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Al-Qaeda in Yemen
تنظيم القاعدة في اليمن Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Yemen
Flag used by the group
Also known as	al-Qaeda in the Land of Yemen (2007– 2008) al-Qaeda in the Southern Arabian Peninsula (2008– 2009)
Founder	Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (POW)
Leaders	Abu Ali al-Harithi † (1998–2002) Muhammad al-Ahdal (POW) (2002–2003) Nasir al-Wuhayshi (2006–2009)
Dates of operation	1998 – 2003 and 2006 – 2009
Active regions	Yemen
Ideology	Sunni Islamism Salafi Jihadism Anti-Westernism Anti-Americanism Anti-Zionism Antisemitism
Size	Low hundreds (2008 estimate)
Part of	Al-Qaeda
Allies	Al-Qaeda of Saudi Arabia Aden-Abyan Islamic Army Soldiers Brigade of Yemen
Opponents	Yemen  United States  United Kingdom  France
Battles and wars	War on terror Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen
Succeeded by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

Al-Qaeda in Yemen (AQY), also known as al-Qaeda in the Land of Yemen (AQLY) and al-Qaeda in the Southern Arabian Peninsula (AQSAP) in its later iteration, was a Sunni Islamist militant organization which existed between 1998 to 2003, and 2006 to 2009.

AQY was established in late 1998 as a cell led by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi member of al-Qaeda central who had convinced Osama bin Laden to fund an attack on a United States military target in Yemen. Bin Laden obliged, appointing al-Nashiri as al-Qaeda's head of operations in the Persian Gulf and leaving him to plan and execute the attack. Al-Nashiri's plans would come to fruition when AQY bombed the USS Cole while it was docked at the Port of Aden in October 2000. Though it was al-Qaeda's largest success at that point, the bombing, which was followed by the September 11 attacks the next year, would lead to an intense counterterrorism campaign by the Yemeni and US governments which would cripple AQY's operational capacity. Al-Nashiri was arrested by Yemeni authorities in November 2002, while a US drone strike killed AQY leader Abu Ali al-Haritha in the same month. After the arrest of replacement leader Muhammad al-Ahdal in 2003, AQY was regarded as largely defeated.

In February 2006, a prison break in Sanaa lead to the escape of 23 members of al-Qaeda. The escapees, most notably Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Qasim al-Raymi, would rebuild al-Qaeda's presence in Yemen under the name of AQLY. Though the groups first attack, a pair of coordinated suicide car bombings on two Yemeni oil facilities in September 2006, would end up failing, AQLY would prove to be more resilient and appealable to locals than its predecessor group. AQLY was officially announced as al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen in the summer of 2007, with Wuhayshi being named as the groups leader. From there, AQLY launched several high-profile attacks in Yemen against local and foreign targets, most notably a car bombing against Spanish tourists in Marib in 2007 and an attack on the US embassy in Sanaa in 2008. In 2009, AQLY merged with al-Qaeda's struggling branch in Saudi Arabia to form al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

History

1998–1999: Establishment

With the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990's, Osama bin Laden felt it a priority to cultivate ties with the militant group and move al-Qaeda's base of operations from Sudan to Afghanistan, leaving Yemen mostly out of the picture in terms of the groups activities during this time period. This had changed in late 1998 when Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a former Saudi mujahideen who joined al-Qaeda earlier in the year, prosopsed to Bin Laden an attack on a US vessel after observing American ships docked without protection at the Port of Aden. Bin Laden approved of the idea, designating al-Nashiri as al-Qaeda's head of operations in the Persian Gulf and directing him to begin planning for the attack while providing money and operatives. Abu Ali al-Harithi, a Yemeni militant and close associate of Bin Laden who fled to Afghanistan in 1997, was reportedly ordered to begin attacks in Yemen some time before 2000. Al-Harithi would come to be recognized as the highest ranking leader of AQY.

2000: USS Cole bombing

AQY's first major attack came with the attempted bombing of the USS The Sullivans on 3 January 2000. The attack was a failure, as the suicide boat containing the explosives sank before it could reach the ship. Al-Nashiri's plan would later come to fruition with the bombing of the USS Cole on 12 October 2000. On that morning, while the Cole was docked at the Port of Aden, two AQY suicide bombers drove a small boat loaded with explosives into the side of the ship, killing 17 American sailors and blowing a 40-foot hole in its hull. While the bombing was al-Qaeda's most high-profile attack yet, the operation wasn't a full reflection of AQY's power as most of the militants involved in the attack were either more closely associated with al-Qaeda central rather than the cell in Yemen, or played no significant further role within AQY.

2001–2003: Pressure and decline

Under significant pressure from the United States due to the Cole attack the previous year as well as the September 11 attacks, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh decided to crack down on jihadists and coordinate counterterrorism operations with the support of the US. AQY would engage in few significant activities or propaganda efforts during 2001. Al-Harithi along with AQY's chief financial officer Muhammed al-Ahdal would move to the village of al-Hosun in the tribal areas of Marib Governorate in August 2001. There, they would be targeted by Yemeni forces in a raid on 18 December 2001 which would end up failing as both militants escaped and tribal resistance lead to the deaths of 19 soldiers.

On 6 October 2002, AQY launched their second major attack, a suicide bombing targeting the French oil tanker MV Limburg. In a similar vein to the USS Cole attack, a suicide bomber drove a small explosive-laden boat into the side of the Limburg, killing one crew member and spilling thousands of oil barrels into the Gulf of Aden. Despite yielding a far less successful outcome, the bombing represented a turning point in AQY as an indigenous movement in Yemen. Funded by al-Nashiri and allegedly endorsed by Bin Laden, the planning of the bombing involved a group of Yemenis, many of them trained from Afghanistan a year prior, travelling to Mukalla to organize and prepare the attack. Many participants in the Limburg attack would come to hold high-ranking positions in AQY's later iteration. Fawaz al-Rabayi, a leader in the Mukalla cell, later organized a second cell for the attempted shootdown of a Hunt Oil helicopter using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms on 3 November 2002.

On the same day, the CIA launched a drone strike on a car travelling through the al-Naqaa desert in Marib Governorate, killing four militants from the al-Qaeda-aligned Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, Lackawanna Six member Kamal Derwish and Abu Ali al-Harithi. The death of AQY's leader proved a significant blow to the organization, which subsequently had dozens of its supporters detained by Yemeni authorities through late 2002 and early 2003 and experienced a "precipitous membership decline" by the end of the year. Muhammed al-Ahdal, who allegedly replaced al-Harithi as AQY's leader, was arrested on 25 November 2003 in a sting operation through a tip from an AQY member. The capture of al-Ahdal effectively signalled the defeat of AQY's first iteration, with most Yemeni militants either jailed or participating in the Iraqi insurgency.

2006: Revival

On 3 February 2006, a prison escape freed 23 members of al-Qaeda incarcerated in a Political Security Organization (PSO) detention center in Sanaa. Many observers, including US government officials, believed the escape to be in some part facilitated by members of the PSO or other government officials. Among the escapees included USS Cole bombing planner Jamal al-Bawadi, as well as al-Rabayi and al-Qaeda veterans Nasir al-Wuhayshi and Qasim al-Raymi. The latter two were the most important in the rebuilding of AQY, as they spent their time in prison building up a network by recruiting fellow inmates, many of whom were arresting for attempting to travel to Iraq.

AQY's revival was first reflected in the groups attempted attacks in September 2006; a pair of suicide car bombings against two oil facilities. Though both attacks failed, the bombings reflected the most sophisticated operation taken by AQY since 2002, and itself the first instance of VBIED usage on land in the country. Al-Rabayi, who oversaw the training of the bombers, was killed in a military raid in October 2006.

2007–2008: Resurgence

In March 2007, AQY assassinated the chief criminal investigator in Marib, Ali Mahmud al-Qasaylah, for his alleged role in the 2002 drone strike which killed Abu Ali al-Harithi. The group officially announced its reemergence on 21 June 2007 under the name of "al-Qaeda in the Land of Yemen (AQLY)". The audio recording narrated by al-Raymi declared al-Wuhayshi as the leader of the group. A month later, AQLY launched their first major attack, a suicide car bombing targeting a group of Spanish tourists in Marib. In January 2008, AQLY gunmen attack a convoy of Belgian tourists in Wadi Dawan, killing four people. Within the same month, the group launched Sada al-Malahem, a bimonthly e-magazine, though which it would announce its redesignated as "al-Qaeda in the Southern Arabian Peninsula (AQSAP)" in March 2008. In September 2008, AQSAP launched an attack on the United States embassy in Sanaa. Although it was immediately claimed by Islamic Jihad in Yemen, AQSAP later claimed responsibility for the attack through a statement in Sada al-Malahem.

Soldiers Brigade of Yemen

In February 2008, a group known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula–Soldiers Brigade of Yemen (AQAP–SBY, SBY) announced its presence through a statement posted on an Islamist website. The statement claimed the attack on the Belgian tourist convoy the previous month, as well as the Marib car bombing in July 2007 and the oil facility attacks in September 2006. Led by Mukalla cell member and 2006 prison escapee Hamza al-Quaiti, SBY would launch at least 16 attacks throughout 2008 either directly claimed by the group in a statement or of a similar style to its tactics. SBY launched multiple mortar attacks against Western targets, such as one against the US embassy and a Western housing complex in Sanaa in March, and another against the Italian embassy in April. The group claimed attacks against French and Chinese oil pipelines in March (despite the Yemeni government denying that any attacks occured), and one against an Aden oil refinery in May.

The groups attacks were of a significantly worse quality than that of AQSAP, with most of them causing minimal damage or casualties, though a car bombing against a military base in Seiyun in July which killed four people could be considered an exception. SBY's relationship with AQLY/AQSAP was uncertain, though Gregory D. Johnson CTC Westpoint suggests that the groups were "loose cells of the same organization than separate entities altogether". He cites a video in which the suicide bomber of the 2007 Marib attack appears to use the names of AQLY and SBY interchangeably, suggesting that the names were "synonymous for the members of al-Qaeda in Yemen." SBY's spate of attacks would end in August after a raid by Yemeni forces killed al-Quaiti, essentially ending the group.

See more

• Islamic Jihad in Yemen
• Aden-Abyan Islamic Army

Notes

1. Arabic: تنظيم القاعدة في اليمن, romanized: Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idat fī Yemen
2. Arabic: تنظيم القاعدة في ارض اليمن, romanized: Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī ‘Ard al-Yemen
3. Arabic: تنظيم القاعدة في جنوب شبه الجزيرة العربية, romanized: Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idat fī Junub Shibh al-Jazīrat al-‘Arab

References

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v t e Al-Qaeda
Leadership	Saif al-Adel Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi Sa'ad bin Atef al-Awlaki Ahmad Umar Iyad Ag Ghaly Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil Abu Ubaidah Youssef al-Annabi Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri Ibrahim al-Banna Ibrahim al Qosi Abu Walid al-Masri Mohammed Showqi Al-Islambouli Abdukadir Mohamed Abdukadir Fuad Qalaf Jehad Mostafa Abu Humam al-Shami Sami al-Oraydi
Former leadership	Killed Osama bin Laden (killing) Ayman al-Zawahiri (killing) Mohammed Atef Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil Haitham al-Yemeni Abu Hamza Rabia Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Omar al-Faruq Haitham al-Badri Abu Yaqub al-Masri Abu Talha al-Sudani Abu Laith al-Libi Abu Sulayman Al-Jazairi Midhat Mursi Mohamed Moumou Khalid Habib Abu Ghadiya Abu Zubair al-Masri Rashid Rauf Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan Saad bin Laden Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Abdullah Said al Libi Saleh al-Somali Saeed al-Masri Hamza al-Jawfi Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali Mohamed Abul-Khair Sheikh Fateh Huthaifa al-Batawi Ilyas Kashmiri Fazul Abdullah Mohammed Atiyah Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Awlaki Samir Khan Tariq al-Dahab Muhammad Sa'id Ali Hasan Fahd al-Quso Abu Yahya al-Libi Hassan Ghul Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti Said Ali al-Shihri Farman Ali Shinwari Abdelhamid Abou Zeid Ibrahim Haji Jama Mee'aad Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki Said Bahaji Abu Khalid al-Suri Omar Ould Hamaha Ahmed Abdi Godane Abu Yusuf Al-Turki Adnan Gulshair el Shukrijumah Adam Yahiye Gadahn Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari Othman Ahmad Othman al-Ghamdi Ibrahim Sulayman Muhammad al-Rubaysh Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi Nasir al-Wuhayshi Muhsin al-Fadhli Abu Khalil al-Madani Matiur Rehman Abu Firas al-Suri Ahmed Refai Taha Mokhtar Belmokhtar Abu Khayr al-Masri Ibrahim al-Asiri Hamza bin Laden Sari Shihab Asim Umar Qasim al-Raymi Abdelmalek Droukdel Khalid al-Aruri Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah Abu Muhsin al-Masri Captured Mamdouh Mahmud Salim Wadih el-Hage Khalid al-Fawwaz Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Walid bin Attash Riduan Isamuddin Ali al-Bahlul Ahmed Ghailani Abu Faraj al-Libbi Mustafa Setmariam Nasar Abdul Hadi al Iraqi Muhammad Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani Mohamed Atiq Awayd Al Harbi Younis al-Mauritani Sulaiman Abu Ghaith Abu Anas al-Libi Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh Mukhtar Robow Amin al-Haq Other Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri (died) Abu Ubaidah al-Masri (died) Mahfouz Ould al-Walid (left) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (expelled) Abu Mohammad al-Julani (left) Abu Maria al-Qahtani (left) Ahmad Salama Mabruk (left) Abu Omar al-Turkistani (left) Abu Sulayman al-Muhajir (left) Khalid Batarfi (died)
Timeline of attacks	1998 United States embassy bombings 2000 USS Cole bombing 2001 September 11 attacks 2002 Bali bombings 2004 Madrid train bombings 2005 London bombings 2007 Algiers bombings 2008 Islamabad Danish embassy bombing 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing 2013 In Amenas hostage crisis 2013 Westgate shopping mall attack 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting 2015 Garissa University College attack 2015 Bamako hotel attack 2016 Ouagadougou attacks 2016 Grand-Bassam shootings 2016 Bamako attack 2019 Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting
Wars	Soviet–Afghan War Afghan Civil War (1989–1992) Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) First Chechen War Afghan Civil War (1996–2001) Second Chechen War War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) Iraq War Somali Civil War War in North-West Pakistan (drone strikes) Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present) Syrian civil war Yemeni civil war (2014–present) Al-Qaeda insurgency in Yemen Houthi insurgency
Affiliates	Al-Shabaab (Somalia) Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (Yemen) Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (North Africa) Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Egypt) Al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent (Indian subcontinent) Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (Mali) Hurras al-Din (Syria)
Charity organizations	Benevolence International Foundation Al-Haramain Foundation
Media	Al Qaeda Handbook Al Neda As-Sahab Al-Andalus Media Al-Kataib Media Foundation Radio al-Andalus Shahada News Agency Al-Malahem Media Inspire Az-Zallaqa Foundation Fatawā of Osama bin Laden Al-Khansaa Kuala Lumpur al-Qaeda Summit Management of Savagery Voice of Jihad Qaedat al-Jihad Global Islamic Media Front
Video and audio	Videos and audio recordings of Osama bin Laden Videos and audio recordings of Ayman al-Zawahiri USS Cole bombing
Related	Safe houses Saddam–al-Qaeda conspiracy theory Timeline
Category:Al-Qaeda

• Jihadist groups in Yemen