ADEN, Yemen — A hatred of the government in southern Yemen is complicating efforts backed by the United States to stem al-Qaeda’s ambitions across the region, according to Western and Yemeni officials, analysts and human-rights activists.
The concerns highlight the extent to which the United States, as it deepens its military engagement in Yemen, is teaming up with a government facing internal divisions that in some ways are more complex than those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In a speech this week, President Barack Obama said the United States has worked closely with its partners, including Yemen, “to inflict major blows” against al-Qaeda. But experts familiar with the group in Yemen say it is poised to exploit the country’s divide to attract recruits and more sympathy from the south’s powerful tribes.
“Al-Qaeda dreams of secession,” said Najib Ghallab, a political-science professor at Sanaa University. “It wants to turn the south into the perfect breeding ground for global terrorism.”
Once two countries, Yemen unified in 1990. But a brief civil war broke out in 1994. From the north, President Ali Abdullah Saleh dispatched thousands of Yemeni mujahedeen who had fought in Afghanistan as well as Salafists, who follow a strict interpretation of Islam, to fight the southerners.
Ever since, tension has gripped this vast region. The government’s resources are stretched thin as it also grapples with a Shiite rebellion in the north.
“We no longer want our rights from the government. We want a separate north and south,” said Ahmed Kassim, a secessionist leader who spoke in a hushed tone inside a car on a recent day in this southern port city.
Any melding of the Southern Movement, a loosely knit coalition, and al-Qaeda is far from established, said Christoph Wilcke, a Human Rights Watch researcher for Yemen.
