I didn’t see the al Wasat article – I’m going to go read it now – but I’m not surprised. I think AQ-Yemen raised the bar with the Spaniard bombing, and I don’t think they would be satisfied with going back to simple pipeline attacks.

Did you see the al-Wasat article on al-Qaeda denying responsibility for the attack on the oil pipeline?

I would doubt very much if Salih could turn over al-Badawi given the firestorm that errupted over the al-Mu’ayyad case. I agree with your view that the government goes back and forth between hyping the al-Qaeda presence and then downplaying the same factors. Part of this, I think, stems from the fact that a great deal of its aid is for security assistance. This is often the situation when Yemen makes its rather weak case to join the GCC – security is the threat it worries everyone with.

As for the tribal vs. AQ issue…I think at time the regime has a vested intrist in downplaying AQ presence, prefering to blame events on tribal forces – but at times they also have an interest in hyping AQ presence, trying to caste tribal disputes with the government into the broader terrorism debate. I think that some areas are easier to sort out the truth than others – the Shabwa/Marib area is not one of them. I think there are very grey lines up there between sympathizers and members.

Also, Jane I disagree with you when you write things like: if the Yemeni regime says it was tribesmen it almost certainly is not. There are many things going on in Yemen that are not al-Qaeda related – the issue of the oil pipeline attack is a tribal-government issue not part of some bigger conspiracy. The Yemeni government and Salih administration aren’t the purely evil force you always make them out to be. The regime and the President have done numerous things that other tribes and interest groups in Yemen not to mention the US government and others have serious problems with, but they are pursuing their own interests not acting as an evil force.

Jane, do you think he’s in Yemen? I doubt it. Yemen knew when they released him that he wasn’t going to come back…I wouldn’t if I were him. He’s the one dude the US has a chance at extraditing.