Yemen on The Huffington Post

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Detroit Bomber, Came From Elite Family, Top Schools

2009-12-27T21:09:08Z

LAGOS, Nigeria — As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.

But the education he wanted was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson: GOP Plays Soft on Terrorism Card Again

2009-12-27T15:08:03Z

Failed Nigerian airplane bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab got a US visa, wasn't on Homeland Security's no-fly list, and got only the briefest notation on its terrorist suspect watch list even after his father warned the US that he was a threat. Abdulmutallab is suspected of having some connection to a Yemen based al Qaeda faction. It didn't take long for anti-terrorism hawks from Joe Lieberman to GOP congresspersons to dump the lax security, terrorist watch breach, and faulty al Qaeda intelligence on President Obama. They blasted Obama for shutting them out of intelligence briefings and for ignoring their inquiries for information on intelligence operations. This was also a ramp up to their main knock that Obama courts folly if he moves ahead with his plan to close Gitmo, and worse, transfer some of the prisoners to Yemen.

The out in space partisan hit on Obama for the security breach and the Gitmo shutdown was predictable. The soft on terrorism charge has dogged Obama from the early days of the presidential campaign to the White House. But he's not alone. The charge has been a political albatross for other moderate Democrats. During the 2004 presidential campaign, John Kerry tried to do an impossible political somersault and out-Bush Bush on terrorism.

Kerry pledged to launch preemptive strikes against terrorists wherever they were and said that he would launch search and destroy missions to ferret out bin Laden and al Qaeda. The foolhardy pledge fooled absolutely no one. Countless polls showed that the voters repeatedly gave Bush huge percentage margins over Kerry when asked who they thought would do a better job in the anti-terror war. Kerry still didn't get it. He kept pounding on Bush as weak and ineffective in fighting terrorism. He touted his military credentials as a Vietnam combat vet to supposedly prove that he would and could be every bit if not more the hardliner on terrorism than Bush.

If Kerry had looked at the polls much closer he would have seen what it really took to beat Bush. Those same polls that consistently showed that if the election came down solely to a referendum on who best to fight terrorism he'd lose, and he did.

Obama tried the same tack during the 2008 campaign. He promised preemptive strikes, to escalate the Afghan war, pump massive funds into counterinsurgency campaigns, to keep Bush's patently illegal anti-terrorism spy, surveillance and wiretapping snooping on Americans largely intact. This didn't budge the polls one point upward in his favor in a head to head match with McCain on the terrorism issue. Voters by big majorities still said that if it came down to waging the tough fight against terrorism, McCain, not Obama was the right man for the job.

Mercifully for Obama, the election didn't come to that issue. 2008 was not 2004. Bush and the GOP's wreck and ruin of the economy, its sex and corruption scandals, foreign policy bungles, a perceived failed war, and the passage of time, made the terrorism scare a bottom rung political issue in the election.

Abdulmutallab's thankfully bungled terror try won't change that. Hints that the White House has done a less than stellar job in the anti-terrorism war won't change that either. This won't stop the GOP, though, from playing soft on terror card against Obama every chance it gets. In this case, it was played to hammer him for planning to close Gitmo. Obama will eventually close Gitmo. And that insures that the terrorism card will stay on the president's table.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book, "How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge" (Middle Passage Press) will be released in January 2010.

Brian Levin, J.D.: Thwarted Plane Bombing Shows Continuing Threat and Diversity of Jihadist Radicalism

2009-12-27T14:47:21Z

The attempt by Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a fanatical wealthy Nigerian mechanical engineering graduate, to bring down a trans-Atlantic Northwest flight with 290 passengers on approach to Detroit's Metropolitan airport with a PETN bomb on Christmas is the latest example of the mutation of the goals, connections and methods of terrorists. Before looking at the macro-picture, there are several noteworthy details.

First is the apparent connection to Yemen, and specifically to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) -- a group in the midst of a fierce struggle against both the Saudi and Yemeni governments. AQAP issued a video warning earlier this month, according to analyst Peter Bergen, and was the target of a coordinated attack by the Yemeni military around Christmas Eve that reportedly killed over 30 militants. Initial reports indicating that Anwar al-Awlaki, the Internet spiritual advisor to the Fort Hood shooter, was among those killed are currently in dispute. Yemen, an unstable country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula along with Somalia and the Pakistan/Afghanistan tribal areas, is considered one of the most important contemporary breeding grounds for radical Salafists. It was also the location of the 2000 attack on the Navy ship USS Cole, the ancestral home of the bin Laden clan.

The device in the airplane plot is similar to one used earlier this year by AQAP. On August 28, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, director of the nation's counter terror service, was slightly injured in a Jeddah bombing. An AQAP member from Yemen on Saudi Arabia's most wanted list who requested to see the prince to enroll in the government's highly touted amnesty/rehabilitation program blew himself up, after passing through security with a PETN explosive device lodged tightly against his rectum (not within it, as first reported). PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is an extremely powerful high explosive that can pass through metal detectors.

This summer's attack was important for several reasons. It was the most brazen failure of the Saudi rehabilitation program, and the first time in recent years that an attacker got so dangerously close to such a high-ranking member of the royal family. It also showed the willingness of AQAP to use lone attackers armed with hard to detect bombs in sensational attacks. These devices can be secreted on the genitals or near orifices. Abdulmutallab apparently hid part of his PETN explosive device against his crotch to pass through security checkpoints. If AQAP is involved it is a troubling sign that it is seeking to escalate attacks outside the region, using sophisticated devices that can easily pass through metal detectors and casual physical inspection. Regional al Qaeda organizations sometimes try to branch out, as Iraq's affiliate did earlier this decade with strikes against American-branded hotels in Jordan, before its leader Abu Musab al-Zarkawi was killed.

Aviation As A Focus of Evolving Terrorism

The government must address apparent information sharing and operational deficiencies that allowed an extremist, whose father had already warned American authorities, to walk on board an airplane with bomb components. Passengers, flight attendants and terrorist ineptitude should not be the only thing standing between us and a catastrophe.

Over the past century young idealists, mostly culled from their own areas, fought against colonialism in regional struggles for national and ethnic autonomy. To the extent there were transnational influences, they were usually political rather than religious in nature. Today, extremists like Abdulmutallab fight around the world, not for independence, but for God. What makes this troubling is that their enemies and allies are more ethnically and geographically diffuse. A worldwide struggle by a transnational movement aided by the Internet and social media enables would-be "lone" fanatics anywhere to market themselves to terror groups as potential recruits. Their fanaticism in many instances, rather than their fighting skills, their ethnic or organizational pedigree, can be key in their selection for missions. Sometimes, however, fanaticism alone is not enough, as was the case with the recent rejection by al Qaeda of five DC-area young extremists arrested during in an unsuccessful foray to Pakistan.

From the 1960s through the early 1980s, terrorists were more likely to be engaged in more secularized regional political and nationalistic struggles, though they often had a religious subtext. Thus, hijackers often undertook forced negotiation tactics such as the release of "political prisoners," territorial concessions, publicity or ransom. While lone suicide bombers are nothing new, those who targeted aviation frequently were carefully cultivated team members who usually had a lengthy history with the group that sent them. In recent decades, there has also been a dramatic increase in the frequency of "super-terror" attacks -- that is, events with more than 100 casualties. In the last decade there were almost as many terrorist attacks with over 100 casualties than in all of the twentieth century. The most people killed in a single attack in Northern Ireland for example was 29. Today, authorities must be on guard for terrorists who want dramatic destruction and body counts. While aviation has become somewhat hardened as a target, it remains one that if successfully attacked can result in dramatic high body counts that can also severely affect commerce.

It used to be enough to hijack, rather than commit mass murder. When Palestinian nationalists coordinated four hijackings of Western aircraft in 1970 (three successfully, as the El Al one was thwarted in flight), they were content to land the three remaining planes at the Dawson field desert airstrip in Jordan. After some time, they removed the passengers and sequentially blew up the empty planes for the evening news cameras. The struggle for Palestinian statehood was now firmly on the world's radar screen. The problem is that in the world of terror, escalation is currency, and killings are among the surest way to dramatically make sure your message is heard.

Transnational Religious Warriors

By the 1990s a global religious terrorism insurgency was a reality, and aviation was one of its targets. In 1994 Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the highest ranking member of al Qaeda, set for trial in the United States, went to the Philippines to work on a plot with his nephew Ramzi Yousef to bomb a dozen airliners while they were flying over the Pacific Ocean. Another bombing target was Pope John Paul II, who was set to visit the country for World Youth Day Celebrations. Like the Christmas-day plotter, Mohammad, had attained a degree in mechanical engineering from a Western University-North Carolina A&T State University.

Yousef, who was also a key player in the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, left a bomb on a Philippine airliner on December 11, 1994 as a test run for the larger airline plot. He left an explosive device on an aircraft in an underseat life vest after departing the plane during a brief stopover en route to the flight's final destination in Tokyo. While the bomb did not take down the aircraft as planned, it killed Japanese businessman Haruki Ikegami and injured 10 others.

In early 1995, shortly before the Pope's visit, authorities broke up the plots. The various attacks were foiled with computer and bomb evidence seized from a Manila apartment near the Vatican Embassy after a fire broke out there. Yousef was captured in Pakistan in February 1995 and later convicted in the United States on various charges including ones related to his role in the 1993 World Trade center bombing.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammad became a key al Qaeda leader and went on to other plots including the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people when 19 hijackers took over four American commercial aircraft.

Travel, particularly aviation and passenger rail, as well as hotels and religious shrines, have been frequent bomb targets for al Qaeda and other terrorists for many years. In December 1988, 270 people were killed in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland by a Libyan agent acting in a non-religious retaliation for a previous American military strike against Libyan leader Gaddafi.

A decade later, in 1999, Algerian Ahmed Ressam targeted Los Angeles international Airport for a New Years Eve "millennium" al Qaeda bombing that was thwarted by an observant customs officer at the Port Angeles, Washington border station. 100 pounds of explosive material was found in his car's trunk. Ressam had been affiliated with an Algerian extremist group that five years earlier hijacked a French plane in an unsuccessful attempt to crash it into the Eiffiel Tower. Two years later, on December 22, 2001, "shoe bomber" Richard Reid made an unsuccessful attempt to bring down a transatlantic American Airlines flight with a PETN explosive. In November 2002, an Israeli charter plane in Kenya was fired at by suspected religious terrorists using a missile. Over the last decade and a half Chechen nationalists, including a woman who reportedly hid the explosive in her bra, have killed scores of Russians in attacks on civilian passenger aircraft.

In 2006 UK authorities thwarted plots led by middle class al Qaeda-linked British Pakistanis, some with university education, to blow up transoceanic flights with liquid peroxide bombs, prompting a change in security screening policy.

Crossroads

According to Rand Corporation analyst Brian Jenkins there have been 32 terrorism "events," including thwarted plots, involving America since 9/11. In 2009 there were 12 events, excluding the Northwest incident-the most since 2001. In late 2008, a Minneapolis college student became the first American to kill himself in a suicide bomb when he detonated himself in a crowd in Somalia. What is so interesting for analysts about this year's events is not only their frequency, but the diversity of the cast of extremists and the seeming lack of a solid defining common thread between them, other than their fanaticism. Ethnically, they include Anglo whites, Somali-Americans, an African-American, a South American, Pakistani-Americans, a Jordanian, a Palestinian, Afghan-Americans, and a Canadian. They include citizens, legal residents and a visitor. Terror movements from places like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen influenced some of the extremists. Others became radicalized more indirectly. Many used social networks and the Internet. Included in the list are a coffee vendor, physician, funeral director, dental student, college students, truck driver, businessman, and former military among others who are remarkably middle class.

All Faiths Need to Work Cooperatively And Within Their Own Ranks

While the accused radicals were not all linked to one another organizationally, this increased activity, including various operational plots against military personnel, trains and planes, represents an extremely disturbing development. One thing we know about al Qaeda is their ability to cultivate young radicals around the world. And while Islamophobes will ignorantly and mechanistically condemn all Muslims or Islam as a faith, their myopic hatred causes them to miss crucial points.

Many fanatics of any faith who murder also attack their moderate co-religionists. Gandhi, Sadat, Rabin and Bhutto were all assassinated by co-religionists with more restrictive worldviews. Next, according to a 2007 Pew survey, American Muslims by a wide margin reject extremism and see no conflict between devotion to faith and living in a modern society. Unfortunately, blatant Islamophobia has not only infected political discourse, it has hampered our counter-terror efforts too. The political challenge going forward will be to isolate the religious bigots of both stripes (including those in the Christian and Jewish communities) who refuse to recognize the presence and role of moderates across faiths.

While this effort requires the complete repudiation of bigots like Geert Wilders and his compatriots, and adjustment to law enforcement policies, it also requires a greater effort by some Muslim institutions and leaders to go beyond convenient press releases and sound bytes in their own work. While some groups like MPAC have recently and laudably reinvigorated dormsnt efforts that had been shifted to back-burner status, others have not. If groups are meaningfully going to prevent extremism in their own communities they must make greater efforts to reject the falsehood of masking extremism as merely being innocuous exercises of political, religious or policy dissent. When Hussein Ibish and I invited Muslim groups to publicly repudiate a religious "expert" and frequent purveyor of hate and conspiracy theories on college campuses last spring we were met by resounding silence.

While the Pew survey found only five percent of American Muslims view al Qaeda favorably, some young adult Muslim-Americans expressed more disturbing positions. Seven percent of 18-29 year old Muslims had favorable views of al Qaeda, with another 19% unable to answer, and 15 percent stated that suicide bombing can often or sometimes be justified in defense of faith. That response was more than double the approval rate of those over 30 years old. Young Muslims were also much more likely to see devotion to faith at conflict with modern living than older respondents. Today's young terrorists frequently operate not out of physical deprivation, but spiritual aspiration. Society and individual communities thus have an stake in promoting moderate civic and religious values.

We not only have to prevent al Qaeda from smuggling in volatile explosives like PETN, people of good will of all faiths must make efforts to unite to prevent and identify the flow of another volatile incendiary that cuts across geographic and ethnic lines -- religious based hatred and extremism, whether it be from Islamophobes or radical Salafists.

Lieberman: The United States Must Pre-Emptively Act In Yemen

2009-12-27T09:50:40Z

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, (I-Conn) a renowned hawk and one of the foremost champions of the invasion of Iraq, warned on Sunday that the United States faced "danger" unless it pre-emptively acts to curb the rise of terrorism in Yemen.

"Somebody in our government said to me in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday's war. Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war," Lieberman said, during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday". "That's the danger we face."

The Connecticut Independent, who heads the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, made his remarks just days after a Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- a Nigerian with apparent ties to terrorist networks in Yemen -- failed in his attempt to blow up a plane above Detroit, Michigan.

In his appearance on "Fox News Sunday", Lieberman also argued that the botched attack should compel the Obama administration to abandon efforts to transfer suspected-terrorists out of the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, saying that the complex is now well above international standards.

"I know the president made a promise he'd close Guantanamo because of what it represented in world opinion," Lieberman said. "But today it's a first-class facility. It's way above what's required by the Geneva Convention or our constitution. It would be a mistake to send these 90 people back to Yemen because, based on the past of what's happened when we've released people from Guantanamo, a certain number have gone back into the fight against us. Yemen now becomes one of the centers of that fight."

The frame adopted by the Lieberman in discussing Gitmo will undoubtedly produce shudders among the civil libertarian crowd and even the Obama administration, which insists it has taken every precaution before transferring suspected terrorist to their home country. The senator's calls for pre-emptive action in Yemen (however vague), meanwhile, seem likely to be echoed in the days ahead as a growing number of neoconservative and conservative foreign policy voices have used the attempted airline attack to call into question the tactics Obama has applied to curb terrorism.

"This is an international movement of radicalization," Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday." "The Obama administration came in and said we're not going to use the word terrorism anymore. We're going to call it man-made disasters, trying to, I think, downplay the threat from terrorism. In reality, it's getting much more complex. Radicalization is alive. It is well. They want to attack the United States. That threat is here in the United States. It is lone-wolf individuals, it is people that have become radicalized, that have had some contact with al Qaeda, and then it is the threat that comes from al Qaeda central. Homegrown terrorism, the threat to the United States, is real. I think this administration has downplayed it. They need to recognize it, identify it. It is the only way we are going to defeat it."

Abdulmutallab Was In U.S. Database, But Not On Official Terror Watch, No-Fly Lists

2009-12-27T06:42:37Z

WASHINGTON — A popping noise, an odor, then flames.

What sounded like firecrackers was the climax of a failed attempt by a suspected terrorist to blow up a U.S. jetliner on Christmas Day.

Anwar al-Awlaki, Radical Cleric, Believed Unhurt In Yemeni Airstrike

2009-12-25T15:15:01Z

SAN'A, Yemen — A U.S.-born radical cleric is alive and well following reports he may have been killed in a Yemeni airstrike against suspected al-Qaida hideouts, friends and relatives said Friday.

The government said it targeted a meeting of high-level al-Qaida operatives in Thursday's airstrike in the remote Shabwa region. It claimed at least 30 militants were killed, possibly including Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who has been linked to the shooter in last month's attack at the Fort Hood military base in the U.S.

Yemen: 30 Suspected al-Qaida Militants Killed In Airstrike

2009-12-24T09:55:00Z

SAN'A, Yemen — Backed by U.S. intelligence, Yemeni forces struck a series of suspected al-Qaida hideouts Thursday, including a meeting of senior leaders, killing at least 30 militants in the country's stepped-up campaign against the terror network, the government said.

The airstrikes were Yemen's second such major assault on al-Qaida in a week, at a time when the United States has dramatically hiked its aid to the government to eliminate the expanding presence of the terror group. Washington fears that al-Qaida could turn fragmented, unstable Yemen into a new Afghanistan-like safe haven in a highly strategic location on the border with oil-rich U.S.-ally Saudi Arabia.

The Pentagon recently confirmed it is has poured nearly $70 million in military aid to Yemen this year – compared to none in 2008. The U.S. military has boosted its counterterrorism training for Yemeni forces, and is providing more intelligence, which probably includes surveillance by unmanned drones, according to U.S. officials and analysts.

Yemen's deputy defense minister, Rashad al-Alaimy, told parliament that Thursday's strikes were carried out "using intelligence aid from Saudi Arabia and the United States of America in our fight against terrorism."

The strikes killed three important leadership members, al-Alaimy said, but he did not identify them.

Yemeni officials refused to comment on who they believed was present at Thursday's main target: a gathering of senior al-Qaida figures in Rafd, a remote mountain valley in eastern Shabwa province, a region where militants have been given refuge with tribes discontent with the San'a government.

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born radical Muslim preacher who had been in contact with alleged Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, may have also been among those killed. The Washington Post reports that he was believed to have been at the meeting, according to the Yemeni Embassy in Washington, and that Awlaki's house was also reportedly the target of another raid by Yemeni forces. The Post had no information on whether or nor Awlaki had been hurt or killed; CBS News says two senior officials they spoke to claimed the reports of his death were inaccurate.

A Rafd resident said that a midlevel figure in al-Qaida's Yemen branch, Mohammed Ahmed Saleh Omair, was among those killed. The resident, Awad al-Daghary, told The Associated Press by telephone that bearded al-Qaida fighters brought the bodies of Omair and three others killed in the strike to al-Daghary's tribe for burial. Two of the bodies were of members of the tribe who had run off to join al-Qaida, he said.

Meanw

Further strikes Thursday targeted al-Qaida hideouts on the border between Shabwa and neighboring Abyan province, the Supreme Security Committee said in a statement.

It said 30 al-Qaida militants were killed in the strikes. Yemeni security officials refused to give details on any figures believed to be among the dead.

In a separate operation, 25 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested Wednesday in San'a, the Interior Ministry said. Security forces set up checkpoints in the capital to control traffic flow as part of a campaign to clamp down on terrorism.

Al-Alaimy, the deputy defense minister, said the operations were carried out after security officials received information about al-Qaida plans to carry out suicide attacks in the capital San'a against the British Embassy and foreign schools.

Thursday's strikes come a week after warplanes and security forces on the ground attacked what authorities said was an al-Qaida training camp in the area of Mahsad in the southern province of Abyan – the largest assault on al-Qaida in years.

Al-Alaimy told parliament that 23 militants were killed in the strike, including Yemenis, Saudis, Egyptians and Pakistanis. Witnesses, however, put the number killed at over 60 in the heaviest strike and said the dead were mostly civilians.

The United States has been pressing Yemen for well over a year to take tougher action against al-Qaida, which has steadily been building up its presence in the country, with fighters arriving from war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Yemen's government has been distracted by other internal problems. It is fighting a fierce war against Shiite rebels who rose up in the north near the border with Saudi Arabia, and Saudi forces have gotten directly involved, battling rebels who have crossed over into its territory. San'a is also struggling with a seccessionist movement in the once-independent south as well as trying to deal with rampant poverty.

The central government has little control outside the capital, and many of the tribes that control large parts of the rugged, undeveloped desert nation are angry at San'a and are willing to take in al-Qaida militants. To the frustration of U.S. officials, San'a itself has at times in the past struck deals with individual al-Qaida figures, letting them go free in return for promises not to engage in terror activity.

All those factors have made Yemen an attractive refuge for al-Qaida, and raised U.S. fears that the beleaguered nation could collapse into chaos and become another Afghanistan. Yemen not only lies next to Saudi Arabia and near the oil-rich nations of the Gulf, it overlooks vital sea routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The country was scene of one of al-Qaida's most dramatic pre-9/11 attacks, the 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the Aden coast that killed 17 American sailors.

Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter!

Deaths in Yemen raid on al-Qaeda

2009-12-24T02:05:33Z

As many as 34 people killed in attack targeting several of the group's commanders.

Read more: Yemen, Home News

Yemen Is Growing Front In al-Qaida Battle

2009-12-23T16:46:01Z

WASHINGTON — The secretive U.S. air strike against suspected al-Qaida in Yemen last week is the latest in what has been a fast-growing campaign to better equip and fund Yemeni forces so they can eliminate the expanding al-Qaida safe havens there.

The Pentagon has poured nearly $70 million in military aid to Yemen this year, a massive financial infusion compared to nothing in 2008.

Al-Qaeda leaders make Yemen speech

2009-12-22T10:46:05Z

Suspected al-Qaeda commanders tell rally that their battle is with "God's enemies".

Read more: Yemen, Home News

Top 10 Humanitarian Crises Of 2009

2009-12-21T12:28:32Z

Civilians attacked, bombed, and cut off from aid in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), along with stagnant funding for treating HIV/AIDS and ongoing neglect of other diseases, were among the worst emergencies in 2009.

'US aided' deadly Yemen raids

2009-12-19T01:30:47Z

Washington helped in attacks on suspected al-Qaeda bases, New York Times reports.

Read more: Yemen, Home News

Obama Ordered U.S. Military Strike On Yemen Terrorists

2009-12-18T21:37:35Z

On orders from President Barack Obama, the U.S. military launched cruise missiles early Thursday against two suspected al-Qaeda sites in Yemen, administration officials told ABC News in a report broadcast on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

Andy Worthington: Judge Orders Release from Guantanamo of Unwilling Yemeni Recruit

2009-12-18T06:44:55Z

On Monday, as I explained in a previous article, Judge Thomas Hogan refused the habeas corpus petition of Musa'ab al-Madhwani, a Yemeni who had been tortured in the CIA's "Dark Prison" near Kabul, and who was described by the judge as a "model prisoner" who was not dangerous. Judge Hogan made his ruling partly on the basis that al-Madhwani had received military training at the al-Farouq camp in Afghanistan, which was associated with Osama bin Laden in the years before the 9/11 attacks, but just two days later, Judge Ricardo Urbina (who ordered the release of the Uighurs last October) granted the habeas petition of another Yemeni, Saeed Hatim, who had also trained at al-Farouq, but who told his interrogators that he "did not like anything about the training."

The reasons for Judge Urbina's decision on Wednesday are not yet clear, as an unclassified version of his ruling has not yet been made available, but elements of Saeed Hatim's story are available from the Unclassified Summaries of Evidence for his Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) at Guantánamo, part of a process conducted in 2004-05 to ascertain whether the prisoners had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants," who could be held without charge or trial, and his Administrative Review Boards (ARBs), held every year as part of a process to determine whether prisoners could be approved for release.

These were shamefully one-sided affairs, in which the authorities relied on classified evidence that was not disclosed to the prisoners, who were also prevented from having any legal representation. However, they often provide the only insight available into the prisoners' stories, and in the case of Saeed Hatim, who was 25 years old at the time of his capture, they provide what appears to be a relatively coherent narrative, although it may, of course, be revealed as a tissue of lies, produced as a result of threats and coercion, when Judge Urbina's ruling is made public.

In statements made by Hatim during his CSRT, or attributed to him by interrogators in submissions for his ARBs, which he did not attend, he apparently explained that he had "never held a job for more than six months" and "relied upon his father and older brother for financial support," and stated that he went to Afghanistan in spring 2001, because he had "heard there was a lot of justice in that part of the world," and also because, like several others who ended up in Guantánamo, he thought that he would find a way to fight in Chechnya. He "stated he became interested in Russia's war in Chechnya because he witnessed the oppression on the television." Explaining that he "was outraged about what the Russians were doing to the Chechens," he "decided to travel there to fight jihad alongside his Muslim brothers."

Hatim admitted attending al-Farouq, but said that he soon left the camp "because it was not what he expected." He explained that he "faked a fever telling the people he was ill and needed to seek medical care," and complained that "the trainers were always yelling at him, the food was terrible, and he was forced to sleep on the ground." He added that "he did not like anything about the training and wanted to quit on the first day."

Acknowledging that he was obliged to "put his decision to fight in Chechnya on the back burner for a while," but insisting that he "did not want to partake in the war in Afghanistan because it was a civil war in which Muslims were fighting other Muslims," he nevertheless reportedly ended up at "a place of re-supply for the front lines near Bagram," where, on at least one occasion, he apparently traveled to the front lines to deliver food to the Taliban soldiers fighting the Northern Alliance. He also apparently spent some time in a number of guest houses, which, in the U.S. authorities' opinion, were associated with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

He added, however, that once the U.S.-led invasion began, and Kabul was being bombed, he made his way to the eastern city of Jalalabad, where he took a cab to the Pakistani border, meeting up with an Afghan who escorted him to a Pakistani police station. From there, soon after, his long ordeal in US custody began.

I await Judge Urbina's ruling with some interest, primarily, as I mentioned above, to discover whether this account bears any resemblance to the story uncovered by the judge in what, despite the persistent fog of classified evidence that clouds so many of the Guantánamo cases, will undoubtedly be the first time that something close to an objective analysis of his case has been undertaken, after eight years in U.S. custody.

At present, however, Judge Urbina's ruling means little to Saeed Hatim, as the Obama administration has demonstrated that it is extremely unwilling to release any of the Yemenis who now make up nearly half of Guantánamo's population of 210 prisoners -- even those who have won their habeas petitions in the US courts. Just one Yemeni has been released since Barack Obama became President, even though, by my reckoning, Yemenis account for somewhere between 50 and 60 of the 115 prisoners who have been cleared for release by the inter-agency Task Force established by President Obama on his second day in office.

The administration's reluctance to release Yemenis was explained by officials in September, around the time that the only Yemeni to secure his release under Obama -- Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, who won his habeas petition in May, after a devastating dissection of the government's supposed evidence by Judge Gladys Kessler -- was finally released. On that occasion, the officials stated that "Even if Mr. Ahmed was not dangerous in 2002 ... Guantánamo itself might have radicalized him, exposing him to militants and embittering him against the United States."

As I explained at the time:

The officials have valid fears about political instability in Yemen, and the existence of terrorist groups, even though the Yemeni authorities have stated that none of the 16 Yemenis returned from Guantánamo "have joined terrorist groups," but whatever their fears, they do not seem to have reflected that, if their rationale for not releasing any of the Yemenis from Guantánamo was extended to the U.S. prison system, it would mean that no prisoner would ever be released at the end of their sentence, because prison "might have radicalized" them, and also, of course, that it would lead to no prisoner ever being released from Guantánamo.

On that note, it is, I hope, time for this nonsense to end, and for Saeed Hatim, a demonstrably insignificant figure in the "War on Terror," to be returned to his homeland, along with all the other cleared prisoners. It's not difficult. Just find a large enough plane, fly them home, and drop them off. At the time of writing, I'm pleased to note that the Washington Post is reporting that, "according to sources with independent knowledge of the matter," six Yemenis, along with four Afghans, "will be transferred out of Guantánamo Bay in the near future," and that this transfer "could be a prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen." I certainly hope that this is the case; otherwise, we may as well all stop pretending that being cleared by a court, or by the administration's own Task Force, means anything at all.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press), and the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo." He maintains a blog here.

Yemen: Up To 34 al-Qaida Militants Killed

2009-12-17T08:30:52Z

SAN'A, Yemen — Yemeni security forces struck suspected al-Qaida hide-outs and training sites Thursday, and officials said at least 34 militants were killed, in an unusually heavy assault as Washington presses the deeply unstable country for tougher action against the terror network.

Witnesses, however, put the number killed at over 60 in the heaviest strike and said the dead were mostly civilians, including women and children. They denied the target was an al-Qaida stronghold, and one provincial official said only 10 militant suspects died.

Sexual Harassment Plagues Arab Women

2009-12-15T11:20:51Z

CAIRO — The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic.

Activists from 17 countries across the region met in Cairo for a two-day conference ending Monday and concluded that harassment was unchecked across the region because laws don't punish it, women don't report it and the authorities ignore it.

Dr. Charles G. Cogan: A Toilet in Somalia

2009-12-08T19:24:34Z

Intelligence professionals get it. But the general public does not. The image is out there of terrorists in djellabas negotiating fences in terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. This was in the good old days, before 9/11. Such, the pensée unique goes, is what would happen if the Taliban took over in Afghanistan again and brought al-Qaeda back.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen was quoted in the New York Times on December 2 as saying, "There is no direct impact on stopping terrorists around the world because we are or are not in Afghanistan." Rolf knows whereof he speaks: a graduate of West Point, a former CIA Chief in Moscow and lately chief of intelligence at the Department of Energy, he is now the reigning guru on nuclear terrorism. The article goes on to state that, "Mr. Mowatt-Larssen, now at Harvard, argued [...] that a safe haven can be moved to many different states, and the bigger threat exists in cells, including in Europe and the United States." In other words, al-Qaeda and like-minded terrorists don't need Afghanistan to carry out terrorist operations. These can be mounted from anywhere or anyplace, from Yemen to Somalia, to Hamburg or to ... Detroit.
In carefully chosen but tortuous formulations, President Obama, almost subliminally, got across the notion that the Taliban are different from al-Qaeda, in his speech at West Point:

I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda...We must keep up the pressure on al Qaeda...Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and to its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.

We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens.

In other words, al-Qaeda are the real bad guys, whereas there may be some good guys among the Taliban. Then, one may ask, since al-Qaeda's terrorists, numbering in the hundreds, are now in a safe haven in Pakistan's tribal areas, why are we sending thousands more combat troops into ... Afghanistan!

In his speech at West Point, President Obama recognized the protean nature of the al Qaeda threat: "Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold - whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere - they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships."

Yet the President, in ordering 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan, in addition to the 21,000 he sent last spring, aligned himself not only with his pre-campaign rhetoric about a "necessary war," but also with the sway that the military has established within American society. At least he did allow himself an out, which is quite unaligned with military doctrine: "After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home."

It was, indeed, a tortuous exercise for a tortured President.

Charles Cogan was the chief of the Near East South Asia Division in the Directorate of Operations of the CIA from August 1979 to August 1984. It was from this Division that the covert action operation against the Soviets in Afghanistan were run. He is currently an Associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Yemen bans anniversary rally

2009-11-30T13:01:18Z

Planned rally by southern separatists to mark British pullout in 1967 prompts crackdown.

Read more: Yemen, Home News

Yemen: Plot to kill Jewish community leader foiled by government

2009-11-25T14:46:15Z

The Yemen government arrested last week two suspects who planned to kill Jewish leader, Rabbi Yahiya Ben-Yousef., the country's media reported.
...

Read more: Yemen, Home News

Saudi Arabia and Iran fighting proxy war in northern Yemen

2009-11-18T14:15:04Z

A Yemeni government tank used against Houthi rebels in the north. Photo: Al Jazeera video

For the past 15 years, Dwight Bashir has worked on international conflict, human rights and religious freedom issues. He is a senior advisor for an independent U.S. commission focusing on international religious freedom. The views expressed here are his own personal views.

A war of words is heating up between Iran and Saudi Arabia over an ongoing armed conflict in northern Yemen between Shi'a Houthi rebels and Yemeni security forces. This week, Iran accused Saudi Arabia of state-sponsored “Wahhabi terrorism” in Yemen, while the most senior Saudi cleric accused Houthi rebels of being backed by Iran to spread Shi'a Islam in “Sunni Islam's heartland.”

Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia accuse Iran of providing financial and/or military support to the rebels. Iran denies any kind of support for the rebels.

The conflict in Yemen is complex — with numerous interlocking factors, such as underdevelopment, limited resources, tribal tensions, political exclusion and security concerns. Some have posited that the conflict is exacerbated by the fact that Iran and Saudi Arabia are engaging in a proxy war on Yemeni soil.

The truth is that for 30 years both Iran and Saudi Arabia have spent billions of dollars exporting competing religio-political ideologies in the region and globally, while committing egregious human rights violations at home to defend and bolster their respective ideologies.

Ever since Saudi Arabia entered the conflict two weeks ago after Houthi rebels crossed into Saudi territory from northern Yemen and allegedly killed two Saudi border guards, tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have risen almost daily.

UN officials have estimated that, since 2004, as many as 175,000 people have been displaced in northern Yemen. And at least 240 villages in Saudi Arabia have been evacuated in recent weeks.

To better understand the conflict, it is important to understand religious demographics in Yemen. Between 40-45% of the Yemeni population of 23 million are Shi'a Muslims, mostly from the Zaydi school of Shi'a Islam founded more than 1,000 years ago.

Although Yemen’s majority is Sunni, Zaydi Muslims make up a majority of the population in the north where the fighting is taking place. In general, there are few societal tensions between Yemen’s Shi'a and Sunni Muslims.

The Yemeni government claims that Houthi rebels — considered a Zaydi militant group — have sought to develop a political faction modeled on Hezbollah in Lebanon, in order to undermine the government and impose Shi'a Islamic law. This is similar to how the Iranian government's interpretation of Twelver Shi'a Islam is the law of the land in Iran.

The rebels follow the late Zaydi cleric, Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi (hence “Houthi rebels”). Al-Houthi is a former Yemeni parliamentarian who was killed during a 10-week rebellion in 2004 against the Yemeni government in the northern province of Saada, where the fighting started more than five years ago. The rebels claim they are fighting against government repression, although they have never articulated clear objectives, political or otherwise.

Despite both the Yemeni government and the Houthi rebels insisting that the conflict is not sectarian in nature, the Iranian government is doing everything it can to portray the conflict as two predominantly Sunni Muslim states, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, cooperating to massacre Shi'a civilians in Yemen. Despite the complexities, these Iranian claims are exaggerated, at best, and downright contrived at worst.

Some Zaydi Muslims in Yemen have been subject to discrimination and harassment for perceived or actual sympathy toward Houthi rebels. According to human rights groups in the region, some Zaydi Muslims not connected to the rebels have been inadvertently targeted by the Yemeni government.

Because Iran and Saudi Arabia have long been promoting competing religio-political ideologies, it is not surprising that both countries would fan the flames of sectarian warfare. Yemen is a fragile state with an active al-Qaeda presence that threatens regional security, and its government is fighting for economic and political stability.

To date, the international community has not played an active role in the conflict. With the spillover into Saudi Arabia, the international community must engage and help broker an end to the current crisis. If not, the conflict could quickly escalate and the region may be facing a new security reality that would likely have wider implications.

Dwight Bashir

Worldfocus contributing blogger Dwight Bashir writes about recent skirmishes between Saudi Arabia and Houthi rebels in northern Yemen. Iran and Saudi Arabia, have each spent billions of dollars exporting competing religio-political ideologies in the region.
http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/11/th_yemen_tank.jpg

Yvonne R. Davis: The Challenge of Arab Unemployment -- An Issue We Must Not Ignore!

2009-11-16T12:52:19Z

The 10.2% unemployment rate in the U.S. has the citizenry completely disillusioned and vexed with our government. Despite the “Average Joe/Jane” outrage, a slight fall in jobless claims this month, a number of the unemployed live in neighborhoods with foreclosure signs over their heads. They hang on by their fingernails praying for economic relief. Never perhaps returning to the days of “good and plenty,” fear runs rampant with an aging “Super Power” population. According to the U.S. Census by 2030, 1 in 5 Americans will be 65 years and older. Our Nation’s fastest growing population is 85 and above.

As the “Senior Citizen Hegemons” go through its most painful metamorphosis to facilitate in a Google Economy, another part of the world we are appendaged to due to our devoted dependency on its natural resources, foreign debt, Wall Street ownership, wars and terrorism, is facing perhaps its most solemn challenge in its entire existence -- massive unemployment in the Arab World. And while we in America might want to be NIMBYish (Not In My Back Yard) about it, we can’t. There is a link between violence, terrorism and Arab youth many educated not having the ability to have pride and self-esteem because they lack gainful and respectable employment to take care of their families. On the contrary to America's aging population, over 60% of the Arab population is 40 years of age and under; with a mean age of 27 or younger in some countries. Whether we like it or not, the issue of Arab unemployment is on our front step and maybe the very thing that ultimately turns the world upside down economically, socially and politically if we do not begin to face this reality.

Saeed Al Khabaz, a retired Human Resources professional and father of four is a successful business owner and communitarian from the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. Al Khabaz lives in the economic fulcrum of the Kingdom. Beyond the black gold that flows from the oil refineries, the region heavies with industries of steel, glass, construction materials, foodstuffs, aluminum products, pipes, air-conditioners, electrical equipment, carpets, soap, and rubber products. With all of this stuff going on, unemployment in the Eastern Province is climbing and so is the crime. “Right now in Saudi Arabia and throughout the entire Middle East and North Africa region, we are weathering a typhoon of unemployment,” declares Al Khabaz. “With an average jobless rate in some regions of 25%, the huge numbers of unemployment in the Arab world is creating all kinds of social problems, and no community can continue to survive this way.”

Ten years ago, after doing a very successful “turn around” on a medical clinic that was barely treating 40 patients per day, to over 100,000 annually, Al Khabaz made sure all of the employees he hired in his Al Hadi Medical Clinic in Qatif, Saudi Arabia were women under the age of 40. All of the women who work for Al Khabaz never want to leave him; despite receiving bigger opportunities because he believed in them and gave them a chance when no one else would and they succeeded. He meets the needs of a demographic with the greatest hardship. “You are talking about millions of young people who have the energy and they are frustrated and they have to vent their frustration at something,” says Al Khabaz. “I don’t think any community in history has been challenged like this before.” By 2015, the Arab population will be over 435-million. The United Nations and the International Labor Organization predicts by 2020, 100-million will unemployed in the MENA region. “No society can sustain that level of unemployment without exploding,” declares Al Khabaz.

Although reported to having some of the lowest crime rates in the world, in areas where unemployment is high with Arabs living on less than $2 per day in penury, coupled with the growing problem of jobs, there is a direct correlation between economic disadvantage and higher crime rates; especially among youth.The Investigation and Prosecution Commission (IPC) in Saudi Arabia reported a jump in reported crimes in 2009. This dynamic of low crime may change rapidly if solutions are not in place quickly enough to buffer the population explosion and need.

While the problem of unemployment in the Arab world seems insurmountable, there are a number of initiatives being implemented and proffered in the region to begin to put a dent in the problem.

Her Royal Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, the consort of the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, is the Educator in Chief in her country chairing the Qatar Foundation for Education. She is the first Royal in the Middle East to create an Education City initiative that brings together world class Universities under one roof to educate students in her country and the region.

Sheikha Mozah founded Silatech (Sila means 'Connection' in Arabic), to meet the urgent need to create jobs with a primary focus in the Arab World where the need is greatest. A social enterprise, her organization creates signature level East-West partnerships with the private sector to provide opportunities for the youth in diverse markets. Silatech works on several levels, policy (government participation), psychological (mindset), programmatic (training) and practical (partnerships for actual jobs). Thus far, Silatech has launched a number of initiatives that include intensive training programs in the areas of media, hospitality and tourism, and leadership for women. Partnerships include: Fortune 500 companies like Cisco and Manpower, senior academic institutions, research centers such as Gallup and sister countries i.e. United Arab Emirates, Syria, and Lebanon for various training, banking and financing initiatives for young entrepreneurs.

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Ron Bruder wanted to make a huge difference by taking not taking an American isolationist approach to dealing with the tragedy. A powerful man on Wall Street, Bruder left his profession and founded the non-profit Education for Employment Foundation (EFE). EFE’s mission is combat chronic unemployment in the Arab World by providing young men and women professional and technical training. What makes his organization special is that it guarantees jobs for Arabs when they graduate from the program. Bruder believes his organization can contribute a great deal to promote peaceful environments by eliminating the despair, doubt and rage caused by not having a job. “In order to have world peace, the youth must have piece of the global pie,” said Bruder. “The key component of that is an education that enables one to be employable in the country’s labor market. Our mission is to train youth in cutting edge skills that will enable them to immediately enter the labor market.”

Located in Jordan, Gaza/West Bank, Egypt, Morocco and Yemen, the EFE has remarkably changed the lives of several thousand Arab Youths and their families. His latest initiative includes establishing a partnership Prince Sultan University in Riyadh. “We helped launch the "Prince Salman Education for Employment Initiative" and an accelerated a second Bachelor’s of Science nursing program for unemployed young Saudi women in association with Simmons College in Boston, Massachusetts,” announced Bruder. Classes are expected to begin in January 2010.

While Al Khabaz clearly articulates the problem of youth unemployment in the Middle East, he believes Arabs in the region should first seek find their own solutions by forming strategic mentor/protégé partnerships that expands social capital by investing in human capital on a multi-community and multi-country level. He is not for any “token support” that foreign enterprise gives often times in the Middle East. “We want foreign expertise, but it is better when the local people come together,” states Al Khabaz. He strongly believes local level investment must always be the priority. He also feels any plans created must be cohesive and involve the people on the ground at all times. “We have to be self-determined.”

His thoughts are evidenced by establishing the Qatif Youth Achievement Award and launching a virtual world initiative entitled Arab Youth Supercomputer 2010 Project. In its second year, the Qatif Youth Achievement Award annually recognizes seven men and women who have demonstrated skills and talents in a most distinctive way. Judges select winners based upon creativity, leadership, ingenuity, invention and drive. This award encourages small and medium sized enterprises to take serious looks at youths involved in Qatif; hiring them for jobs.

The Arab Youth Supercomputer 2010 Project challenges Arabs 40 and under from all over the MENA region to build a Supercomputer by year end 2010. With nearly 300 members world wide supported by a sister organization of about 500, Al Khabaz is leading a worldwide movement for change for his people. Khabaz has garnered support for this program from business leaders, marketing professionals, academics, IT technology professionals, and security specialists from as far as Europe, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the United States. Those who support his initiative subscribes to the mission of building Arab economic sustainability -- “so that all that is being done benefits our community.”

Japanese Engineer Kidnapped By Yemen Tribesmen

2009-11-16T12:32:08Z

SAN'A, Yemen — Armed tribesmen have kidnapped a Japanese engineer working in Yemen and demanded the government release one of their imprisoned tribe members, the Japanese Embassy and a Yemeni security official said Monday.

Kohei Akiyama, the Embassy's first secretary, did not release the name of the kidnapped man or the private company he works for in Yemen. He said Monday evening that the kidnapping took place more than a day earlier.

Imam Al Awlaki Says He Did Not Pressure Accused Fort Hood Gunman Nidal Hasan

2009-11-16T03:15:18Z

WASHINGTON — A radical Muslim cleric with suspected links to al-Qaida considered himself a confidant of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood shootings, The Washington Post reported Monday.

But the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, insisted in an interview with a Yemeni journalist contacted by the Post that he did not pressure Hasan to harm Americans. Al-Awlaki is a former imam at a Falls Church, Va., mosque where Hasan and his family occasionally worshipped.

Yemen conflict raises Gulf tensions

2009-11-15T12:01:06Z

Saudi conflict with Yemeni rebels sparks outrage from Iran.

Jamal Dajani: The Saudi-Iranian Neo Cold War

2009-11-13T10:04:38Z

It's been four months since I described Yemen as a powder keg ready to explode. At the time the entire world was riveted to the television, watching the unfolding events of the "Velvet Revolution" in Iran. The Yemeni keg has since exploded. It is currently on the verge of causing regional conflict.

For more than a week now, Saudi Arabia has been carrying out military operations on its remote southern border to punish Houthi rebels from neighboring Yemen who crossed over and attacked one of its patrols. Both Yemen and Saudi Arabia have accused Iran of arming the rebels.

Accusations and counter accusations have been flying between the two rival regional powers. On Tuesday, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned that, "those who pour oil on the fire must know that they will not be spared from the smoke that billows."

This is not the first time Saudis and Iranians have faced off in the region. The rivalry between the two countries has been out playing its course for years, extending from the Persian Gulf (where the name alone is a point of contention, Saudis refer to it as the Arabian Gulf) into Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories. Like the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, Saudi Arabia and Iran have been supporting their factions in all these countries, either militarily, financially, or both.

Both Tehran and Riyadh used Lebanon as their own battlefront to settle scores to the point of almost tipping the country into another civil war less than two years ago. Iran has been accused of pumping millions of dollars into Gaza and supplying Hamas with arms, while Saudi Arabia has been supporting the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Many Iraqi Shiites have accused Saudi Arabia of aiding the Sunni insurgency in the country.

Nowadays, even Hajj (Islamic pilgrimage) is not spared from being a subject of contention between the two rivals. The Saudi government has recently issued a warning against pilgrims staging demonstrations during this year's Hajj, which runs from November 25-29. Although Iran was not specifically mentioned in the Saudi statement, Tehran replied that it would take "appropriate measures" if Iranian pilgrims were interfered with in any way. The Islamic Republic of Iran has long complained about the mistreatment and harassment of its pilgrims to Mecca by Saudi authorities during the Hajj season.

Like the original Cold War, both countries have launched sophisticated misinformation campaigns against one another. A propaganda war has raged between Iranian and Saudi government controlled media. During the Iranian election, Saudi media and its proxies viciously attacked the Iranian regime, highlighting poll irregularities, and the brutality of the Iranian Basij security forces. The Iranian media has constantly questioned, and on many instances mocked, the House of Saud's role as the custodian of the Holy Islamic sites in the Kingdom.

Last week without warning, two satellite companies, the Egyptian-owned Nilesat and the Saudi-managed Arabsat pulled the plug on Iran's Arabic-speaking news channel, al-Alam, or the World. Nilesat's executive director, Ahmed Anis, announced that the broadcasting was cut due to contract violations; however, media sources throughout the Middle East suggest that al-Alam's support for the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen angered Saudi officials, who in turn used their influence to take it of the air.

So far, both countries have shied away from direct military contact. Iran and Saudi Arabia, like the US and the USSR of old, have been competing in a series of peripheral surrogate conflicts. Could their relations be strained enough to lead to direct confrontation? Everything seems to be possible these days in the Middle East.