An Unruly Backwater Tries Going Straight

By Amany Radwan/Sana''a

The valley known as Wadi Dhahr, with its orange cliffs and lush orchards a few miles from the mountaintop capital of Sana'a, is one of Yemen's most stunning landscapes. As usual, last Friday it was alive with the sounds of a Yemeni wedding celebration. A circle of turbaned men danced to a frenzied drumbeat, brandishing their silver swords and daggers. Suddenly a jubilant member of the wedding party pulled out a Kalashnikov and fired into the air, a practice common during Yemeni celebrations. What happened next was anything but customary. To the astonishment of those gathered, within minutes policemen pounced on the shooter and whisked him away in their car.

Spurred on by disturbing revelations since the Sept. 11 attacks of Yemen's connections to terrorism, President Ali Abdullah Saleh claims he wants to end the country's fabled history of lawlessness. It was one thing when tribesmen held foreign visitors for ransom; now it's clear world-class terrorists have been using Yemen for major operations and recruitment. "The President is declaring loud and clear: 'No to terrorism,'" says Faris Sanabani, a Saleh adviser and editor of the weekly newspaper Yemen Observer. "No one wants to wake up to the sound of an explosion."

That's exactly what happened in October 2000 in the southern port of Aden, when an al-Qaeda suicide squad drove a boat laden with explosives into the destroyer U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors. Earlier this month, Pakistani officials arrested Ramzi Binalshibh, an al-Qaeda operative from Yemen who U.S. investigators believe helped plan the Sept. 11 attacks. U.S. officials also say al-Qaeda used Yemen's honey trade as a cover to raise cash and smuggle weapons.

Saleh governs a poor, mountainous country of 18 million where many adults squander much of the day in the national pastime of chewing a mildly narcotic leaf called kat. According to a recent local study, a typical Yemeni laborer spends three times as much on kat as on food. Saleh would like to make the country more economically productive, but investors are leery of Yemen's frontier culture. After Sept. 11, the government launched a grand sweep against individuals suspected of al-Qaeda links, and it still holds hundreds, according to high-level officials. In his effort to impose order, Saleh has tried more subtle measures too. Until a year ago, it was normal for cars, especially those belonging to affluent tribal leaders, to move about Yemen's roads without license plates. Saleh set an example, now widely followed, by putting plates on his fleet. The U.S. has repeatedly told Saleh that America will help him fight terrorism, but if the problem remains unsolved, the U.S. will deal with it without the Yemenis. "They make a number of promises, not all of which they deliver on," says a U.S. official. "There's much more they could do. The performance is spotty at best."

U.S. special forces have trained and equipped Yemeni counterparts in the arts of counterterrorism. But last week Yemeni officials felt compelled to loudly deny press reports that the 800 U.S. troops amassed in nearby Djibouti might eventually be deployed in Yemen. Saleh's campaign is popular with many Yemenis, but they draw the line at the presence of foreign troops. At the Wadi Dhahr wedding ceremony, Ahmed Saeed, a retired army officer who carried his 8-month-old grandson on his shoulders, was pleased when the police took away the reveler who had opened fire. "We have the greatest President, who wants us to feel safe and secure," he said. And if the Americans land on Yemeni soil to help out? "I will give my grandchild a weapon to kick them out."