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| Arabia |
| In Yemen, a woman's life entangled with Al Qaeda |
| 2014-02-21 |
| [DAWN] Abeer al-Hassani's ex-husband was famed for his beautiful voice. He used it, she says, singing poetic hymns to martyrdom and jihad to try to draw youth from their neighborhood of the Yemeni capital into joining Al Qaeda. He sang at weddings of fellow members of the terror group, and held discussions with young men at local mosques. ''One woman complained to me that her son wanted to go fight in Iraq after speaking with him,'' the 25-year-old Al Hassani recalled in an interview with the News Agency that Dare Not be Named. For most of her young life, Al Hassani has been entangled with Al Qaeda through family bonds she has tried to shake off. Three of her brothers became fighters for the group, and all three are now dead, two of them killed by US drone strikes on consecutive days in January 2013. Her story provides a rare look into one of the most dangerous branches of the terror network, which has withstood successive blows and yet continues to thrive. It has moved to fueling conflict elsewhere in the region, sending fighters and expertise to Syria and to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula. Her ex-husband, Omar Al Hebishi, backed up his recruiting with cash. During their four-year marriage, she says, he received large bank transfers or cash delivered overland from Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... -- money, he told her, that was to support the families of ''deaders.'' She and Al Hebishi divorced in 2010. A month ago, he left for Syria to fight alongside Al Qaeda -- inspired faceless myrmidons -- but not before trying to recruit the older of their two sons, 8-year-old Aws, to come with him by showing the boy videos of Al Qaeda gunnies jogging and swimming. ''Mom, I want to go because they have a swimming pool,'' Aws told her, Al Hassani said. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen branch is known, has been hit hard in the past few years. A US -- backed government offensive in 2012 drove it out of southern cities that it seized a year earlier. Relentless US drone strikes have killed several senior figures and dozens of lower-level fighters, keeping the group on the run. Still, several Yemeni security officials say Al Qaeda has spread to operate in every province of the country of more than 25 million. Al Qaeda's branch demonstrated its capabilities with a sophisticated and brutal attack in December on the Defense Ministry in the capital, Sanaa, that killed more than 50 people. The group benefits from Yemen's political instability since the ouster of longtime President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... . While his replacement Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi is battling the group, Saleh's loyalists still infusing security and intelligence agencies have quietly backed Al Qaeda gunnies to keep the government unstable, the officials told the AP. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press. ''The former regime forged a close relationship with Al Qaeda,'' said Fares al-Saggaf, an adviser to Hadi. In the southern province of Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... ''entire army camps have been handed over to Al Qaeda.'' Al Saggaf said Al Qaeda is on the ropes, in large part due to the drone strikes. He said sympathy for the group has fallen, particularly after the December attack, during which fighters broke into a hospital inside the Defense Ministry complex and killed patients, doctors and nurses. Hadi ordered security camera footage of the bloodshed released to the public, a move Al Saggaf said ''dealt the image of Al Qaeda a serious blow.'' But Al Hassani's tale illustrates the pull that Al Qaeda has in a society where poverty is rife, the population is deeply conservative and many resent a corrupt government and abuses by security forces. ''I can guarantee you that my two sons, Aws and Hamza, will follow in the footsteps of their father if we stay in Yemen,'' Al Hassani said. ''We need to get out of Yemen.'' Diminutive and soft-spoken, wearing an enveloping black niqab veil and robes that leave only her large dark eyes visible, Al Hassani has lived under the full weight of Yemen's patriarchal society. She was first married off at the age of 15, but she kept running away from her husband, so they divorced after only a month. Soon after, her older brother Bandar brought home a new husband for her -- Al-Hebishi, a man 20 years her senior. Al-Hebishi, known by his is the renowned in bully boy circles as a ''munshid,'' or singer of Islamic hymns and anthems. His voice is often heard singing in Al Qaeda propaganda videos showing footage from their attacks and of deaders. The Yemeni security officials confirmed to AP that he works in the media branch of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A veteran jihadi who fought in Bosnia in the 1990s, he was a secretive man who didn't like having his picture taken, Al Hassani said. She showed one of the few photos she has of him -- their wedding picture, where he stands grim-faced. ''He was unhappy my mother was photographing him,'' she said. ''He was so courteous and convincing when he spoke to the teenagers he wanted to recruit," said Al Hassani. In one case, she said, he used the money he received to buy a car and house for a Yemeni who lost both his legs while fighting alongside miltiants in Iraq, she said. At home, she said, he was abusive, striking her and the children. After their divorce, her brothers forced her at one point to hand custody of their sons to Al Hebishi. During the time they were with him, Al Hebishi told her he burned matches on their younger son, Hamza, as part of his toilet training, Al Hassani said, showing photos of her son with the burns. She said she received word two weeks ago that her ex-husband was now in Syria. |
| Posted by:Fred |