Former Iraqi Baath Officers Took Refuge in Yemen During the US-led invasion of Iraq

Jan. 08, 10 (Hamsayeh.Net) - United States is in close cooperation with the former Iraqi Baathist officers to counter Al Qaeda in Yemen, the British Telegraph newspaper reported from Yemen. 

 

According to the report US intelligence officers have close working relationship with former Saddam Hussein regime's Baathists who fled to Yemen during or after the US led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Many of those officers now work with the government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's incumbent president. ‘Many saw it as a transit point, but others stayed here and became government experts.’ Said a prominent analyst.

 

Ali Abdullah Saleh was a close friend of the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to the extend that the current government in Yemeni has many similarities to the Baath regime in Iraq before it was toppled. Abdullah Saleh shares Saddam Hussein’s own puritanical interpretation of Islam known as Salafism. The same extremist views also shared perhaps by Al Qaeda fighters during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 80’s.  

 

Yamen is currently experiencing a civil war between the Houthis and the government on the one hand and increasing presence of Al Qaeda members in the country, on the other. The US seeks to help Yemen's army to fight off the Al Qaeda network and in this way receives intelligence from former Baathist intelligence officers. It is said it was through this source that Washington received early tips on a bombing plot onboard a US bound passenger plane by a young Nigerian man on the Christmas day. 

 

Both UK and US have voiced support for the Yemeni government’s crack down on Al Qaeda members. But many experts familiar with the situation say that foreign forces should stay out of Yemen's conflict altogether or otherwise it will become another quagmire for foreign military presence in the region.