government, the Australian Embassy in Washington DC and several think tanks. His research interests include Middle Eastern security, salafi-jihadi terrorism, radicalisation and Australian foreign policy.

"Brother Mujahid Umar al-Farouk is a hero who destroyed the legend of American intelligence."

By that sentence al-Qaida's branch in the Arabian Peninsula (mainly in Yemen) took responsibility for the recent terrorist attempt to blow up the Northwestern flight over Detroit on Christmas day. The statement declared war on all western diplomats in the region, called for launching a full-scale war against the "crusaders," and stated that the failed attempt was a response to the US-sponsored attacks on al-Qaida’s camps in Yemen earlier this month.

The rhetoric is not new, nor is the elusiveness of al-Qaida. The organization and its branches suffered severe losses in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, its central command is under intense pressures in Pakistan. But then it reemerges like a phoenix in Yemen to plot an international attack in Detroit. This "phoenix phenomenon" can also be observed in West Africa (the home region of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab) and East Africa (where the Shabab movement declared allegiance to al-Qaida-Central). In the Middle East, however, al-Qaida's center of gravity has shifted from Iraq to Yemen.

Since al-Qaida's birth in the late 1980s, Yemen has been always under the organization's radar. In addition to Bin Laden's blood ties to Hadhramaut in Central Yemen, the conservative social setting, the rugged geographical terrain, the traditionally weak central authority, and the dominance of the tribal system over the state system are all factors that al-Qaida manipulated and capitalized upon.

Over the past twenty years, Al-Qaida's life in Yemen can be divided into three phases:

•    The first was between 1990 and 1994 when Bin Laden and his Yemeni associates tried to unite other Islamist factions to topple the regime and declare an Islamist state. That attempt failed. Instead, elements of al-Qaida and their supporters fought in the 1994 Yemeni civil war on the side of the incumbent president, Ali Abdullah Salih.
•    The second phase is between 1995 and 2006. That phase was characterized with a distinct organizational structure for al-Qaida and a constant confrontation with the Yemeni regime. By 2006, al-Qaida was severely weakened due to security strikes, international coordination, and a de-radicalization program that was partly successful.
•    In 2006, a third phase for al-Qaida in Yemen started with a successful escape attempt from the Political Security Prison in Sanaa by al-Qaida’s commanders. The escape was just the tip of the iceberg. The imprisoned leaders were able to reorganize the group and communicate with Iraq and Afghan Yemeni veterans. Following reorganization, al-Qaida was able to strike multiple targets including military, state security, and foreign ones. The more recent activity of the group was giving life to the defunct “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula,” an organization that was already burned-dead by the Saudi security services.

Al-Qaida has declared that it reestablished a regional, organizational leadership in Yemen. Last January, the leader was declared to be Abu Basir Nasr al-Wahishy from Abyan Province in the south. Earlier this month, al-Qaida held a public rally in Abyan, in the same site of the US-backed air raid; there its commanders declared that they will take revenge, just a few days before the Detroit terrorist plot unfolds.

The revelations that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may have been in part radicalized in the United Kingdom are not entirely surprising. He was in the UK while he was a student, traditionally a young person's most fecund period of political activism. Furthermore, there is the unfortunate reality that while the more overt forms of extremism and training offered by individuals like Abu Hamza al-Masri, Abdullah el-Faisal or Abu Qatada may have died down (or gone beneath the radar), many elements of what has been termed "Londonistan" do remain active. Put simply, London remains a place where extreme elements and ideas are easy to find for anyone seeking them.

But nonetheless, we need to be wary of sparking off some sort of overreaction to this. That Abdulmutallab, like a number (according to the Times count, a further three) of previously convicted terrorists in the UK, may have been the President of the University Islamic Society and organized conferences on subjects related to Islam and the war on terror cannot in itself be read as some sort of marker of his later terrorist action. How many have been through these roles and gone on to nothing remotely related to terrorism? To watch all of these individuals would doubtless be tough for already stretched services, and to ban all such groups and conferences would merely drive them underground and raise all sorts of fearsome debates about freedom of speech.

Unlike some friends, I would also contend the argument that the University of London is somehow the connective tissue – while a number of convicted British terrorists have passed through these hallowed halls (about 10 if I recall a count over drinks the other night) – innumerable others have passed through harmlessly (including most contributors to this blog). Compared to other Universities, it may seem like a high concentration (though I have not seen an absolute count yet anywhere making this an unsubstantiated assertion), but then again, consider how many students have passed through University of London: according its own count, there are currently 120,000 enrolled. The most likely explanation for these similarities is that extremist recruiters seeking warriors for Al Qaeda’s cause are probably hidden amongst London's diverse community, and they are fishing in the pools nearest to them.

Maybe a more disturbing link should be drawn through the Yemen-UK connection. Back in late 1998, seven British Muslims (two of whom were related to Abu Hamza) were picked up and incarcerated for their part in plotting a bombing campaign and kidnapping alongside a local Islamist group. In 2000, following the death of a young Briton in a incident involving a firearm at a madrassah north of the capital Sanaa, the British Ambassador went to investigate and was shocked to discover 30 British students at the school. Since then I have heard stories of journalists coming across young Britons, amongst other foreigners, seeking jihadi camps in Yemen. Furthermore, the presence of fabled extremist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, means that these youngsters can find a teacher there who speaks a language they understand.

What really stands out, however, is the familiarity of all of these connections. The fact they are not that novel highlights the fact that the ideological battle is nowhere near won. Here we are almost a decade since 9/11 and we are still seeing suicide attackers on airplanes, having passed down a path that is not unknown. This is both a break-down in security, but also a sad indictment that the stream of young men seeking martyrdom has not diminished.

Here are a few links if you want to dig deeper:

News from Nigeria
Britain turned him away
Organized "terror conf"
AQ "groomed" him in London
His time at UCL
Unis "complicit" in his radicalization
Con Coughlin "when will we wake up"
NYT long piece on London links
NYT piece news on his contacts and family background
CNN with interviews with London friends, and that he became more radical in London
Farouk "not radicalized" at UCL
THES article by UCL head