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| Arabia |
| Al-Qaeda prison break continues to strain US-Yemeni relations |
| 2006-04-30 |
| A spectacular prison escape by 23 suspected Al Qaeda militants three months ago has raised questions about Yemen’s ability to contain militancy and cast a chill over US-Yemen relations, analysts say. The detainees, 15 of whom are still on the run, escaped on February 3 through a 44-metre tunnel dug between their prison cell and a nearby mosque. The dramatic escape came as a shock, particularly when officials revealed that the prisoners had dug the long but narrow crawl space with random tools and succeeded in furrowing for three months without being caught. “This was a real blow, a real setback to what had been a very successful and productive partnership (between the two governments) against terrorism in Yemen,” US ambassador Thomas C Krajeski told AFP. Two major Al Qaeda linked figures were among the escapees, and have still not been found. One was Jamal Ahmed al-Badawi, who was serving a 10-year jail sentence for the deadly 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole in which 17 US sailors were killed. The other was Fawaz Yahya al-Rabihi, who was implicated in a similar attack two years later against the French oil tanker Limburg, in which one Bulgarian crew member was killed. Diplomats say the escape heightened tensions between the United States and Yemen, whose relations were already strained during a November visit to Washington by President Ali Abdullah Saleh over Yemen’s failure to press reforms. Washington criticised Sanaa for failing to take better precautions against escape, with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld describing it as “a shame.” The jailbreak also irritated neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which had arrested several of the alleged militants and handed them over to Yemen’s political security service detention facility. At least eight escapees have since been re-arrested. However, one diplomat in Sanaa who spoke on condition of anonymity blamed “negligence, greed and ineptness on the part of the prison authorities,” and cited corruption within the prison system for aiding the escape. “It’s reasonable to think there was some inside and outside help,” he said. “It cast considerable concern and doubt about the ability of the government to hold detainees.” An informed Yemeni source said that several people have been detained in connection with the affair and will be brought to justice, but gave few details. Yemen’s president told the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper in a late-February interview published about the re-arrests of several fugitives that “contacts were underway with the others,” a comment that raised more questions than it answered. Another Western diplomat said that authorities are clearly in contact with the families of the escapees in order to convince relatives who know the men’s whereabouts to turn them in to the authorities. Despite the jailbreak, “Yemenis have proven they have no leniency when it comes to Al Qaeda,” he said on condition of anonymity. “In the leadership of the regime, there is no longer any ambiguity,” the diplomat added, indicating that there had been some vagueness over Yemen’s position regarding Al Qaeda militants in the past. A growing number of alleged Al Qaeda militants have been brought before Sanaa courts in recent months, in a sign that the government is cracking down on terror and doing its utmost to be a good partner to Washington in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. “If you want to have international assistance, you have to play the good guy,” said another Western diplomat who asked that his name not be printed. However the large numbers of detainees parading through the courts also shows the extent of the problem, the diplomat noted. A Saudi man accused of being the local Al Qaeda branch’s number two was sentenced to death on April 18, and officials say around 60 suspected Al Qaeda members accused of “terrorist acts” will soon to have their day in court. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |