Hitting Close to Home

It was probably more coincidental than symbolic, but we smiled nonetheless at
the site of the opening salvos in the second phase of the war on terrorism.
It began in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden.

The papers gave the story only passing mention deep inside, but the second
front opened on Tuesday when Yemeni troops attacked tribesmen who had refused
in negotiations to turn over members of Al Qaeda, bin Laden's network of
terrorists. The terrorists got away, but the significance must not be
missed: The war has expanded outside of Afghanistan. It's noteworthy as well
that an Arab government has joined the battle, and has begun pursuit of
terrorists who are its own citizens.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen visited Washington recently and came
away with a list of suspected Al Qaeda members in his country, in which the
terrorist organization is believed to have been conducting training camps
under the protection of tribal leaders. Al Qaeda members are suspected in the
attack on the destroyer U.S.S. Cole. Many Taliban fighters in Afghanistan
were Yemenis, and the government is said to want to question about 500 men in
that regard.

With the action this week about 100 miles east of the capital of Sanaa, the
war has moved into the country in which bin Laden's father was born. It's
also a country in which tribal chieftains still wield considerable power and
guns outnumber people by three to one. Most significantly, however, it's a
country other than Afghanistan. The war on terrorism has a second front.
Ed Fowler

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(c) 2001 Millennium Relief & Development Services, vol. 1 no. 15
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