Yemen: New frontier in US ‘war on terror’

Humphrey Hawksley
BBC News
December 25, 2009

The increased violence in Yemen is a clear indication that military campaigns to crush al-Qaeda-inspired violence extend far beyond the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

[efoods]It also shows up hostile fault-lines within the Middle East, pitting mainly Shia Iran against Sunni Saudi Arabia, who condemn each other for taking sides in Yemen’s long-running civil war.

Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Arab world with almost half its 24 million people living below the poverty line and an authoritarian government that has failed to win the trust of a substantive part of its own population.

This makes fertile ground for al-Qaeda.

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