Genealogies <\/strong><\/p>\n The bulk of al-Qa\u2019ida in Yemen (renamed AQAP in 2009, when the Saudi and the Yemeni cells merged) was constituted by mujahidin<\/em> returning from Afghanistan, as in the case of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army.[3]<\/a> Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen\u2019s president until 2011, was a champion of ambiguity towards local jihadism. At the beginning, he rallied the support of jihadi fighters to combat southerners during the civil war in 1994[4]<\/a> and then, after 9\/11, he signed a security alliance with the United States in the name of the war on terror<\/em>, choosing to arbitrarily implement securitization policies.[5]<\/a> Instead, the Yemeni branch of the so-called Islamic State appeared for the first time in the media in November 2014: Ansarullah (the Huthis\u2019 movement) had just seized the capital Sana\u2019a, paving the way for the coup d\u2019\u00e9tat<\/em> in January 2015. IS in Yemen is predominantly constituted by AQAP\u2019s defectors; beyond Yemenis, Saudi citizens represent the backbone of both jihadi organizations. Since the Eighties, Saudi Arabia has massively contributed to the spread of the Salafi doctrine in Yemen (Sunnis use to follow here the Shafi madhab<\/em>)[6]<\/a>, through kinship ties and transnational patronage, especially in Hadhramaut, where Sufi Islam is an ancient legacy.<\/p>\n Structures and competition<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Islamic State in Yemen is organized in small, regionally-based networks, <\/em>which claim direct responsibility for the attacks in the country. These wilayat <\/em>are several: Sana\u2019a, Aden-Abyan, Shabwa (the most active and recognizable cells), Ibb-Taiz, Lahij, al-Bayda, Hadhramaut. IS\u2019s wali <\/em>in Yemen would be a Saudi citizen, as the majority of top-ranking commanders. Saudis prominent role would be generating confrontation within the organization: in two letters dated 15 and 17 December 2015, more than 100 IS\u2019s members asked to al-Baghdadi for the removal of the current wali<\/em>, denouncing an excessive interpretation of shari\u2018a<\/em>.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n AQAP shows a more hierarchical structure with respect to the Yemeni cells which pronounced the oath of allegiance to the caliphate. Nasser al-Wuhayshi, killed during a U.S. drone attack in June 2015, was substituted by his deputy Qassim al-Raimi, who soon pledged allegiance (bay\u2019a<\/em>) to Ayman al-Zawahiri. During the Obama administration, Washington\u2019s counterterrorism strategy has registered an impressive increase of drone strikes, but this tactic did not produce positive outcomes: AQAP remains the most dangerous al-Qa\u2019ida\u2019s node for U.S. homeland and abroad interests. Although many top-AQAP commanders were killed (and then rapidly replaced), the impact of the drone warfare campaign on recruitment was even counterproductive, since recurrent civilian casualties fueled jihadi enrollment among southern, disenfranchised youth. This is especially true for the affiliate Ansar al-Sharia, the \u02cachain of transmission\u02cb between the terrorist organization and local tribes.<\/p>\n The competition between AQAP and IS regards grassroots recruitment and didn\u2019t involve apical commanders so far: IS-wilayat<\/em> were mostly created by AQAP\u2019s defectors attracted by higher salaries[8]<\/a> and a more aggressive attitude with respect to al-Qaeda. In some cases, grey zones between AQAP and IS still persist, as in the case of \u201cWilaya Hadhramaut\u201d, which could not be necessarily linked to IS. In August 2012, after the temporary emirates\u2019 dismantlement in Abyan, AQAP\u2019s local cell moved to east (Mahfad in Eastern Abyan and Azzan in Shabwa[9]<\/a>) and may have rebranded itself as Wilaya Hadhramaut. In fact, before the appearance of IS, AQAP used to name its territories with the term wilaya<\/em> (province), in order to distinguish them from the muhafaza<\/em> (governorate) belonging to civil states. For instance, in 2011-12, Abyan\u2019s proto-emirates were called wilayat <\/em>by AQAP, rather than \u2018imara<\/em> (emirate).[10]<\/a><\/p>\n Targets and Geography<\/strong><\/p>\n AQAP prioritizes hard targets, as security forces, and Yemeni government officials, while IS mainly attacks the Huthis and Yemen\u2019s Shia community, without distinctions between hard and soft targets. In May 2012, during the national military parade celebrating the reunified republic, AQAP claimed responsibility for the suicide attack that killed more than 90 soldiers in Sana\u2019a.[11]<\/a> In March 2015, IS claimed credit for the suicide operations against two Sana\u2019a mosques, Badr and Hashoush, which killed more than 130 believers[12]<\/a> (Yemeni Sunni and Shia communities use to pray in the same mosques, but in March the capital was already under Ansarullah\u2019s control).<\/p>\n However, this targets categorization becomes day by day more nuanced, even though it remains a salient criterion of analysis. AQAP and IS\u2019s attacks have been following a convergent trend, enhanced by overlapped geographical areas of confrontation (as Aden and recently Mukalla) since the start of the Saudi-led military intervention against Shia militias (the Huthis and former president Saleh\u2019s loyalists, in March 2015) and then of Saudi-Emiratis\u2019 airstrikes against swathes of territory held by jihadists (March 2016). From late 2015 on, IS uses to target government officials and coalition bases, as frequently occurred in Aden, or young police\/military recruits in the south. IS began to carry out attacks in Aden when the city was \u201creconquered\u201d from Shia rebels by the Yemeni army and Sunni militias. In Mukalla, IS (maybe based in in the northern Wadi Hadhramaut sanctuary, not along southern coasts so far) has begun to carry out attacks since AQAP withdraw from the city in April 2016. IS has also criticized AQAP\u2019s decision to avoid armed confrontation in Mukalla with the Yemeni army, Sunni militias and Emirati Presidential Guard\u2019s units.<\/p>\n Aden and Mukalla are now key-cities in Yemen\u2019s battlefield, contested among government and coalition\u2019s forces, pro-independence militias (al-Hiraak in Aden), local tribes and AQAP (supported by some Hadhrami clans in Mukalla). Both cities register growing numbers of Islamic State\u2019s infiltrates. AQAP operates mainly in central and southern Yemen (as Taiz, al-Bayda, Hadhramaut). In al-Bayda, AQAP has entrenched strong alliances with some tribal clans, as the Dhahab tribe (Qayfa confederation) in Rada\u2019a distict: the governor Nayif Saleh Salim al-Qaysi is an AQAP member under U.S. sanctions.[13]<\/a> After AQAP\u2019s withdrawal from Mukalla, the jihadist presence in al-Mahra, the Yemeni most Eastern region, would be rising.<\/p>\n Narratives <\/strong><\/p>\n AQAP\u2019s discourse has traditionally combined polemics against the \u201cfar enemy\u201d (the United States and the West, Israel and the Jews) with invectives against the \u201cnear enemy\u201d (the Yemeni government and the security forces, the Saudi monarchy). In this framework, AQAP has managed to partially exploit southern popular anger towards northern-driven \u00e9lites, picturing Sana\u2019a\u2019s institutions as shared enemies in order to forge tribal alliances on the ground. In Hadhramaut, AQAP has skillfully played the card of the Hadhrami emancipation from a corrupted and unequal central state, dominated by Saleh\u2019s northern oligarchy and his political heirs. As a matter of fact, AQAP has capitalized on the 2011 Yemeni uprising and the 2013 Hadhrami anti-government protests[14]<\/a> to prepare Mukalla\u2019s governance experiment. On the other hand, Islamic State in Yemen has bet since the beginning all its ideological resources on sectarian, anti-Shia rhetoric. The Huthis (a minority part of the Zaydi Shia branch, rooted in Saada\u2019s northern fiefdom) have been labeled by IS as the primary enemy -with an eye to expand its leverage in the south- so emphasizing the sectarian narrative already fueled, for power politics purposes, by Saudi Arabia and Iran.[15]<\/a> The unsolved Yemen\u2019s multilayered conflict risks to empower not only the role of jihadi networks, but also the strength of the sectarian message proposed by IS. AQAP could be tempted to escalate the sectarian tone of its propaganda, in order to compete with IS in recruitment and media, as some statements and small-scale attacks against the Huthis have stressed since 2015.<\/p>\n AQAP\u2019s shifting patterns of governance<\/strong><\/p>\n AQAP has been repositioning its governance model from a shari\u2018a-first<\/em> approach to a community-first<\/em> posture oriented to power-sharing with local actors. The first type of governance was applied in 2011-12 in some coastal Abyan\u2019s cities (Jaar, Zinjibar). Despite some alliances with indigenous tribes opposed to Sana\u2019a, AQAP (under the banner of the affiliate Ansar al-Shari\u2018a) self-proclaimed the emirates due to the military vacuum and a spread indifferent mood among locals. AQAP and its network implemented strict shari\u2018a <\/em>codes, banned Arab music and the qat <\/em>(a narcotic leaf which is, at the same time, a local custom and a source of economic survival for many clans), provided basic services to the population, as electricity and water, organizing garbage collection and phone lines connection.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n In Abyan, AQAP emphasized ideology on pragmatism, rejecting and trying to replace traditional customs, as qat<\/em>, in the name of the \u201cIslamic purity\u201d: the aim was to win popular support through the use of coercion rather than consensus. In this framework, the military campaign headed by the Yemeni army, with the ground support of popular committees and U.S. airstrikes, managed to temporarily dismantle the emirates, since locals didn\u2019t oppose government forces. In 2012, Nasser al-Wuhayshi wrote two letters to AQIM\u2019s leader, advising him to gradually implement shari\u2018a<\/em> and redesign models of governance not to alienate local population\u2019 sympathy[17]<\/a>: few years later, Abyan has become a lesson learned for the Yemeni al-Qaeda\u2019s node.<\/p>\n The affiliated Ansar al-Shari\u2018a seized Mukalla in April 2015: when jihadists took the control of the city, the local army\u2019s unit didn\u2019t intervene to prevent it. As usual, AQAP robbed bank deposits, released prisoners from the jail, abolished taxes. In Mukalla, the capital of the richest Yemeni governorate (oil and gas reserves), AQAP designed a well-functioning \u201cmilitant economy\u201d, imposing fees on ship traffic and organizing fuel smuggling.[18]<\/a> Qat<\/em> was banned, but shari\u2018a<\/em> was only intermittently implemented: this time, AQAP demonstrated to be an adaptable, pragmatic organization, deciding (maybe due to some initial protests in the town) to involve locals in administrative tasks. Therefore, AQAP has assured the military control of Mukalla, delegating civil government and its duties to local, tribal bodies: it is not by chance that AQAP rebranded here \u201cSons of Hadhramaut\u201d, echoing the historical Hadhrami quest for autonomy in order to rally consensus among inhabitants. The pro-AQAP Hadhrami Domestic Council (HDC), established in April 2015, was tasked to provide basic services and pay salaries: it encompasses some tribal shuyyukh<\/em>, academics and theologians. Differently from what occurred in Abyan in 2011, AQAP didn\u2019t raise the al-Qa\u2019ida black flag in Mukalla. Prioritizing governance on ideology, AQAP has attempted to solve water problems, land disputes between southerners and northerners, reconstructing damaged infrastructures and improving healthcare provisions. The Hadhramaut Tribal Confederacy (HTC), a military and security alliance established by prominent tribes on 2013 to rule the city, has always rejected AQAP and its brand-new banners; however, it has avoided direct confrontation with jihadists so far.[19]<\/a> In April 2016, at the dawn of the ground offensive to regain Mukalla (organized by the Yemeni army, plus Sunni militias, Emirati Presidential Guard\u2019s units and some U.S. militaries), AQAP decided a strategic withdrawal from the city, following local intermediation. Similarly, a recent AQAP\u2019s statement in Abyan (now rebranded \u201cSons of Abyan\u201d) warned women and children that the organization would attacked military commanders\u2019 homes. In the long-term, this community-oriented approach risks to be even more menacing for central authorities than the first, shari\u2018a<\/em>-driven one, especially in areas when central institutions were absent and unwelcomed since decades.<\/p>\n Conclusions and Perspectives<\/strong><\/p>\n The ideological and territorial space for AQAP and IS is going to expand without a viable, comprehensive political agreement between the Yemeni government and Shia rebels. Direct, informal talks between the Saudis and Ansarullah (the Huthis\u2019 political movement) have relatively settled violence along the Saudi border, but can\u2019t secure the south from jihadists\u2019 penetration. In this framework, intra-jihadi rivalry between AQAP and IS is likely to increase, because of a gradual convergence trend in operational areas and targets. Notwithstanding this phenomenon, AQAP maintains an hegemonic position within the Yemeni jihadi field with respect to IS. The concept of hegemony, traditionally applied to state actors, is referred here to a non-state actor (AQAP) which acts as a state actor in areas under its control: in these territories, AQAP shows, if compared to IS, superiority in military capabilities and financial resources, plus a certain degree of recognition by local populations. At a micro-level, AQAP\u2019s hegemony is corroborated by three factors: the \u02caemirates vanguard project\u02cb appeared in 2011, deep tribal linkages and local knowledge, a jihadist narrative able to mix ideological goals with indigenous customs and grievances, so creating an effective story-telling. Open IS-AQAP competition is going to influence AQAP\u2019s language and tactics, fueling sectarian rhetoric and polarizing mixed societies (as in the central Dhamar region). However, AQAP\u2019s new, community-oriented pattern of governance showed in Mukalla has been drawing a line between AQAP and IS directions in Yemen. Such a kind of governance can become even more resilient and difficult to eradicate with respect to the shari\u2018a<\/em>-driven model, since it directly bets on Sana\u2019a\u2019s chronical political failures, seeking for local support. From a regional perspective, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) started only in March 2016 to conduct airstrikes against jihadi havens in Yemen. Gulf monarchies have changed attitude vis-\u00e0-vis <\/em>AQAP threat in Yemen, as emphasized by Saudi Foreign Minister\u2019s recent interview on Le Figaro<\/em>, when he pictured jihadists, not Huthis, as the first military coalition\u2019s targets from that moment on.[20]<\/a> Beyond past ambiguities, Saudis and Emiratis decided to target AQAP and IS cells when they began to heavily threaten the stability of areas reconquered by the recognized government, as Aden. On the contrary, jihadi militias formerly participated in many battles where anti-Huthi forces were engaged.[21]<\/a> This occurred in central regions as Taiz, al-Bayda, Mareb and in the southern Abyan. Yemen is a \u201cmilieu of networks\u201d,[22]<\/a> open not only towards the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf, but on the road to the Horn of Africa too: in this sense, Aden\u2019s security remains critical.[23]<\/a> Aden (and to a lesser extent Mukalla) is a choke-point<\/em> for trade and energy and its instability could also provoke a resurgence of piracy in the Gulf of Aden. Moreover, the future implementation of the federal reform project, contested by many southern regional actors (for instance in Hadhramaut and al-Mahra), could furtherly turn local tribes towards AQAP.[24]<\/a><\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Elisabeth Kendall, \u201cAl-Qa\u2019ida and Islamic State in Yemen: A Battle for local audiences\u201d, in Simon Staffell-Akil Awan (eds), Jihadism Trasformed. Al-Qaeda and Islamic State\u2019s Global battle of ideas<\/em>, Oxford, University of Oxford, 2016.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> As the new newspaper Al-Masra and the media outlet Wikalat al-Athir, focused on welfare.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> The Aden-Abyan Islamic Army was organized in the 1990\u2019s by Abu Hasan Zayn al-Abadin al- Mihdhar, a Yemeni commander from Shabwa. The militia supported Saleh-led government against socialists in the south. Gregory D. Johnsen, The Resiliency of Yemen\u2019s Aden-Abyan Islamic Army<\/em>, Terrorism Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation, July 13, 2006.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Laurent Bonnefoy, \u201cVarieties of Islamism in Yemen: The Logic of Integration Under Pressure\u201d, Middle East Review<\/em> of International Affairs<\/em> 13, 1, 2009.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Franck Mermier, De la r\u00e9pression antiterroriste \u00e0 la r\u00e9pression antid\u00e9mocratique, Le Monde<\/em>, 7 gennaio 2010.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Shafeism is a synthesis between two schools of Islamic jurisprudence (madahib<\/em>): malikism, based on conservative tradition, and hanafism, which emphasizes the role of reason in religious understanding.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Emily Estelle, 2015 Yemen Crisis Situation Report: December 30<\/em>, The Critical Threats Project, America Enterprise Institute<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Katherine Zimmerman-Jon Diamond, Challenging the Yemeni State: ISIS in Aden and al Mukalla<\/em>, The Critical Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute, June 9, 2016.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Andrew Michaels-Sakhr Ayyash, AQAP\u2019s Resilience in Yemen<\/em>, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, September 24, 2013.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Elisabeth Kendall, op. cit.<\/em><\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Al-Arabiya, Al-Qaeda claims bombing that killed nearly 100 Yemeni soldiers<\/em>, May 21, 2012.<\/p>\n [12]<\/a> BBC News, Yemen Crisis, Islamic State claims Sanaa mosque attacks<\/em>, March 21, 2015.<\/p>\n [13]<\/a> Katherine Zimmerman, A New Model for Defeating al-Qaeda in Yemen<\/em>, American Enterprise Institute, September 2015; Bailey Palmer, 2016 Yemen Crisis Situation Report: June 14<\/em>, The Critical Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute.<\/p>\n [14]<\/a> Haykal Bafana, Hadhramaut: Rebellion, Federalism or Independence in Yemen?<\/em>, Muftah, April 22, 2014.<\/p>\n [15]<\/a> Jeff Colgan, How sectarianism shapes Yemen\u2019s war<\/em>, The Mokey Cage Blog, The Washington Post, April 13, 2015.<\/p>\n [16]<\/a> Robin Sincox, Ansar al-Sharia and Governance in Southern Yemen<\/em>, Hudson Institute, December 27, 2013.<\/p>\n [17]<\/a> Michael Horton, Capitalizing on Chaos: AQAP Advances in Yemen<\/em>, Terrorism Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation, February 19, 2016.<\/p>\n [18]<\/a> Yara Bayoumi-Noah Browning-Mohammed Ghobari, How Saudi Arabia\u2019s war in Yemen has made al Qaeda<\/em> stronger- and richer<\/em>, Reuters, April 8, 2016.<\/p>\n [19]<\/a> Katherine Zimmerman, A New Model for Defeating al-Qaeda in Yemen<\/em>, op.cit.<\/p>\n [20]<\/a> Georges Malbrunot, L\u2019Arabie saoudite change de priorit\u00e9 au Y\u00e9men<\/em>, (interview with Adel al-Jubeir), May 10, 2016, Le Figaro.<\/p>\n [21]<\/a> Anti-Huthi forces refer to a loose coalition of Islah\u2019s militias (the party which encompasses Yemeni Muslim Brothers and Salafis), al-Hiraak pro-independence militants, popular committees and other tribal warriors.<\/p>\n [22]<\/a> Anna Maria Medici, \u201cA Weak State\u2019s Awakening\u201d, in Anna Maria Medici (ed), After The Yemeni Spring: A Survey on the Transition<\/em>, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2012.<\/p>\n [23]<\/a> Nadwa al-Dawsari, Rethinking Yemen\u2019s Stability. Why Stabilizing Yemen Must Start in Aden<\/em>, Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED), October 29, 2015; on Aden\u2019s regional (in)security complex, Eleonora Ardemagni, The Yemeni<\/em> Conflict. Genealogy, Game-Changers and Regional Implications<\/em>, Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), Analysis, n\u00b0 294, April 2016.<\/p>\n [24]<\/a> Eleonora Ardemagni, Beyond the North\/South Narrative: Conflict and Federalism in Eastern Yemen,<\/em> in \u201cReflections from Yemen: narratives of Resilience\u201d, LSE Middle East Centre Blog, May 16, 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In Yemen, the intra-jihadi rivalry between al-Qa\u2019ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and local cells of the so-called Islamic State has been gaining momentum, exacerbated by the ongoing multilayered conflict in the country. Since the beginningRead More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2807,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[29,264,87,216,39],"class_list":["post-2801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-terrorism","tag-al-qaeda","tag-daesh","tag-isis","tag-terrorism","tag-yemen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2801"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2810,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2801\/revisions\/2810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Yemen_Religious\"](\"http:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/06_Yemen_Al_Qaeda-ECFR.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"01_Yemen_Federal](\"http:\/\/www.itstime.it\/w\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/01_Yemen_Federal-ECFR-current-federal-division.jpg\")
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