According to Ahmed Abdullah al-Hasani, who will later head the Yemeni navy and be Yemen’s ambassador to Syria, men from the Islamic Army of Aden (IAA) meet with Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, half-brother of Yemen’s president Ali Abdallah Saleh. Al-Ahmar helped recruit Islamist radicals to fight in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War (see 1980-1990) and allegedly later received a payment from Osama bin Laden to help settle Afghan Arabs in Yemen (see May 21-July 7, 1994). The meeting follows the breaking up of an IAA plot to attack targets in Aden (see Before December 23, 1998 and December 23, 1998), and comes two days before the IAA takes Western hostages in an attempt to obtain the release of six recently arrested IAA operatives (see December 28-29, 1998). Al-Hasani will say, “Two days before the killings, members of the terrorist group were in al-Ahmar’s house in Sana’a,” the capital of Yemen. “They were also in telephone contact with Sana’a just before the shootings.” [Sunday Times (London), 5/8/2005] Authors Sean O’Neill and Daniel McGrory will write that during the kidnapping, IAA leader Zein al-Abidine Almihdhar “bark[s] out his demands for a prisoner swap over the telephone to a half-brother of Yemen’s President Saleh, among others.” Presumably, this half-brother is al-Ahmar. In addition, on the last day of the kidnapping Almihdhar tells a local dignitary, “We have contacts at the highest level and we are expecting a response from them at noon.” [O’Neill and McGrory, 2006, pp. 159-160] Exactly what al-Ahmar knows of the kidnapping in advance, if anything, is unclear.
April 27, 2005: Yemeni Defector Alleges High-Level Official Collaboration in Militant Attacks
A high-ranking Yemeni defector alleges that the highest ranks of Yemen’s military and security forces have long collaborated with radical militants in the country. The defector, Ahmed Abdullah al-Hasani, was head of Yemen’s navy at the time of the USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000) and recently served as its ambassador to Syria. Al-Hasani claims that the perpetrators of the USS Cole attack “are well known by the regime and some are still officers in the national army.” The Yemeni government hindered the Cole investigation (see After October 12, 2000). Al-Hasani also says that Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, an army commander who is the half-brother of President Ali Abdallah Saleh and has links with radical militants (see 1980-1990 and May 21-July 7, 1994), was involved in a plot to kidnap Western tourists in 1998 (see December 26, 1998 and December 28-29, 1998). Al-Hasani arrived in Britain with his family, and is apparently debriefed by Western intelligence agencies. He claims to have fallen out with President Saleh over discrimination against southern Yemenis and fears he will be assassinated if he returns home. Yemeni authorities dismiss al-Hasani’s claims. “All these allegations are untrue and groundless,” says a government spokesman. “This man is making these allegations in order to legitimise and give significance to his claim of asylum.” [Sunday Times (London), 5/8/2005]
