Word: arabia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Yemeni government, under pressure from neighboring Saudi Arabia and the U.S. - and facing internal threats - has recently stepped up operations against al-Qaeda within its borders. With American help, it carried out air strikes Dec. 17 and 24, killing more than 60 militants. But al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), is a distinctly creative branch. In August a supposedly repentant member of AQAP drew close to Saudi Arabia's Deputy Interior Minister before detonating a bomb secreted in his anal cavity, according to Stratfor, a well-regarded private intelligence outfit based in Texas...
...group claimed, was retaliation for U.S. military-assisted attacks on "the noble Yemenite tribes in Abyan and Arhab, and finally in Sibwa" in which "scores of Muslim women and children, and families in their entirety" were killed - assaults that took place in the preceding week. Under pressure in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, al-Qaeda began turning the lawless mountain areas of Yemen into a new staging area. That staging area is now sending more and more violent probes out into the world...
Stretched around the southern heel of the Arabian Peninsula and home to 23.8 million people - compared with 28.7 million in geographically much larger Saudi Arabia - Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East. It came into being when North and South Yemen merged in 1990. Long a source of jihadis, the region sent hundreds of fighters to the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and - to judge by the number of captured, killed and identified insurgents in Iraq - continues to be one of the biggest suppliers of fighters to regional conflicts. It is common knowledge...
...national intelligence to note that Yemen was "re-emerging as a jihadist battleground and potential regional base of operations for al-Qaeda." With a base in Yemen, al-Qaeda could launch attacks on the Red Sea gateway to the Suez Canal as well as stage operations against Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf. (See why Yemen faces a growing al-Qaeda threat despite U.S. assistance...
...Zaydi sect of Shi'ite Islam. That introduces the shadow - both real and imagined - of the primary Shi'a power in the region, Iran, which is happy to take credit even if its actual influence may still be negligible. When Iran is mentioned, however, both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the predominant Sunni power in the region, start quaking. And al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, no friend to any of the parties, is happy to sow destabilization so it can thrive. (Is Iran causing trouble in Yemen's hidden...