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ISSUES....
Inside, confidential and off the record
Obama, let's play ball
Last Friday, our friend Dennis Gartman included on its Gartman's Newsletter in its entirety a report issued by Stratfor.com regarding the situation in Yemen. We post it, so you can get the Stratfor's view of the situation.
YEMEN: A WARNING TO THE U.S.
Summary
Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani, with the support of a council of 150 Yemeni clerics, Jan. 14 delivered a fatwa against any foreign political or military intervention in Yemen. The religious decree, while both sensational and legitimate in the eyes of the salafist-jihadist community and perhaps the wider Yemeni public, will not have a dramatic impact on American counterterrorism efforts in Yemen directed against al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but is more likely a warning by Sanaa to the United States to back down from any overt military engagement.
Analysis
As a result of the recent increase in Yemeni-U.S. counterterrorism efforts in
Yemen, Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani -- a Yemeni religious scholar who the United States has labeled a specially designated global terrorist and one of Osama bin Laden's spiritual mentors--publicly delivered a nine-tenet fatwa (a religious legal pronouncement) on Jan. 14 after a morning prayer session at a mosque in the capital city of Saana. The religious decree, with the backing of 150 Muslim scholars, sheikhs and imams, warned against any foreign political or military intervention in Yemeni affairs.
According to the pronouncement, "If any party insists on aggression, or invading the country, then according to Islam, jihad becomes obligatory." The decree goes on to reject "any security or military agreement
or cooperation (between Yemen and) any foreign party if it violates Islamic
Sharia," and forbid any foreign government to establish any military bases in Yemen or its territorial waters. As a precursor to the announcement, al-Zindani, who is currently under U.N. sanction for his ties to al Qaeda, warned on Jan. 11 that any U.S. military intervention in Yemen to fight al Qaeda would be viewed as an occupation. Domestically, al-Zindaniis a well-known and respected religious and political figure. He is the president and founder of the controversial Sunni religious institute Jamiyat Al-Iman on the outskirts of Sanaa, where American Taliban convert John Walker Lindh studied and where Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was arrested after a foiled plot to bomb an airliner, is said to have attended classes. Al-Zindani has a history of inspiring jihadist militants and was instrumental in facilitating the transport of thousands of Yemeni and Saudi fighters to Afghanistan in the 1980s to combat the Soviets. In the political arena, al-Zindani is the head of the consultative council for the country's largest opposition party, Islah, and maintains close ties to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who routinely delivers commencement addresses at Jamiyat Al-Iman.
Al-Zindani's past fatwas have been taken seriously among Yemen's salafist-jihadist community. Previous fatwas have been linked to the murders in Yemen of a socialist politician and three Baptist missionaries in 2008, and there has been speculation that al-Zindani issued a fatwa that eventually led to the USS Cole bombing in 2000.
The Jan. 14 fatwa, then, at face value, appears to carry great weight in Yemen and looks to have the potential to markedly complicate America's accelerated
counterterrorism efforts in Yemen. However, the religious decree, most likely at leasttacitly approved by Saleh, serves as more of a warning to the U.S. to back off any attempts at overt military activity in Yemen. Despite al-Zindani's credibility and the fact that he delivered the religious decree with 150 Muslim scholars, thereby making it more mainstream and perhaps targeting a wider domestic audience, there is little to indicate that American counterterrorism efforts, which are exclusively covert and limited to intelligence sharing and special operations forces, will be impacted by the announcement.
While the degree of Saleh's involvement in al-Zindani's announcement today is unknown, there is reason to believe he could support the fatwa as a warning to the United States and perhaps as an alternative to military engagement --both of which work to shore up domestic support. For instance, on Jan. 10 during an interview with Abu Dhabi TV, Saleh called for dialogue with al Qaeda, asking the militants to "set aside their weapons and return to reason." However, on the same day that the fatwa was issued, the Yemeni Defense Ministry, on its Web site, announced an "open war" and a wide campaign against al Qaeda elements in Yemen --thus indicating the complexity and confusion of domestic counterterrorism operations.
Without question, increased overt American military presence and an operational uptick in direct Yemeni military assaults have the potential to cause strong domestic backlash against Sanaa, similar to the domestic response to U.S. involvement in the assassination of former al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Abu al-Harithi in 2002 and recent airstrikes that wounded and killed scores of civilians in late December. Ultimately, the fatwa delivered by al-
Zindani sends a direct message to the United States, and perhaps Saudi Arabia, that any increase in foreign military presence in the country is ultimately forbidden and could be met with religiously sanctioned violence.
However, the nature of U.S. military involvement has and will continue to be far
from overt. Therefore, the risk that al- Zindani's fatwa could actually be carried out against an already-covert foreign force is limited at best and is more likely a tactic by the Yemeni government to manage domestic fears of an increased U.S. military intervention.
Copyright 2010 Stratfor.
ISSUES.... 01/19/2010
ISSUES.... Inside, confidential and off the record
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