Al-Qa’ida has recently completed a major reform of its forces in the Arabian Peninsula, merging its arms in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
The joint forces will carry out operations “across the Arabian Peninsula and beyond,” the organization announced earlier this week, according to Al-Jazeera TV’s website.
Deputy Al-Qa’ida chief Ayman A-Zawahiri has announced the appointment of Nasir Wuheishi as leader of the new combined forces, and Sa’id A-Shihri as his second-in-command.
The announcement came only a few days after Al-Qa’ida warned it would launch attacks against American and other Western targets. Earlier this week, a shooting attack occurred outside the American Embassy in the Yemeni capital ‘San’aa. Three people have been detained for interrogation over the shooting incident, which ended with no injuries or damage.
Yemen has recently jailed many Islamists affiliated with terror organizations, in connection with the bombings of Western targets in the country.
This has been the second attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen in the past four months.
An attack on September 17, 2008 claimed the lives of 16 people. Using two cars, terrorists disguised as Yemeni soldiers managed to reach the front gate of the heavily fortified embassy complex, passing several roadblocks before their identities were discovered. One car bomb was set off, followed by an assault using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades.
The September attack was the first major assault on U.S. targets in Yemen since the attack on the USS Cole outside the port of Aden in 2000, which left 17 sailors dead.
After the 9/11 attacks in 2001 Yemeni President ‘Ali ‘Abdallah ‘Salih increased the country’s counter-terrorism cooperation with the U.S.
Saudi Arabia under threat
Last July, Abu Yahia A-Libi, a local Al-Qa’ida leader, called for the assassination of Saudi Arabia’s king for his leading role in the Madrid Interfaith Conference.
A-Libi, who escaped from the U.S. prison in Bagram, Pakistan in 2005, blamed King ‘Abdallah Bin ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud for “renouncing Islam” by bringing religions together.
King ‘Abdallah sponsored a conference in Madrid, which was comprised of representatives of five large faiths: Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism.
During the July Interfaith Conference, the Saudi king called on the Muslim, Christian and Jewish participants to join him in an effort at reconciliation, while rejecting the forces of "religious fanaticism."
In the past few years, Al-Qa’ida has openly denounced the Saudi royal family for its cooperation with the United States.
A series of Al-Qa’ida attacks on Saudi soil in 2003 and 2004 was aimed at destabilizing U.S.-Saudi relations. In May 2003, suicide bombers killed 34 people, including eight Americans, at a housing compound for Westerners. A year later, the organization attacked oil installations taking hostage foreign workers and leaving 22 people dead, including an American. In June 2004, three American nationals were killed during one week. And in December that year, terrorists stormed the American consulate, killing five staff members.
Since then, the Saudi security authorities have launched multiple waves of arrests against people suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. In 2007, an Al-Qa’ida terror cell was apprehended and charged with planning a series of mega-terror attacks against Saudi gas and oil installations, aimed at bringing down the regime.
The group’s members confessed they acted upon a religious decree issued by Osama Bin Laden. They said they believed that by cutting off the oil and gas supply to the West, the American forces would have been lured into Saudi Arabia, where Al-Qa’ida could then fight them directly.