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Yemen: An ally fights the US
shadow
By Nabil Sultan
SANA'A
- A move to secure the return of two Yemenis being held
as terrorist suspects in Germany is being seen as a test
of national sovereignty.
The two Yemeni
nationals were arrested in a hotel in Frankfurt in
Germany on January 11 following a US extradition
request. Officials in Yemen say that they were kept in
the dark by the US and German governments about any
plans to arrest the two.
"Yemen requests the
government of the Federal Republic of Germany to hand
the Yemeni citizens to her and not to any other party,"
the government said in an official statement. "The
concerned Yemeni authorities will interrogate them on
the charges made against them." Germany has turned down
the request.
The arrests come in a long line of
US intelligence-led operations that are embarrassing the
Yemeni government, political analyst Mohammad al-Kabisy
told IPS.
Last November, an unmanned US Predator
aircraft carried out an attack in Yemen killing six
people suspected to be al-Qaeda members. The CIA then
leaked the attack story. Many people in Yemen found the
operation an insult to their national sovereignty.
Last month, US and Spanish ships halted the
North Korean freighter So San carrying Scud missiles to
Yemen. Again, authorities in Yemen were not informed of
the move.
A US official described Yemen as an
"uneasy ally" after that raid. But President Ali
Abdallah Saleh was able to persuade US Vice President
Dick Cheney to release the missiles.
The latest
standoff centers on Al-Moayyed, 58, one of the two men
arrested in Frankfurt. US authorities say that he is an
al-Qaeda leader, and that Yemeni authorities cannot be
trusted because they failed to arrest him. The second
man is Mohammad Mohsein Zaid.
Al-Moayyed is a
senior preacher at the Great Mosque in Sana'a, and many
have rallied to his side. "My father is not a
terrorist," says his son Ibrahim. "He is a leading
member of Islah Party and friendly with all people
whether in the [opposition] Islah Party or the [ruling]
General Peoples Congress Party."
Al-Moayyed runs
the Al-Ehsan Charitable Center and has helped more than
8,000 orphans and poor people, Ibrahim says. People who
gathered at his house following his arrest said that he
had spoken often against terrorism.
Al-Moayyed
told Yemeni ambassador in Germany Mohialdin Al-Dabhi
that he had been invited to Germany by a man who had
offered to make a donation to his charitable trusts. The
man gave him a check and disappeared two days before his
arrest, he said. Al-Moayyed says that this was a plot to
arrest him.
"These actions of the United States
make all Muslims al-Qaeda members," says Hamoud Hashem
Al Zerahi, member of the Supreme Council of the Islah
Party. "The US does not distinguish between moderates
and extremists, and this makes us think the accused is
Islam, not terrorism."
US authorities say that
Al-Moayyed was preaching terrorism against the US at the
Great Mosque. They cite an agreement with Germany to
claim that he should now be extradited to the US.
"If the US authorities have clear evidence
proving the involvement of the two Yemenis in terrorist
acts, it should provide that evidence to Yemeni
authorities," an official said. The US is not giving
Yemen a chance to take its own measures to crack down on
terrorists, he said.
President Saleh has called
upon security forces to step up the fight against
terrorism, and asked the police to prevent any
recruitment of extremists. The Yemeni measures follow an
agreement between the government and US authorities to
step up the fight against terrorism following the
September 11 attacks. Yemen is the ancestral home of
Osama bin Laden and is trying to rid itself of its
Western image as a haven for Muslim militants, including
al-Qaeda.
One of the measures agreed was to
reduce poverty, and therefore limit conditions for the
promotion of terrorism. The US Agency for International
Development resumed health, education and agriculture
projects in Yemen in December after an eight-year
suspension following the civil war which broke out in
1994.
Yemenis feel grateful for this but such
aid is not enough to wipe out the need for charitable
societies such as Al-Moayyed's, says political
researcher Yaya Mansur.
Al-Moayyed had not been
in hiding, officials point out. He was active in running
the Al-Ehsan charity and also the Al-Aqsa Charitable
Society in Sana'a for helping Palestinians. The US did
not suggest to Yemeni authorities all this while that he
was an al-Qaeda member, officials say. His supporters
say that he went to Germany to buy medicines, not to
engage in terrorist activities.
The conflicting
demands of Yemen and the US place Germany in a difficult
situation. But Berlin, which has had good relations with
Yemen, says that the Yemeni request is illegal. Yemeni
officials claim that Yemen has a judicial cooperation
treaty with Germany signed in 1971 providing that
neither country can hand a suspect over to a third
country.
The Yemeni government and the
opposition Islah Party are making common cause over
Al-Moayyed. The Islah Party has engaged a lawyer to
defend him in Germany. "Germany must produce concrete
evidence, otherwise it would be illegal for them either
to detain the suspects or to extradite them to the US,"
lawyer Yahya Allawo told IPS.
(Inter Press
Service)
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