Issue 329

A POOR, mountainous country that clings to the south-west tip of the Arabian peninsula, Yemen seems in danger of falling into Somalia's lap. Not physically, by toppling across the Gulf of Aden that separates the countries, though some may imagine that the influx of 100,000-plus destitute Somali refugees may shift its centre of gravity. The worry is that Yemen may tilt towards becoming a failed state.

In the past few years, it has dropped to 153rd among the 177 countries listed in the UN's human-development index, a mix of such things as life expectancy, education and average income. More than a fifth of its 22m people are malnourished. Yemen imports 75% of its food, but even so it is using up scarce water supplies so fast that the aquifers most people rely on may dry up within a decade. Increasingly, with an estimated 17m guns flooding the country, tribes are clashing over access to wells.

Yet other security problems are worse. Since 2004, a miniature war has sputtered in the far north, pitting tribesmen from the Zaidi Shia minority against the central government in Sana'a, which has used tanks and aircraft, as well as, say critics, Sunni jihadist volunteers, to subdue the rebels. Though outsiders are generally barred from the region, casualties have been estimated in the thousands, with tens of thousands of civilians forced to flee their homes. More than 50 people have been killed in the past week alone, at least 18 of them when a bomb went off by a mosque in the provincial capital, Saada.

Unrest is rising in the far south, too, where resentment simmers over alleged discrimination since formerly separate South Yemen (once the British colony of Aden plus an outlying British protectorate of emirates) united with the more populous north in 1990. Big riots hit the city of Aden last month. And there have been a spate of small-scale attacks elsewhere, including mortar fire on the American embassy in Sana'a in March and on Italy's in April. Who was responsible is unclear. Islamist extremists related to al-Qaeda, which suffered setbacks when the government cracked down on it between 2001 and 2003, have regrouped and been reinforced by Yemeni jihadists returning from Iraq.

Yemeni opponents of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has ruled since 1978, suspect something murkier. Though co-operating at some levels with the West against jihadist terrorism, his regime, perhaps because of its many security headaches, has lately treated Sunni Islamist radicals more softly. Terrorist suspects have recently received light sentences or been allowed to “escape” from prison. Last month Mr Saleh met Robert Mueller, head of America's FBI, and is said to have rebuffed an appeal to hand over al-Qaeda members accused of involvement in an attack in 2000 on an American warship, the USS Cole, that killed 17 American sailors.

Source: The Economist

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