January 02, 2003
Yemen tries to atone for those Americans slayings
Yemen Rounding Up 'Scores' of Islamic Militants
The two men accused of killing three American missionaries and a prominent Yemeni politician may be part of a larger terrorist cell that planned to attack foreigners and secular leaders in Yemen, a security official said Wednesday.
[...]
Yemeni officials said Tuesday that they have strong suspicions Kamel, the suspect in the missionaries' killing, is linked to the Al Qaeda terror group. Yemen is Usama bin Laden's ancestral homeland and has been a fertile recruiting ground for Al Qaeda.
At a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the government urged police and security forces to redouble their efforts "to trace those connected with these horrible criminal acts," Saba reported. It also called on religious leaders to preach sermons that support "moderate Islam."
But anti-American sentiment is high in Yemen over Washington's perceived support for Israel and the standoff with Iraq.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the most effort we've seen an Islamic country make in the War on Islamist terror and I like it!
(It should be noted that Indonesian Muslims made somewhat of an outcry over the Bali bombings in October, but Yemenis seem to have done a much more impressive job of "rooting out" the "evildoers" in this case.)
I don't know if our release of that ship bearing Scuds to Yemen "helped" our partnership along, but they're making the right kinds of moves now after these 3 murders of American Christian missionaries, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the attack on the French tanker.
The call for the clerics to preach "moderate Islam" is the most important thing to me, as the love for jihad and killing infidels is obviously coming out of the the Wahabbist mosques (funded by our "friend" Saudi Arabia, next door, natch!), as is their rancor against our support for Israel.
I'm sure that they view solidarity with Saddam as a "Pan-Arab", Muslim thang, too. Too bad.
Let's hope these arrests aren't just for show and that the Yemenis are really serious about stamping out extremist and radical Islamist terrorists!
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