Opinion It is not over

But standing at the helm of the militant network is Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),based in Yemen. Early last year,calls were made on jihadi websites,asking “brothers to return home” to Yemen. And so they did. Brian O’Neill,a fellow of the American think tank,Council on Foreign Relations,writes,“AQAP is at the forefront of the next wave of jihad and is determined to bring down the Yemeni government to create a safe haven.”

For many years,it was the Yemeni Nasir al-Wuhayshi who looked after Osama’s affairs. He started as an assistant,rose to prominence as Osama’s personal secretary and it is believed that he even threw himself in the line of fire to protect his leader once. Al-Wuhayshi has graduated from Osama’s school of die-hard extremism. It is he,stone-eyed and fastidious in his reading of the Quran,who spews religious explanations and authorises attacks. Editor-in-chief of AQAP’s propaganda magazine,he has been called Emir of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula by Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The second-in-command,cleric Anwar al-Awlaki,is also of Yemeni descent and a dual citizen of Yemen and the US. It is the sermons of this Internet-savvy orator that has helped AQAP attract Western jihadists. Both al-Wuhayshi and al-Awlaki call the unforgiving Yemeni terrain home.

Yemen,among Arabia’s poorest countries,is often dismissed as a black hole,with worryingly high levels of illiteracy and unemployment. A civil war is waging in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. This complex mosaic of Yemeni politics and sectarian conflicts — the northern Houthi rebels pitched against the Sunnis,and the southerners against the government — has resulted in alliances between AQAP and alienated tribes. This has in turn created safe havens for the growing al-Qaeda franchise.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s power is limited to the capital Sana’a and is stripped of resources that are mostly spent on fighting two different forces in the north and south. (Note that even 10 years ago,he failed to curb the activities of a fledgling al-Qaeda consortium after it bombed USS Cole that was harboured for refuelling in the Yemeni port of Aden.)

Now Saleh’s weak government is grappling with the spring of discontent in the Middle East. Pro-democracy movements sweeping through the region have taken hold of Sana’a as well. For the past two months,thousands of people have risen against their president. They demand his exit,saying he and his nepotistic alliance have run Yemen into the ground.

In a march held in the capital on May 2,reports say protesters held up posters of Osama bin Laden. This is possibly a first for Yemen. It is also an extremely dangerous development in a country where al-Qaeda cells are looking for recruits. Like Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,who stuffed his underwear with powder explosives on Christmas Day 2009,in a botched attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight to Detroit. The Nigerian’s jihad journey reportedly began in Yemen.

AQAP grew ambitious in its attacks around that time: a failed plot to assassinate Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef in Jeddah in August 2009; attacks on Belgian tourists in January 2008 and on Korean tourists in March 2009,both in Yemen; two successful attacks on the US embassy in Sana’a and four pipeline bombings in Yemen.

While the war in Afghanistan moves forward,in this downtrodden country,the dream of an Arab Spring could be disturbed by al-Qaeda’s ideology. Its Yemeni affiliate,AQAP,and its players stand ready to participate in a great game despite the death of their icon.