Military

DATE=4/2/2002

TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT

TITLE=YEMEN / U-S TROOPS PART TWO

NUMBER=5-51358

BYLINE=ALISHA RYU

DATELINE=SANA'A

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: The United States in recent days has been sending small numbers of troops to Yemen - on the tip of the Arabian peninsula - to begin training Yemeni soldiers. The temporary mission is part of what President Bush calls the "next phase" of the war on terrorism designed to help countries track down terrorists and provide better internal security and stability. But, as V-O-A's Alisha Ryu reports in part two of her four-part series on Yemen, many Yemenis are greeting the arrival of American troops with deep suspicion.

TEXT:

/// OPEN W/ MUSIC AND CROWD EST. AND FADE UNDER ///

The old city market, in the heart of Yemen's capital, Sana'a, is renown for its exotic chaos. Narrow streets twist and turn below towering ancient mud-brick buildings. And everywhere, merchants wearing traditional flowing robes with curved daggers tucked in their belts beckon customers into their shops.

The market sits inside the gates of the old city, which until the 1960s, were locked every night to keep outsiders away. Yemen strategically located at the mouth of the Red Sea has had its share of foreign intruders. The British, Egyptians, Saudis and Russians have all been here in the past 40 years, fueling intrigue, wars and rebellions across this impoverished Arab nation of 18 million people.

Shopkeeper Abdul Mohammed says, given the country's history and U-S history in the region, most Yemenis are finding it difficult to welcome American military presence with open arms.

/// MOHAMMED ACT IN ARABIC EST. AND FADE UNDER ///

He says U-S troops are welcome only if they stay just a few months. If the troops stay in Yemen like they did in other Gulf countries after the Gulf War ended in 1991, Abdul Mohammed says the Yemenis would never accept it.

/// OPT ///

///OPEN SOUND OF MEN TALKING IN ARABIC EST. FADE UNDER ///

In another part of town, a group of men huddle over bags of qat a leafy stimulant Yemenis chew as a national past time speculating that the United States could be sending troops over to win control over Yemen's important Arabian Sea shipping lanes. Some say they have heard the United States is about to build a military base in Yemen to boost its presence in the oil-rich region.

/// END OPT ///

U-S officials in Sana'a say they understand the anxiety and concerns of the people in Yemen. But they deny the United States has ulterior motives in sending troops. The U-S ambassador to Yemen, Edmund Hull, told V-O-A that the sole focus of the United States is to help the Yemeni government eradicate terrorism on its soil and keep it from coming back.

The United States already has an advance team in Yemen paving the way for fewer than 100 troops to help train Yemeni security forces but not participate in actual combat. That is the pattern of U-S counter-terrorism assistance that has emerged in the past several months - first in the Philippines and more recently in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

But Yemen is not as friendly with the United States as the Philippines and Georgia. The family of Osama bin Laden - the al-Qaida leader blamed for the September 11th attacks in the United States is from Yemen and his terrorist network has long been active here. Several dozen prisoners being held by the United States from the war in Afghanistan are Yemeni citizens.

U-S officials had also been unhappy about the perceived lack of cooperation from Sana'a following an al-Qaida-linked terrorist attack on a U-S Navy ship in the Yemeni port of Aden in October 2000. Analysts have said that the government's reluctance to investigate the incident stemmed partly from Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh's tacit coalition with hard-line Islamists who vehemently oppose an alliance with the United States.

But since September 11th, Mr. Saleh's government has been quietly stepping up cooperation -- finding and arresting more than two dozen suspected al-Qaida operatives in recent months and closing down hundreds of religious schools suspected of spreading extremist ideology.

Yemen's Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Al-Saidi says the government is now fully committed to helping the United States in its war against terror.

/// AL-SAIDI ACT ///

We are cooperating in the security sector because it is important to Yemen. Yemen needs the help of friends like the United States in order to root out whatever terrorist elements have infiltrated into Yemeni society.

/// END ACT ///

The director of the American Institute for Yemen Studies in Sana'a, Chris Edens, sees another reason behind the government's decision to cooperate.

/// EDENS ACT ///

Yemen is seeing this as an opportunity - to say and actually carry out some things to please Washington in exchange for material benefits, whether it is direct military investments or development considerations. At the same time, (it can) carry out its own agenda inside the country.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Edens says President Saleh sees Yemen's economic prosperity and his own personal ambitions tied to the U-S war against terrorism.

/// BEGIN OPT ///

For the past several years, Mr. Saleh has been trying to turn away from old political allies who helped him win a civil war in 1994. These include thousand of Yemenis and other Arabs who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and were taught by groups that later fed into al-Qaida and Afghanistan's Taleban movement.

Experts here say it is not yet clear if the Yemeni leader is moving away from these fundamentalist allies to introduce more Western-style democracy or because he wants to form a new power base that is more palatable to the West and Western donors.

/// END OPT ///

Whatever the reason, political opponents - like Abdul Kareem Al-Khiwani of the Al-Haq Islamic Party - vow to make Mr. Saleh's balancing act difficult at best.

/// AL-KHIWANI ACT IN ARABIC EST & FADE UNDER ///

He says that armed forces in Yemen are perfectly capable of keeping security on their own right now. Any attempt by outsiders to interfere in Yemen's internal affairs will be seen as violating Yemen's sovereignty. Mr. Al-Khiwani says all Yemenis are ready to resist the deployment of American troops.

Mindful of such sentiment, the government has been reluctant to release any information about the American mission. The U-S military, meanwhile, has been careful to keep out of sight.

Unlike in the Philippines where U-S and Philippine forces are conducting patrols under the glare of television cameras, Yemeni-U-S military cooperation is likely to remain very low key. (Signed)

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