Rada'a, AQAP, Ansar al-Shariah, and the al-Dhahab Family

Nine days ago, on Saturday January 14, several dozen armed men streamed into the historic city of Rada'a, just over 100 miles south of Sanaa.

The men were under the command of Tariq al-Dhahab, a leading shaykh from the powerful al-Qayfah tribe, which is based in the area.  Al-Dhahab just happens to the brother-in-law of the late Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed by a US drone strike last September.  Some reports even have al-Dhahab providing shelter to, and traveling with, Awlaki in the months before his death. 

That first evening al-Dhahab's men reportedly took over the historic Amarriya mosque/school in the center of town. (I have visited this mosque several times, pic here, which was restored by the late Selma al-Radi with substantial funding from the Dutch, US and others.)

Tariq al-Dhahab gave the sermon in the Amariya, attacking the Huthis and calling for solidarity among Muslims.  Al-Masdar Online (Arabic) has the most detailed account of that first evening.   After prayers, the men reportedly withdrew to the citadel (pictured above) which has a commanding view of the city.

Along the way, several prisoners (estimates vary widely) managed to escape.  Tariq al-Dhahab would later claim that his men weren't responsible for the prison break - unsurprisingly he blamed the Huthis - saying that his men had only freed three prisoners.

Regardless of who actually set the prisoners free, the ease in which Tariq and his men flowed into the city and took control of certain areas (saying its a "takeover" of the entire city is misleading) led a number of Yemenis, including Tariq's own brother, Khalid, to suggest that the men were cooperating with Yemeni security services and under the command of President Salih, who wanted to use them in a desperate last-ditch attempt to remain in power in Yemen.

This theory, I believe, is overblown.  President Salih has certainly manipulated the presence of AQAP and Islamic militants to gain support from the west, but then, so has the opposition.  Both sides uses them as a stick to whack each other with.  But that doesn't mean that AQAP doesn't exist independently of both; they do.

A short video of Tariq, appealing for unity and claiming that the Arabian Peninsula would soon be liberated (rhetoric that tracks closely with what AQAP has been saying) made the rounds first on You Tube and then on Yemeni news sites.  Shortly after that recording went live, Tariq appeared on BBC Arabic.  Although only a phone interview, Tariq seems much more conciliatory and dances around the questions he doesn't like.

Throughout his various interviews, Tariq has made some cutting critiques of the current political system in Yemen.  He laughed off the allegations of many that he was working with Yemen's security forces, asking sarcastically why he should work with people who were cooperating with the Americans in trying to kill them.  Good point.

When one tribal mediation team attempted to get Tariq's men to withdraw by saying that the upcoming elections in Yemen were the way to get his grievances dealt with, Tariq basically told him to get real, arguing that GPC and the opposition were both part of the problem in Yemen.  Again, no matter what one thinks of Tariq's overall points, it is hard to argue with his critique of contemporary politics.

Tariq has said his men would withdraw from Rada'a if Yemen released 15 prisoners believed to be members of al-Qaeda, including his brother Nabil, who was arrested in Syria in 2006 for trying to cross over into Iraq.  (Today, al-Masdar Online published the names of the 15.) The government refused the offer, and today their are reports that tanks and troops are headed south to deal with Tariq.

Meanwhile, the al-Dhahab family, which includes the Shaykh mashaykh of the al-Qayfah tribe is publicly distancing itself from Tariq.

So what all does this tell us?

Well, I think a number of things, including I believe an insight into the AQAP-Ansar al-Shariah links that have many asking questions.

At the same time Tariq al-Dhahab and his men in Ansar al-Shariah were holding down positions in Rada'a, farther south in Abyan a member of Ansar al-Shariah was giving a press conference - or at least what passes for a press conference - in Abyan.  Several interesting things came out of the interview.

But the two that stuck out to me were 1. The commander, Abu Hamza, said Ansar al-Shariah was consciously modeling itself on the Taliban.  This confirmed, at least to me, what I had suggested earlier on twitter (and with a full analysis in a piece I just submitted).  Abu Hamza also avoided questions about AQAP, saying he was "only authorized" to speak about issues in Abyan.  For someone trotted out to give an interview, this is a fairly narrow brief.

Additionally, over the past several days, Ansar al-Shariah have released several newsletters and one video, all dated November 2011.  Most of them aren't much to speak of, but the pair released this morning - Newsletter No. 6 and a video - are different.  The newsletter and video both claim to show pictures of US soldiers stationed at the Sheraton Hotel in Sanaa, and the newsletter names other hotels around the country where US soldiers have been spotted.

The argument Ansar al-Shariah is attempting to make is the one AQAP attempted to make in 2009 and 2010 - that Yemen is under western military attack/occupation, which requires Yemenis to take up arms against foreign/non-Muslim soldiers in the country.

AQAP hasn't had as much success as it would have liked with this argument, and Ansar al-Shariah is clearly hoping that the pictures of US soldiers (some in full combat gear) will outrage Yemenis.

There is a lot more here, but for the moment I think it is safe to say that we are seeing the crystallization of a strategy that AQAP has been working on as 2011 uprisings swept across the Arab world. 

More to come in the piece, I teased above.