Yemen tries amnesty for terrorism suspects

SAN’A, Yemen — The Islamic leaders of Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland have come up with a unique solution to fighting terrorism — release 246 jailed suspects, put some on the army payroll, and use millions of dollars to pay off tribes that sheltered them.

The freed inmates aren’t required to work, but are kept under surveillance after repenting to a senior cleric picked by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, said officials.

The amnesty experiment is one of the more unusual measures Yemen has taken since the USS Cole bombing killed 17 U.S. sailors off the port of Aden in October 2000, nearly a year before the September 11 attacks.

Yemen also is working with the United States and Saudi Arabia to close borders and ports to weapons smuggling and terrorist traffic. But critics say the moves aren’t enough to wipe out terrorism in a country where poverty, extremism, corruption and nepotism are rampant and U.S. policies on Iraq and the Palestinians are unpopular with the public and the religious leaders.

“The feeling of hatred for Americans is increasing day after day, and this represents a huge obstacle to improving relations further with America,” said Muhammad al-Sabri, a free-lance columnist who focuses on Yemeni-U.S. relations.

Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal said Yemen has dismantled 90 percent of terrorism cells since the September 11 attacks, while 20 to 25 of the most hard-core wanted men remain at large.

There hasn’t been a major terrorist act inside the country since three American missionaries were fatally shot at a Southern Baptist missionary hospital in the southern town of Jibla in 2002.

Still, some religious leaders aren’t helping, and export of terrorism from Yemen — to Iraq or elsewhere — remains a concern.

When Mr. Saleh asked senior clerics in August 2002 to initiate a dialogue with the jailed suspects, all but one balked.

Unlike his colleagues, Supreme Court Judge Hammoud al-Hitar, who also is a senior cleric, wasn’t concerned about being labeled a U.S. agent for cajoling the Muslim radicals into repenting and pursuing a more moderate religious path.

The effort led to the release of 246 inmates — not one of whom has lapsed to his old ways, Judge al-Hitar said. About 65 suspects remain in prison, including those indicted for terrorist acts. Judge Al-Hitar recently went to London to talk to British security officials about his experience.

Sitting on his living room floor, he said he began his talks with the most dedicated al Qaeda recruits, holding “tough” sessions.

He said he went through all their arguments for militancy — that jihad, or holy war, means attacking others and that the spilling of the blood of non-Muslims is legitimate — and proved to them that the Koran considers their beliefs wrong.

After repeated sessions, the inmates were released in three stages. Judge Al-Hitar said he is “100 percent sure they repented out of conviction, and not because they wanted to get out of jail.”

He said the men have been told that they are under surveillance. No infractions have been reported since their release, he added.

Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, a former prime minister who is an adviser to the president, said that in many cases poverty was the reason the men joined al Qaeda. To improve their situation, the government gave some of the freed men army titles and salaries, though he didn’t say how many.

“But they don’t report to work,” Mr. al-Iryani said. “It’s a source of security to the country. The biggest social-welfare system in the country are the army and the police.”

In subduing al Qaeda, Mr. Bajammal said, the government also bought off tribes that once sheltered terrorists. Yemen paid them millions of dollars, said Mr. al-Iryani, who didn’t name figures.

Critics say that to win over the population, however, Yemen must stop the corruption and nepotism that create a feeling of social injustice, especially among youths, making the path to terrorism more attractive.

“Power and money are concentrated in the hands of a few who have turned the country into a private company,” said Muhammad al-Shayef, a member of parliament and a leader of the Bakeel tribe. “If there’s democracy and equality, terrorism will end.”

Yemen is one of the poorest Arab states. A State Department report in February said more than 40 percent of Yemen’s 19.5 million people live in poverty. It put the unemployment rate at 37 percent, but some Yemeni officials say the figure is higher.

Typical incomes begin at about $50 a month for government employees, $40 for army lieutenants and $500 for ministers.

“If people had stable lives, with good incomes, they wouldn’t want Osama bin Laden to come and ruin their homes,” Mr. al-Shayef said. “Osama bin Laden doesn’t appeal to people because he says he is defending Palestine. He appeals to them because of the issues and problems they have.”

Anti-American feelings will be harder to battle.

Those feelings intensified recently after the U.S. Treasury added Sheik Abdulmajid al-Zindani, a prominent Yemeni cleric, to a list of those suspected of supporting terrorist activities.

The United States maintains that Sheik al-Zindani actively recruited for al Qaeda training camps and played a role in the purchase of weapons for bin Laden’s organization and other terrorists. The sheik has denied the accusations, but refused to talk to the Associated Press.

The Treasury Department’s measure has put Yemen in a quandary. The government will be expected to freeze Sheik al-Zindani’s assets and issue reports about the measures it is taking against him. But officials say the government cannot act against someone as popular as him.

The sheik, thought by many to be bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, has whipped up hate against the West and come close in his sermons to advocating violence. He leads Iman University, regarded as a haven for radicals.

Sheik al-Zindani acknowledged on Dubai-based Al Arabiya satellite television channel in March that a Muslim extremist who killed Yemeni Socialist Party leader Jarallah Omar in 2002 had attended the university for a year. He also said John Walker Lindh, the American caught with the Taliban in Afghanistan, used to come to the university to visit his friends, but he denied Lindh was a student.

Another problem, diplomats say, is military involvement in weapons smuggling, especially to the African nation of Somalia, used to augment official salaries.

A report by the United Nations in November said the two shoulder-fired SA-7B missiles shot at an Israeli jetliner in Kenya in November 2002 were delivered to Somalia from Yemen before being smuggled by sea to Kenya.

Officials admit there are weapons going to Somalia, a lawless country that al Qaeda members are thought to be using as a base. But, officials add, Yemen does not have the resources to control its 1,500-mile coastline.

They use the same argument when asked about a thriving weapons trade with Saudi Arabia, though a rapprochement has opened the way for progress.

Yemenis say Saudi money to tribes along Yemen’s long border with the kingdom has dwindled — money Yemenis said was aimed at destabilizing their country when relations with Saudi Arabia were not good.

Also, both countries are doing a better job of monitoring their 1,120-mile border, although the weapons trade across the frontier continues. Saudi officials say most of the weapons found in their kingdom came from Yemen, where arms can be purchased at open-air bazaars.

Yemen long has been a fertile recruiting ground and battlefield for al Qaeda. In Yemen, as in most Arab countries, bin Laden, whose father was born in Yemen’s Hadramut region, enjoys grass-roots popularity, mostly because he is seen as standing up to the United States. Bin Laden, who remains at large, was born in Saudi Arabia.

Mr. al-Iryani said that when he visited Hadramut a few weeks ago, he was told that bin Laden had never visited.

Yemeni officials say bin Laden made one known trip to Yemen. They say he went in 1981 to Marib, about 84 miles east of the capital, San’a, to recruit fighters for the war in Afghanistan. One official said there were rumors of another visit, in 1994, during Yemen’s civil war that pitted Islamist groups in the north against socialist groups in the south.

After the September 11 attacks on the United States, when Washington retaliated in Afghanistan and threatened to take its war on terrorism elsewhere, Yemen agreed to work with the United States against al Qaeda. Mr. Saleh visited the White House shortly after the attacks to assure President Bush of his commitment.

Yemen’s relations with Washington have improved, especially in defense, with U.S. forces training Yemen’s military to combat terrorists.

In early April, U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Mastin Robeson, commander of Combined Joint Task Force — Horn of Africa, and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Duncan Smith turned over seven boats supplied by the United States for a Yemeni coast guard at a ceremony in the port of Aden. Gen. Robeson said U.S. warships will resume stops in Yemeni harbors this year for the first time since the Cole bombing, as long as “Yemen continues to do the great things it is doing now.”

A U.S.-trained coast guard unit of 250 will patrol Aden’s port. Another U.S.-trained unit of 300 is expected to graduate in three months to join the coast guard.