How Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has made al Qaeda stronger and richer

/yemen-aqap

  • A lire le long article de Reuters sur le mini-Etat al-Qaïdesque qui se bâtit dans le sud du Yémen dans le sillage de la guerre menée par l’Arabie saoudite contre les Houthis et les partisans de Saleh.
    L’article détaille les ressources financières sur lesquelles AQPA - vous savez, ce groupe censé être responsable des attentats à Charlie... - a pu mettre la main et sa stratégie d’implantation locale pour gagner la bataille des cœurs et des esprits.

    How Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen has made al Qaeda stronger – and richer

    One unintended consequence of the war in Yemen: Al Qaeda now runs its own mini-state, flush with funds from raiding the local central bank and levying taxes at the local port.

    Reuters 08.09.16
    http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/yemen-aqap
    Morceaux choisis mais tout est intéressant :

    Once driven to near irrelevance by the rise of Islamic State abroad and security crackdowns at home, al Qaeda in Yemen now openly rules a mini-state with a war chest swollen by an estimated $100 million in looted bank deposits and revenue from running the country’s third largest port. [...]
    The economic empire was described by more than a dozen diplomats, Yemeni security officials, tribal leaders and residents of Mukalla. Its emergence is the most striking unintended consequence of the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen. The campaign, backed by the United States, has helped Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to become stronger than at any time since it first emerged almost 20 years ago.
    Yemeni government officials and local traders estimated the group, as well as seizing the bank deposits, has extorted $1.4 million from the national oil company and earns up to $2 million every day in taxes on goods and fuel coming into the port.
    AQAP boasts 1,000 fighters in Mukalla alone, controls 600 km (373 miles) of coastline and is ingratiating itself with southern Yemenis, who have felt marginalised by the country’s northern elite for years.

    Pour les amateurs d’humour, la déclaration de l’ambassade saoudienne :

    In a recent statement issued by the Saudi embassy in Washington, Saudi officials said that their campaign had “denied terrorists a safe haven in Yemen.”

    Comment AQAP a fait concrètement pour profiter de la guerre des Saoudiens :

    Barely a week after Saudi Arabia launched “Operation Decisive Storm” against the Houthis in March last year, Yemeni army forces vanished from Mukalla’s streets and moved westward to combat zones, security officials and residents said.
    The city’s residents were left defenceless, allowing a few dozen AQAP fighters to seize government buildings and free 150 of their comrades from the central jail. The freed included Khaled Batarfi, a senior al Qaeda leader. Pictures appeared online of Batarfi sitting inside the local presidential palace, looking happy and in control as he held a telephone to his ear.
    Tribal leaders in neighbouring provinces told Reuters that, in the security vacuum, army bases were looted and Yemen’s south became awash with advanced weaponry. C4 explosive and even anti-aircraft missiles were available to the highest bidder.

    Et, enfin, un constat rassurant :

    And just as Islamic State seized the central bank in Mosul in northern Iraq, AQAP looted Mukalla’s central bank branch, netting an estimated $100 million, according to two senior Yemeni security officials.
    “That represents their biggest financial gain to date,” one of the officials said. “That’s enough to fund them at the level they had been operating for at least another 10 years.”

    • Sur le même sujet, comment la guerre menée par l’Arabie saoudite, la situation humanitaire catastrophique de vastes parties de la population et l’effondrement de l’Etat central créent les conditions propices à l’établissement d’un émirat islamique al-Qaïdesque au Yémen :
      Al Qaeda Winning Hearts And Minds Over ISIS In Yemen With Social Services
      IBTimes / 07.04.16
      http://www.ibtimes.com/al-qaeda-winning-hearts-minds-over-isis-yemen-social-services-2346835

      The Yemen war began a year ago, when Saudi Arabia launched a nine-country coalition to eradicate the Houthi rebels, a Shiite armed political group that took over the country’s capital, Sanaa, from the internationally recognized government in 2014. Since then, the conflict in Yemen, much like the ones in Syria, Iraq and Libya, has drawn in various international powers and the political chaos has left civilians without any form of support from the state.
      “It’s like a Game of Thrones with its shifting alliances,” Joscelyn said. “But who is benefiting from Saudi intervention in Yemen? AQAP.”
      [...]
      Yemenis are not in a position to reject what AQAP is offering. More than half of Yemen’s population lives below the poverty line. Today, 20 million people — 80 percent of the population — are in need of humanitarian assistance.
      Photographs and news articles circulated on AQAP’s social media accounts, and in its propaganda newspaper al-Masra, emphasize how the group has built bridges, dug water wells, repaired roads and distributed humanitarian assistance throughout the areas it controls. The photographs also show militants carrying out punishments according to their version of Sharia law, but the group omits the most brutal scenes from its propaganda.
      [...]
      The idea of power-sharing may contradict the Islamist doctrine of complete allegiance, but that’s not to say AQAP has given up on its future goal of establishing an emirate. The group is constantly recruiting and training Yemenis who want to fight the Houthis. Last month, the U.S. carried out a drone strike on a training camp in the AQAP-controlled city of al Mukalla, killing roughly 50 militants.