Aden Abyan Islamic Army

AAIA

12/12/2006

The Aden Abyan Islamic Army emerged publicly in mid-1998 when the group released a series of communiqués that expressed support for the overthrow of the Yemeni government and for operations against U.S. and other Western interests in Yemen. The Islamic Army praised the attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998 as "an heroic operation carried out by heroes of the jihad." They announced their support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban following the American reprisal raid on his camps in Afghanistan by way of Clinton's cruise missiles. The AAIA called on the Yemeni people to kill Americans and destroy their property.

In November 1998, al-Mehdar called on all members of the Yemeni parliament and Consultative Council to resign and demanded that President Ali Abdullah Salih surrender and face trial in accordance with Sharia Law. His hostility towards the Yemeni government stemmed from his conclusion that Shari'a Law was not applied properly in Yemen.

Al-Mehdar, who died at 32, came from an important tribe in the Shabwa province. His clan practiced salafi Islam and enjoyed relationships with Wahhabists in neighboring Saudi Arabia. He fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s and on his return to Yemen in the early 1990s became associated with Islamic Jihad. Like most mujahideen returning to Yemen, Mehdar worked as a jihadist for Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, during the 1994 civil war and then later turned against him.

The Aden Abyan Islamic Army is suspected of being an offshoot of the Yemeni Islamic Jihad, a group of terrorists supported by bin Laden and other Salafist Islamic groups, religious, political, charitable, or otherwise. The majority of its members are former mujahideen with experience in the Great Jihad.

Saleh Haidara al-Atwi was also a leader of Yemen's Islamic Jihad and the Aden Abyan Islamic Army. Two weeks after his December 1998 arrest, ten AAIA militants attacked a five vehicle convoy of Western tourists, taking 16 of them hostage and demanding the release of al-Atwi and another high-ranking Islamic terrorists. A rescue operation conducted by Yemeni security forces secured the release of 12 hostages, though four were killed and three were wounded in the rescue. After a trial that lasted from October 1999 to June 2000, al-Atwi was given a sentence of 7 years in prison. He has since been released or allowed to escape.