Yemen Employs New Terror Approach

Ali Mohammed al-Kurdi, right, smiles during his trial in Sana'a court, Yemen in this 2004 file photo. Ali Mohammed al-Kurdi says he sent two suicide bombers to Iraq and trained others. He was sentenced to death for his part in a hotel bombing in Yemen's port city of Aden, escaped and was re-arrested. Now, he is back on the streets because he signed an agreement with the Yemeni government promising to obey the law. Yemen is pioneering a novel approach for dealing with convicted al-Qaida operatives: Let them roam free as long as they promise to be law-abiding. (AP Photo/ Mohammad al-Qadhi, File) (Mohammad Al-qadhi - AP)

What the government has done "is not so much convince the militants that they were misguided and wrong, but rather that they were hurting their own cause and base of operations by acting violently within the borders of the state," Johnsen said.

Yemen was the site of the notorious al-Qaida attack on the USS Cole in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors. In recent years, it has been the scene of sporadic Islamist-inspired violence, such as on Monday, when a suicide bomber killed seven Spanish tourists visiting a temple site linked to the biblical Queen of Sheba.

All three of the al-Qaida men interviewed by The Associated Press refused to forsake the organization or participation in Islamic-inspired warfare.

"Al-Qaida is not an individual, it is the pulse of the nation. Jihad is our religious duty," said al-Wajeh. "But I have an agreement with the government. I agreed to respect law and order, respect the rulers of Yemen as the authority, and take no action in Yemen or outside. But I have not changed my ideas."

A Western diplomat in the Yemeni capital of Sana'a called Yemen's program an "imperfect system of parole and control."

Government efforts to control al-Qaida suffered a major setback with the February 2006 prison break in which al-Wajeh took part. Among 23 escapees were individuals considered among the most dangerous jihadists in the country. "It was a real disaster," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition that his name not be used because he did not want to harm relations between his country and the Yemeni government. He predicted the break could help resuscitate al-Qaida in Yemen.

Before then, al-Qaida here had been in decline. In November 2002, a U.S. Predator drone airplane killed the Yemeni al-Qaida leader, Abul Ali al-Harithi, with a missile. A year later, the Yemeni authorities arrested his successor.

Al-Wajeh says he stays in touch with those who have remained fugitives, including one man who declared himself the new head of al-Qaida in Yemen. Two other escapees died last year in a failed attack on Yemen's oil facilities.

Yemen presents a complex wrinkle for the international anti-terrorist coalition. President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government considers itself to be cooperating with the West in the war against Islamic extremists, but it also has a history of close association with hardline Islamists, including Sheik Abd al-Majid al-Zindani, whom the U.S. has called "a specially designated global terrorist."

Al-Zindani's al-Imam University in Sana'a is said to finance al-Qaida and recruit fighters. He is also often described as bin Laden's religious mentor.

But al-Zindani has remained close to Saleh even after his Islamic Islah Party broke with the government several years ago, opposition political spokesman Mohammad al-Sabri said.

"The escape of the al-Qaida militants shows that the government is penetrated by these Islamists," al-Sabri said.