Yemen trying to keep militants out

Fishing boats float in the water off the coast of Bossasso, Somalia, a port on the Gulf of Aden. Tens of thousands of Somalis, fleeing almost two decades of war, have been smuggled across to Yemen on highly dangerous journeys in boats like these. An equal volume of weapons is stuffed onto the boats on the way back

For years the 100 to 170 nautical mile route across the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen has been well travelled.
Tens of thousands of Somalis, fleeing almost two decades of war, have been smuggled across to Yemen on highly dangerous journeys in battered wooden dhows. An equal volume of weapons is stuffed onto the boats on the way back.
Without a functioning central government since 1991, Somali authorities have limited ability to stop the exodus. The poorest country in the Arab world, Yemen meanwhile is facing two active civil wars and a growing Al Qaeda insurgency. Stopping the dispossessed of other lands from entering the country has not made the government’s priority list.
But the game began to change recently, with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula actively smuggling arms to Somalia’s Islamist Al Shabaab militants, and Al Shabaab announcing they would send fighters to help Al Qaeda take on the Yemeni government.
With a robust and growing international piracy industry in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula recently began speaking of a “naval jihad”, calling on its followers to aid in gathering intelligence on American ships in the region and calling on Al Shabaab specifically to help Al Qaeda block the narrow Bab el Mandab strait just north of Somalia.
As piracy, terrorism, human smuggling and arms smuggling increasingly intersect, authorities in Yemen, Somalia and beyond have started talking about the warming relationship between Al Shabaab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula...more..