The Brotherhood’s ties to Al-Qaida and ISIS in Yemen

Ahmed Adel

Terrorist organizations are trying to exploit the current situation in the south of Yemen to restructure itself, to launch attacks in the country.

The return of Al-Qaida and ISIL to the forefront of events is a crisis that threatens to undermine all efforts made to combat them on Yemeni soil, which the UAE stressed the need for the international community to ensure that terrorist organizations do not exploit the status quo and return to the Yemeni arena.

Two attacks on Friday, August 30, targeted the temporary capital of Aden, where al-Qaeda announced the targeting of the commander of the security belt forces in Aden, Wadah Omar, while overseeing a security campaign against the outlaws.

The other attack, which ISIS claimed responsibility for it, and resulted in a number of deaths and injuries. It targeted a patrol of the security belt forces in Al-Karaa district of Dar Saad district, north of Aden, and was carried out by a suicide bomber driving a booby-trapped motorcycle.

Al-Qaeda emerged after the end of the north-south war in 1994 and until 2006. Al-Qaeda was active in Yemen with the return of the so-called Arab Afghans. The focus was mainly on striking the United States, not the Yemeni regime.

In 1997, the so-called Aden Abyan Army, founded by Abu al-Hasan al-Mihdar, recruited and trained young men in various types of weapons in al-Maraqsha area in Shabwa and Abyan governorates.

They abducted 16 Western tourists demanding the government release some extremists, but the Yemeni government refused. The government insisted on forcibly freeing the hostages, killing four of them before the rest were released. Abu al-Hasan al-Mihdar was arrested and sentenced to death.

On October 12, 2000, a small boat collided with the USS Cole in the port of Aden. It exploded and was killed in the al-Qaeda operation, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 19.

In November 2014, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) rejected the declaration of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organization, as a successor to Muslims, where the leader Harith al-Nazari declared ISIS one of the jihadist groups and that the declaration of caliphate did not meet the necessary conditions. This declaration does not invalidate the legitimacy of other Islamist groups operating in the arena.

ISIS debuts in Yemen with the announcement of an assassination attempt on former vice president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the October 2015 attack on the Palace Hotel in Aden.

The bombing of the convoy of the governor of Aden, Jaafar Mohammed Saad, in December 2015, confirm through the broadcast of the organization in a series of clips on the websites through his determination and his desire to establish the so-called “Islamic State of Aden”.

ISIS operations continued in Aden, Lahj and Abyan, leaving hundreds of victims, both civilian and military, requiring the creation of specialized counterterrorism security forces.

According to a report issued by the United Nations this year, estimates of the elements of ISIS range from 250 to 500, while estimates for members of the “Al-Qaeda” to seven thousand, distributed in different provinces, and targeted by US raids that rely on intelligence, and carried out by aircraft.

After the emergence of “Daesh” in Iraq and Syria, a video of terrorist elements appeared to declare allegiance to the organization and the establishment of the so-called «Abyan» and the terrorist organization took control of the Directorate of Jaar in Abyan province.

cruited its al-Qaeda operatives after showing brutality in its terrorist operations in 2015 and its attempts to take over Aden, which had been liberated from the Houthi militias in July 2015, but experienced a wave of violent operations.

In early 2017, the emir of al-Qaeda in Yemen, Qasim al-Rimi, announced that the organization had fought alongside the Brotherhood, on several fronts such as Sarawah in Marib, Bayhan in Shabwa, a number of fronts in al-Bayda governorate, as well as in al-Jawf and Taiz.

The American Center for Studies also revealed that the relationship between the Muslim Brotherhood and all other terrorist organizations, especially Al-Qaeda, is characterized by complexity, as it involves a process of influence and influence between them, groups need necessarily funds and economic flows; in order to complete its tasks assigned to it, and it seems that Qatar is playing this role through Islah Party, which was announced by the Paris Forum for Peace and Development, held on March 28, 2018, where it submitted a report accusing Qatar of “funding al-Qaeda elements through ransom payment, the Gulf state pretended to be innocent; to liberate the Swiss Sylvia, in March The year 2012, of course, paid the money through Muslim Brotherhood, through the elements of the Muslim Brotherhood Islah Party.

In May 2016, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash charged the Yemeni brotherhood with an alliance with al-Qaeda, which controlled the city of Mukalla before being expelled by the Arab coalition forces and the Yemeni resistance, saying in a tweet on Twitter: Mukalla found many real and tangible evidence of cooperation and coordination between the Brotherhood and al-Qaeda, adding that their conviction is clear about the alliance of opportunism and terrorism ».