Yemen battles unrest on several fronts

SANAA, Yemen, July 20 (UPI) -- Yemen, one of the poorest of the Arab states but strategically located between the Red Sea and the Gulf, is facing mounting security problems on several fronts, underlining concern that it's becoming a springboard for a renewed al-Qaida offensive in Saudi Arabia and the Horn Of Africa.
The Saudi and Yemeni branches of al-Qaida were united in January to form al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula under the leadership of Nasser al-Wahaishi, a Yemeni associated with Osama bin Laden.
The Saudis crushed a four-year al-Qaeda insurgency in 2007-08, and now Yemen has become the organization's new base in the Gulf region.
Security officials in Sanaa say that scores of al-Qaida operatives fled Saudi Arabia and rebased in Yemen. They are believed to have been reinforced by jihadists who fled Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This has fueled concerns that Yemen, or possibly war-ravaged Somalia across the Red Sea, will become new sanctuaries for jihadists fleeing the Pakistani army's offensives.
The Saudis are so concerned at al-Qaida's resurgence in Yemen they have set aside their traditional deep distrust of their southern neighbor, the most populous state on the Arabian peninsula, and pushed intelligence collaboration between Riyadh and Sanaa to unprecedented levels.King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia handed cash-strapped Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh several hundred million dollars to finance efforts by Yemen's security services to seal their porous common border.The kingdom's primary intelligence services, the General Intelligence Directorate, headed by Prince Muqrin bin Abdelaziz, and the General Security Service, led by Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, are scheduled to send senior officers to Sanaa to supervise this joint operation and establish a Saudi intelligence bureau in Yemen.If claims by the National Security Agency, one of Yemen's two main intelligence organizations, are to be believed, this new cooperation has already paid off.The NSA, which is commanded by Ammar Saleh, a relative of the Yemeni president, announced on June 14 that two days earlier it had arrested a Saudi named Hassan bin Hussein Alwan in Marib province in eastern Yemen. They identified him as the leading financier of al-Qaida in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and one of those who had fled Pakistan's war-torn Waziristan region. The Yemenis said his capture was expected to lead to the arrest of other senior jihadist figures...more..http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2009/07/20/Yemen-battles-unrest-on-several-fronts/UPI-96771248128052/