Yemen shots
Music
00:00
Corcoran: According to ancient Yemeni proverb, “A foreigner should always be well behaved”. Perhaps a warning to be heeded today on the streets of the capital Sana’a – now a clandestine battlefield in Washington’s declared war on terrorism.
Hull: Yemen is an important theatre.
00:17
Hull
It is a theatre that Al Qaeda has given a great deal of priority to in the past.
00:43
Corcoran: The threat compounded by the fact that Yemen is awash with guns – as many as 60 million firearms in a nation of only 20 million people. Freely distributed during the decades of war and political chaos that ensued here until the mid 90s.
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: To a terrorist arms is like heroin to an addict –
Dr Al Qirbi: If you have the money – you will get it.
Corcoran: And you’ve got the supply here?
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: And we have the supply here.
01:17
Police checkpoint
Corcoran: Firearms are prohibited in Sana’a and at checkpoints police do their best to enforce the ban – though some need a gentle reminder not to bring their guns to town.
01:29
Registered weapons are collected when their owners return home to the tribal areas, where honour and survival can rest on the barrel of a Kalashnakov.
01:44
Tribesman
Tribesman: The tribal regions here are very harsh risky places and this means that you need to carry guns with you.
01:58
Tribesmen with guns
Corcoran: In the 1980s thousands of these men marched off to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Many later returning home – fired by the zeal of jihad – to join what became known as Al Qaeda.
After the collapse of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in 2001, Osama bin Laden was left looking for a new base – and there were fears that Yemen – would be the obvious choice – this was, after all, bin Laden’s ancestral homeland.
02:10
Shooting in desert
Corcoran: But more importantly, large chunks of this country were outside the effective control of the Government – ruled by tribes sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism. However, in the last three years, Yemen’s Government has fought back. Secretly aided by US Special Forces and CIA teams, the Yemenis have waged an unorthodox war on terror, a campaign that so far, they appear to be winning.
02:47
Yemeni Special forces
Amid the rugged lunar terrain – Yemeni Special Forces close in for the kill – the target - 60 members of the Al Qaeda linked group – the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. This battle – fought last year – remains the only anti-terrorist operation the Yemeni Government has ever permitted a TV camera to record.
Military advisers
Remaining firmly out of sight – are the US military advisers – Yemen’s Government acutely sensitive about images of Americans directing their men to kill fellow Arabs.
04:03
Corcoran: The Special Forces are backed by overwhelming firepower, as picking a fight with extremists often means taking on their heavily armed tribal hosts as well.
04:19
It takes five days of heavy fighting to overwhelm the militants, killing 10. This man in the blue singlet – among the 20 captured – is a local tribesman recruited to the struggle.
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: I think like any ordinary people,
04:35
Captured tribesman
The tribesmen can be easily misled by the slogans that are raised by the extremist groups.
04:53
Super:
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi
Foreign Minister, Yemen
Corcoran: What is Al Qaeda telling these people in order to try and get them onside?
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: I think they are telling them that they are trying to get Muslim countries to be ruled by Islam and by Islamic traditional religious teachings.
04:59
Captured tribesman
Corcoran: If he’d been caught in Afghanistan this prisoner would have been shipped to
Guantanamo Bay. But Yemen refuses to hand over captives to the Americans – and if he hasn’t actually killed anyone, he may soon be free.
05:16
Justice Ministry
A total of 248 terror suspects have been detained in Yemen and we are on our way to meet one of them at the Justice Ministry in Sana’a.
Yemen has taken a highly unorthodox approach to combating terrorism. A compromise between Washington’s demand to destroy the extremists – and the views of many Yemenis who are sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Nasser al Bahri had dedicated his life to Al Qaeda – a militant who was prepared to kill for the cause.
05:32
Nasser
Corcoran: So you were a member of Al Qaeda?
Nasser: Yes, for many years I was a member of Al Qaeda.
Corcoran: How many years?
Nasser: Five years
Corcoran: What did you do in Al Qaeda?
Nasser: I did many things (laughs).
Translator: The most important thing is how he is now.
06:07
Corcoran: Nasser is secretive – but he does reveal that before joining Al Qaeda, he spent five years fighting as an Islamic holy warrior in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Chechnya.
06:32
Nasser: I got the opportunity to join the jihad in Bosnia and many other places and our main concern at that time was how to defend our rights against those people who try to invade our countries – and at the time Al Qaeda was the best choice – but not now.
06:43
Corcoran: Captured in Yemen, he spent a year in jail – before agreeing to join a controversial new government rehabilitation program releasing those Al Qaeda members who renounce the movement.
06:58
128 have been freed – including Nasser – who has just completed the required 12 months parole – under the supervision of Judge Hamood Al Hitar – architect of the program.
Judge Hamood
Judge Hamood al Hitar: He was very much a fanatic and extremist – now you find him very moderate. Didn’t he receive you very warmly, even though he knows you are not Muslims?
07:26
Judge with Nasser
Corcoran: Judge Hitar says none of those released have blood on their hands – prisoners who’ve committed acts of terrorism remain behind bars. Nasser is now on his way back onto the streets, a free man. Judge Hitar claims the scheme has badly undermined Al Qaeda’s morale. But the Americans are – not surprisingly – sceptical.
07:40
Super:
Edmund Hull
U.S. Ambassador
Corcoran: Do you support that initiative?
Hull: I think it has to be done very, very carefully. I think it is easy for people to dissemble, and I think the Egyptians have had some success with it in the ‘90s, but one should be extremely careful, and take every precaution, both before any releases and then after any releases.
Corcoran: Do you think it is working so far?
Hull: I don’t think we are in a position to judge that.
08:03
Music
08:40
US Navy ship
Corcoran: America’s war against terrorism in Yemen began in October 2000 after a suicide boat rammed an American warship the USS Cole – killing 17 sailors. Initially, the Yemenis were reluctant to cooperate – that all changed after September 11 2001 – when the Americans declared ‘you are either with us or against us’.
08:49
Security agents in desert
Corcoran: A largely covert campaign followed. Militant bombings and murders matched by government raids and arrests, with Yemeni security agents often blocking media attempts to cover the struggle.
09:18
This was the aftermath of Washington’s most spectacular success in November 2002, when a CIA Predator drone, acting on a tip off from the Yemenis, fired a missile at 4 Wheel Drive racing across the desert. The six occupants were killed instantly – among them Abu Ali Al Harithi - Al Qaeda’s top man in Yemen - the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Hull
Hull: It was significant in that it did eliminate Abu Ali Al Harithi who was the leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen, and we have seen since then attempts by Al Qaeda to replace him, but none that have had any great success.
09:58
Hull visit
Corcoran: In the weeks preceding the Predator strike Ambassador Hull had been in the area, gathering intelligence on Al Harithi’s movements. American Ambassadors don’t normally get involved in targeted assassinations, but then Edmund Hull is no ordinary diplomat.
Appointed in the wake of September 11, he was formerly the State Department’s Chief of Counter terrorism.
10:23
Hull: We try to use every appropriate tool in the toolbox to counter terrorism here.
10:52
Corcoran: The public face of this largely covert war – Ambassador Hull ventures into the desperately poor tribal areas – to buy the support of sheikhs suspected of harbouring Al Qaeda. He’s spent more than $100 million U.S. dollars - mainly on local roads, clinics and schools – dispensing largesse Yemen’s Government can’t afford.
11:02
Hull
Hull: Yemen is a somewhat special place, in that the tribes, especially in the north are very strong, and very important social structures here. In the past, I think bin Laden has thought, mistakenly, that that was an opportunity for him.
11:25
Military warehouse
Corcoran: Quantifying progress in a war on terrorism can be difficult. So, the Yemenis invite us to inspect what was until our visit, a secret military warehouse. Revealed for the first time, is an Aladdin’s cave of heavy weaponry – missiles, anti-aircraft guns, plastic explosives. All purchased on the tribal black market by Government agents as part of a weapons buy-back scheme.
11:48
Colonel
Colonel: During the previous wars in Yemen, these weapons were in the hands of the tribes. They’ve been taken away from the tribes and stored here and naturally this has cost Yemen’s government a lot of money.
12:21
Corcoran: The colonel in charge claims to have amassed this arsenal in just eight months – at a cost of $34 million U.S. dollars – money diverted from scarce development funds. But this is believed to be just a fraction of the hidden tribal stockpiles – all readily available to Al Qaeda.
Colonel
Colonel: There might still be big quantities lying around, but we are happy about what we have achieved so far with a very heavy cost to the country’s development.
12:57
Super:
Edmund Hull
U.S. Ambassador
Hull: I think there is a way to go. I also think that you have to make sure that you are not creating an arms market and creating a demand inside the country so that weapons flow into the country to replace weapons that you have purchased.
13:09
Military warehouse
Corcoran: Ambassador Hull fears many of these weapons were destined to be smuggled across the desert border with neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where Al Qaeda is waging another bloody campaign to topple the ruling monarchy.
Hull: I think there is a problem
13:32
with weapons and explosives flowing towards Saudi Arabia. And I think there is a problem with money flowing from Saudi Arabia to Yemen.
Corcoran: So this is Al Qaeda moving weapons into Saudi to destabilise the Government? And Al Qaeda money coming south to fund operations in Yemen?
Hull: Yes.
Corcoran: And has that been stopped. Have they halted that flow?
Hull: No – not entirely. I think it is a continuing challenge.
13:52
Tribes people
Music
14:20
Marib
Corcoran: Three hours drive from Sana’a lies the squalid northern tribal city of Marib - a fundamentalist stronghold near the border with Saudi Arabia. We’re only permitted to visit with a heavily armed police escort.
14:32
It’s a poor region that’s received barely a trickle of Yemen’s modest oil wealth. Kidnapping foreigners for money or Government aid was once an industry here. More than 200 hostages were seized in Yemen during the ‘90s – most were released unharmed, although 3 Britons and an Australian died in one botched rescue attempt. Since September 11, there’ve been precious few visitors to seize – about their only regular guest is the U.S. Ambassador.
14:51
Tribesmen
1st Tribesman: Frankly we don’t want the Americans, they are not accepted.
2nd Tribesman: Americans are rejected.
15:25
Corcoran: And what do you think about the Muslim fundamentalists that are here?
4th Tribesman: They are Muslims fighting against Jews.
1st Tribesman: They are preachers of Islam, they’re not terrorists.
4th Tribesman: They are good !
Portrait of Saleh
Corcoran: The portrait of Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs in the main street, but his regime’s control over Marib is tenuous – now imposed by thousands of police and army reinforcements, attempting to seal the Saudi border.
The backing of the Americans in this campaign has delivered Yemen’s Government a pretext to finally reign in these rebellious tribesmen and they don’t like it.
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: This is the concerns of the tribesmen of course, because they have been used to depend on their Sheikhs to
15:52
Super:
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi
Foreign Minister, Yemen
rule and to administer their regions, and in modern government this is not acceptable and whether there is terrorism or not, the Government has to extend its authority to all parts of Yemen.
16:28
Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider meeting
Corcoran: At the fortified residence of one of Marib’s traditional leaders, we meet Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider of the Al Ashraf tribe. Out of courtesy, most, but not all the weapons have
been removed.
16:43
Sheik Haider is a master of desert diplomacy. He says he doesn’t know what all the fuss is about, because there is no arms smuggling. As for Al Qaeda - he insists it simply doesn’t exist.
16:58
Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider
Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider: There is no Al Qaeda. This is just a campaign against Islam. Sometimes they use Al Qaeda, to attack Iraq, to attack Afghanistan. And even if the Al Qaeda exists – who has created Al Qaeda armed Al Qaeda and provided Al Qaeda with all these things? Isn’t it the United States? We are not part of the equation.
17:12
Sana’a streets
Corcoran: Back on the streets of Sana’a there’s surprisingly little opposition to American involvement here, but what people do deeply resent is Washington’s support for Israel and the U.S. led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
17:48
Gamal Al Jaabi: They are angry from American policy.
Corcoran walks with Al Jaabi
Corcoran: Gamal Al Jaabi – is a prominent Human Rights lawyer and Yemeni nationalist. He says Al Qaeda enjoys considerable support because it symbolises an effective resistance against the U.S.
18:05
Gamal Al Jaabi
Gamal Al Jaabi: The problem with Al Qaeda is that it represents a challenge to American supremacy. The sympathy that it enjoys is due to its standing up against its enemies - the American enemy - who unconditionally supports the Israelis against the Palestinians.
18:22
Music
18:51
Amin Al Mashrigi with dagger
Corcoran: This man symbolises Yemen’s highly unorthodox approach to the War on Terrorism.
18:57
Amin Al Mashrigi is a former army officer turned poet and propagandist. These days he goes to war armed only with verse and his traditional dagger, worn as a sign of solidarity with the tribesmen whose hearts and minds he seeks to win with his message.
Amin al Mashrigi
Amin al Mashrigi: It’s a noble undertaking which conveys messages of love and peace and fights terrorism in all its forms and spreads high ideals of compassion and cooperation and the renunciation of all bad tradition and habits.
19:22
Amin in car
Corcoran: To the bemusement of the Americans, Amin’s missions take him beyond Sana’a to the tribal communities that harbour Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.
19:46
Amin arrives at village
His arrival in a village is regarded as a huge honour.
20:00
Singing
Corcoran: About half of Yemen’s population – mainly northerners -- claim a strong tribal affinity, and in such society poets are highly respected figures who in the past have even resolved tribal feuds.
Again today, the guns are stashed away as a courtesy.
20:11
Amin al Mashrigi: The Yemeni person does not comply if you tell him that this is the rule of the law or the government regulations or set traditions, but he will listen if he’s told that is what the poet is saying.
20:33
Men at qat session
Corcoran: The recital takes place during the daily qat session. As with most traditional Yemeni business it’s a men only affair. Those gathered chew huge quantities of this mildly narcotic leaf that seems to stimulate their passion for verse.
20:56
Amin al Mashrigi: Oh weapon – your mind is the best weapon to defend your rights and honour!
21:12
Corcoran: The message is simple – Islam prohibits terrorism – Islam is a religion of peace and love.
Amin al Mashrigi: …because you’re a loser when you hear the explosions and the screams of the people in the streets, and the sight of the spilt running red blood!
21:27
Jibla
Call to prayer
Corcoran: Al Qaeda is as much an ideal as a movement. The call to prayer ringing out across the mountains is interpreted by extremists as a call to arms - to strike down infidels. Even here – in the relative peace of Jibla – an ancient town in central Yemen.
21:51
Little has changed over the years – apart from the arrival in the 1960s of American Southern Baptist missionaries who established one of the country’s leading hospitals here.
22:18
Gwen and Ken Clezy walk
For five years Jibla Hospital has been home for Australian surgeon Dr. Ken Clezy and his wife Gwen.
22:34
Super:
Dr Ken Clezy
Clezy: The average Yemeni will live and let live. Even if people disagreed with us in many ways, they would come here for treatment often. So provided there weren’t attempts at open evangelism, we got on well.
22:45
Outside hospital
Corcoran: That peaceful relationship came to an abrupt end one morning in December 2002, when a gunman burst into this crowded hospital compound, killing three American staff. Dr. Clezy had just stopped for a meal after his morning rounds.
23:08
Clezy: When you’ve got three close colleagues gunned down while you are having breakfast, that shakes you like a lot of things never would.
23:27
Music
Abed Abdulrazak Al Kamil surrounded by police
Corcoran: The attacker, Abed Abdulrazak Al Kamil, was soon arrested, and linked to a fundamentalist group that just days earlier, had also murdered one of Yemen’s leading secular politicians.
At his trial, Kamil proudly boasted that the Americans deserved to die because they were Christian missionaries. He has since been found guilty and sentenced to death.
23:50
Music
Clezy
Clezy: He didn’t belong to this part of the country. He was a Muslim extremist, he didn’t believe in freedom of religion or democracy I guess. He felt that killing Christians was a good thing to do.
24:23
Hospital compound
Corcoran: The attack came just days before the Baptists were due to hand over control of the hospital to Yemen’s Government.
After the murders all foreign staff were evacuated and the hospital closed its doors – a propaganda victory for the fundamentalists.
But then an extraordinary thing happened – Ken Clezy and the other foreign staff came back.
24:45
Clezy visits patients
Clezy: The hospital we thought was finished but it did go on and we decided to come back, basically, because there were difficulties in recruiting staff. They wanted another surgeon and when this part of the world – the Arab world in general thinks Christians are Caucasians who drop bombs on you – it seemed important to correct that belief.
25:15
Clezy visits patients
Corcoran: For Yemen’s Government Jibla Hospital has become an important symbol in its war on terror. The President has ordered it remain open – whatever the cost.
25:45
Clezy
Clezy: Now we’ve got soldiers on the place and I guess they are some protection, but if you look round up the back here – if someone with a grenade launcher up there wanted to cause trouble they could do it very easily.
26:00
Hadramawt Wadi
Music
Corcoran: Yemen’s campaign against terrorism has also touched the lives of a very different group of foreigners.
Far from mountains of Jibla stands the spectacular mud towers of Hadramawt Wadi – dubbed the ‘Manhattan of Arabia’.
This region is renowned as Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland. Although his father moved the family to Saudi Arabia more than 70 years ago.
26:25
Music
Religious school
Corcoran: Today Hadramawt Wadi attracts foreign Muslims seeking Allah’s guidance – at the Dar Ul Mustafa Religious School in Tarim.
Many of the 600 students are Indonesian, although there is a sprinkling of westerners, including 26 year old Yahya Rhodus – a Christian convert from California.
26:58
Yahya
Corcoran: How long have you been here for now?
Yahya: I’ve been here about three and a half years.
Corcoran: And what’s life like here?
Yahya: Life, mashallah, is very beautiful, life here is focussed on religion, focussing on getting close to God and a lot of places in the Moslem world now – because of the impact of some of the negative aspects of the west, such as materialism and like have had upon them, you’ll find a lot of these countries aren’t implementing Islam as they should be at a societal level.
27:24
Religious school
Corcoran: The school survived a government purge of religious institutions that closed dozens of fundamentalist centres and led to the expulsion of thousands of foreign students, who were declared extremists.
The crackdown was a critical step in denying Al Qaeda local recruiting bases – one that Pakistan and other countries battling fundamentalism have failed to emulate.
27:56
Yahya at religious school
The authorities regard Yahya and the other foreigners here as moderates, and today he’s helping settle in nine recent arrivals from Australia. Including 20 year old Rameh Zaoud, a student of Lebanese decent from Sydney.
28:27
Rameh Zaoud
Rameh Zaoud: I finished high school in Australia – finished year 12 – and I studied the Koran after high school – memorised most of the Koran, and then I was favoured by God to come here and study Islamic studies.
28:43
Corcoran: Rameh, who dreams of returning one day to Australia as a Moslem missionary, admits Yemen is tough going.
29:02
Super:
Rameh Zaoud
Islamic student
Rameh Zaoud: It’s a big sacrifice. I mean as you know in our country, we have lots of comforts (laughs) and here some of that – it’s not available – but it’s a sacrifice – for anyone who wants to become anything – you must sacrifice.
29:09
Corcoran: What is your view on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda – do you condemn them?
Rameh Zaoud: Well I’ll tell you the truth, I was in Australia, and I seen a lot on TV – but I really don’t have any … Nothing makes sense – I didn’t study it, I didn’t really go into it – and nothing really makes sense to me. Like you’d probably know more than me –I really haven’t studied it much.
29:24
Corcoran: Al Qaeda is an extremely sensitive topic here. One that Yahya and another American student monitoring our interview want us to avoid.
29:46
Corcoran: As a young Australian, you read newspapers, you watch the TV – it’s been everywhere for the past two and a half years – you must have an opinion - you don’t condemn them?
Rameh Zaoud That’s the thing…
(Yahya interjects off camera): What he is saying is that he is not a legal judge such that he can condemn someone. The question itself is a little bit offensive for us to talk bad about someone behind their back without sufficient knowledge of that person.
29:55
Music
Yahya
Corcoran: Yahya hopes to return to the United States as an Islamic missionary. He knows he’ll be going home to a nation jolted by September 11, that he will face suspicion and hostility because of his faith.
30:27
Corcoran and Yahya
For Yahya – difficult days may lie ahead. He says the attacks of September 11 were wrong, but he is also critical of America’s response.
30:46
Super:
Yahya Rhodus
Islamic student
Yahya: Innocent lives were taken on that side and then some of the retributions from that – there were also innocent lives taken on the other side. So the point is, I think we have to be balanced in the way we look at things.
30:58
Corcoran: Do you condemn Al Qaeda? How do you regard Al Qaeda?
Yahya: Well, again I don’t really know too much about them enough to say yes I am for them or no I’m against them. My main focus now is studying the life of the prophet Mohammed – peace be upon him – people want to ask me questions about Islamic sacred law.
Music
31:13
Corcoran walks with Clezy
Corcoran: But as the young Moslem missionaries contemplate their long road ahead, one old Christian missionary is nearing the end of his journey. After half a century of tending the sick, Ken Clezy is also ready to go home.
31:45
He’ll leave behind close friends. In accordance with their last wishes, two of the slain American Baptists --William Koehn and Martha Myers -- were buried here in the hospital grounds.
32:06
Clezy: Bill had been here for 28 years. the place ran like clockwork. He was very good.
32:19
Martha – yeah she’d been here about 25 years – as well as working in the hospital, she had an immunisation program going around. She would take her Land Rover to villages where even Yemenis wouldn’t go I think.
Music
Corcoran: A peace of sorts has descended upon Yemen. It’s now more than a year since the last major attack by the fundamentalists – the murder of the Americans at Jibla. This is being interpreted as a rare if somewhat qualified victory against terrorism.
32:56
Dr. Al Qirbi
Dr. Al Qirbi: Yemen is doing an excellent job in fighting terrorism – in controlling it. I don’t think we can say we have eliminated it, but we have achieved a great success in Yemen.
33:19
Hull: Yemen has largely been denied as an operational base to Al Qaeda and that constitutes a significant victory, but one that has to be continually confirmed.
33:36
Music
Qat session
Corcoran: But there’s another more chilling view: That the extremists are simply biding their time. For now, happy to sing along with the Government songs, content in the belief that Yemen’s political leaders have sown the seeds of their own destruction by collaborating with Washington.
34:01
Gamal Al Jaabi
Gamal Al Jaabi: Yemeni Government cooperation with the Americans in their fight in their so-called “War on Terror” will create more social problems in Yemen. This will represent a danger to all the regimes.
34:18
Qat session
Music
Corcoran: Yemen’s fate, and America’s claim to victory, may well rest in the hearts and minds of these tribesmen.
34:43
Reporter: MARK CORCORAN
Camera: GEOFFREY LYE
Sound: KATHRYN GRAHAM
Research: VIVIEN ALTMAN
Editor: GARTH THOMAS
Music
00:00
Corcoran: According to ancient Yemeni proverb, “A foreigner should always be well behaved”. Perhaps a warning to be heeded today on the streets of the capital Sana’a – now a clandestine battlefield in Washington’s declared war on terrorism.
Hull: Yemen is an important theatre.
00:17
Hull
It is a theatre that Al Qaeda has given a great deal of priority to in the past.
00:43
Corcoran: The threat compounded by the fact that Yemen is awash with guns – as many as 60 million firearms in a nation of only 20 million people. Freely distributed during the decades of war and political chaos that ensued here until the mid 90s.
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: To a terrorist arms is like heroin to an addict –
Dr Al Qirbi: If you have the money – you will get it.
Corcoran: And you’ve got the supply here?
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: And we have the supply here.
01:17
Police checkpoint
Corcoran: Firearms are prohibited in Sana’a and at checkpoints police do their best to enforce the ban – though some need a gentle reminder not to bring their guns to town.
01:29
Registered weapons are collected when their owners return home to the tribal areas, where honour and survival can rest on the barrel of a Kalashnakov.
01:44
Tribesman
Tribesman: The tribal regions here are very harsh risky places and this means that you need to carry guns with you.
01:58
Tribesmen with guns
Corcoran: In the 1980s thousands of these men marched off to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Many later returning home – fired by the zeal of jihad – to join what became known as Al Qaeda.
After the collapse of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime in 2001, Osama bin Laden was left looking for a new base – and there were fears that Yemen – would be the obvious choice – this was, after all, bin Laden’s ancestral homeland.
02:10
Shooting in desert
Corcoran: But more importantly, large chunks of this country were outside the effective control of the Government – ruled by tribes sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism. However, in the last three years, Yemen’s Government has fought back. Secretly aided by US Special Forces and CIA teams, the Yemenis have waged an unorthodox war on terror, a campaign that so far, they appear to be winning.
02:47
Yemeni Special forces
Amid the rugged lunar terrain – Yemeni Special Forces close in for the kill – the target - 60 members of the Al Qaeda linked group – the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. This battle – fought last year – remains the only anti-terrorist operation the Yemeni Government has ever permitted a TV camera to record.
Military advisers
Remaining firmly out of sight – are the US military advisers – Yemen’s Government acutely sensitive about images of Americans directing their men to kill fellow Arabs.
04:03
Corcoran: The Special Forces are backed by overwhelming firepower, as picking a fight with extremists often means taking on their heavily armed tribal hosts as well.
04:19
It takes five days of heavy fighting to overwhelm the militants, killing 10. This man in the blue singlet – among the 20 captured – is a local tribesman recruited to the struggle.
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: I think like any ordinary people,
04:35
Captured tribesman
The tribesmen can be easily misled by the slogans that are raised by the extremist groups.
04:53
Super:
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi
Foreign Minister, Yemen
Corcoran: What is Al Qaeda telling these people in order to try and get them onside?
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: I think they are telling them that they are trying to get Muslim countries to be ruled by Islam and by Islamic traditional religious teachings.
04:59
Captured tribesman
Corcoran: If he’d been caught in Afghanistan this prisoner would have been shipped to
Guantanamo Bay. But Yemen refuses to hand over captives to the Americans – and if he hasn’t actually killed anyone, he may soon be free.
05:16
Justice Ministry
A total of 248 terror suspects have been detained in Yemen and we are on our way to meet one of them at the Justice Ministry in Sana’a.
Yemen has taken a highly unorthodox approach to combating terrorism. A compromise between Washington’s demand to destroy the extremists – and the views of many Yemenis who are sympathetic to Al Qaeda.
Nasser al Bahri had dedicated his life to Al Qaeda – a militant who was prepared to kill for the cause.
05:32
Nasser
Corcoran: So you were a member of Al Qaeda?
Nasser: Yes, for many years I was a member of Al Qaeda.
Corcoran: How many years?
Nasser: Five years
Corcoran: What did you do in Al Qaeda?
Nasser: I did many things (laughs).
Translator: The most important thing is how he is now.
06:07
Corcoran: Nasser is secretive – but he does reveal that before joining Al Qaeda, he spent five years fighting as an Islamic holy warrior in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Chechnya.
06:32
Nasser: I got the opportunity to join the jihad in Bosnia and many other places and our main concern at that time was how to defend our rights against those people who try to invade our countries – and at the time Al Qaeda was the best choice – but not now.
06:43
Corcoran: Captured in Yemen, he spent a year in jail – before agreeing to join a controversial new government rehabilitation program releasing those Al Qaeda members who renounce the movement.
06:58
128 have been freed – including Nasser – who has just completed the required 12 months parole – under the supervision of Judge Hamood Al Hitar – architect of the program.
Judge Hamood
Judge Hamood al Hitar: He was very much a fanatic and extremist – now you find him very moderate. Didn’t he receive you very warmly, even though he knows you are not Muslims?
07:26
Judge with Nasser
Corcoran: Judge Hitar says none of those released have blood on their hands – prisoners who’ve committed acts of terrorism remain behind bars. Nasser is now on his way back onto the streets, a free man. Judge Hitar claims the scheme has badly undermined Al Qaeda’s morale. But the Americans are – not surprisingly – sceptical.
07:40
Super:
Edmund Hull
U.S. Ambassador
Corcoran: Do you support that initiative?
Hull: I think it has to be done very, very carefully. I think it is easy for people to dissemble, and I think the Egyptians have had some success with it in the ‘90s, but one should be extremely careful, and take every precaution, both before any releases and then after any releases.
Corcoran: Do you think it is working so far?
Hull: I don’t think we are in a position to judge that.
08:03
Music
08:40
US Navy ship
Corcoran: America’s war against terrorism in Yemen began in October 2000 after a suicide boat rammed an American warship the USS Cole – killing 17 sailors. Initially, the Yemenis were reluctant to cooperate – that all changed after September 11 2001 – when the Americans declared ‘you are either with us or against us’.
08:49
Security agents in desert
Corcoran: A largely covert campaign followed. Militant bombings and murders matched by government raids and arrests, with Yemeni security agents often blocking media attempts to cover the struggle.
09:18
This was the aftermath of Washington’s most spectacular success in November 2002, when a CIA Predator drone, acting on a tip off from the Yemenis, fired a missile at 4 Wheel Drive racing across the desert. The six occupants were killed instantly – among them Abu Ali Al Harithi - Al Qaeda’s top man in Yemen - the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing.
Hull
Hull: It was significant in that it did eliminate Abu Ali Al Harithi who was the leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen, and we have seen since then attempts by Al Qaeda to replace him, but none that have had any great success.
09:58
Hull visit
Corcoran: In the weeks preceding the Predator strike Ambassador Hull had been in the area, gathering intelligence on Al Harithi’s movements. American Ambassadors don’t normally get involved in targeted assassinations, but then Edmund Hull is no ordinary diplomat.
Appointed in the wake of September 11, he was formerly the State Department’s Chief of Counter terrorism.
10:23
Hull: We try to use every appropriate tool in the toolbox to counter terrorism here.
10:52
Corcoran: The public face of this largely covert war – Ambassador Hull ventures into the desperately poor tribal areas – to buy the support of sheikhs suspected of harbouring Al Qaeda. He’s spent more than $100 million U.S. dollars - mainly on local roads, clinics and schools – dispensing largesse Yemen’s Government can’t afford.
11:02
Hull
Hull: Yemen is a somewhat special place, in that the tribes, especially in the north are very strong, and very important social structures here. In the past, I think bin Laden has thought, mistakenly, that that was an opportunity for him.
11:25
Military warehouse
Corcoran: Quantifying progress in a war on terrorism can be difficult. So, the Yemenis invite us to inspect what was until our visit, a secret military warehouse. Revealed for the first time, is an Aladdin’s cave of heavy weaponry – missiles, anti-aircraft guns, plastic explosives. All purchased on the tribal black market by Government agents as part of a weapons buy-back scheme.
11:48
Colonel
Colonel: During the previous wars in Yemen, these weapons were in the hands of the tribes. They’ve been taken away from the tribes and stored here and naturally this has cost Yemen’s government a lot of money.
12:21
Corcoran: The colonel in charge claims to have amassed this arsenal in just eight months – at a cost of $34 million U.S. dollars – money diverted from scarce development funds. But this is believed to be just a fraction of the hidden tribal stockpiles – all readily available to Al Qaeda.
Colonel
Colonel: There might still be big quantities lying around, but we are happy about what we have achieved so far with a very heavy cost to the country’s development.
12:57
Super:
Edmund Hull
U.S. Ambassador
Hull: I think there is a way to go. I also think that you have to make sure that you are not creating an arms market and creating a demand inside the country so that weapons flow into the country to replace weapons that you have purchased.
13:09
Military warehouse
Corcoran: Ambassador Hull fears many of these weapons were destined to be smuggled across the desert border with neighbouring Saudi Arabia, where Al Qaeda is waging another bloody campaign to topple the ruling monarchy.
Hull: I think there is a problem
13:32
with weapons and explosives flowing towards Saudi Arabia. And I think there is a problem with money flowing from Saudi Arabia to Yemen.
Corcoran: So this is Al Qaeda moving weapons into Saudi to destabilise the Government? And Al Qaeda money coming south to fund operations in Yemen?
Hull: Yes.
Corcoran: And has that been stopped. Have they halted that flow?
Hull: No – not entirely. I think it is a continuing challenge.
13:52
Tribes people
Music
14:20
Marib
Corcoran: Three hours drive from Sana’a lies the squalid northern tribal city of Marib - a fundamentalist stronghold near the border with Saudi Arabia. We’re only permitted to visit with a heavily armed police escort.
14:32
It’s a poor region that’s received barely a trickle of Yemen’s modest oil wealth. Kidnapping foreigners for money or Government aid was once an industry here. More than 200 hostages were seized in Yemen during the ‘90s – most were released unharmed, although 3 Britons and an Australian died in one botched rescue attempt. Since September 11, there’ve been precious few visitors to seize – about their only regular guest is the U.S. Ambassador.
14:51
Tribesmen
1st Tribesman: Frankly we don’t want the Americans, they are not accepted.
2nd Tribesman: Americans are rejected.
15:25
Corcoran: And what do you think about the Muslim fundamentalists that are here?
4th Tribesman: They are Muslims fighting against Jews.
1st Tribesman: They are preachers of Islam, they’re not terrorists.
4th Tribesman: They are good !
Portrait of Saleh
Corcoran: The portrait of Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh hangs in the main street, but his regime’s control over Marib is tenuous – now imposed by thousands of police and army reinforcements, attempting to seal the Saudi border.
The backing of the Americans in this campaign has delivered Yemen’s Government a pretext to finally reign in these rebellious tribesmen and they don’t like it.
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi: This is the concerns of the tribesmen of course, because they have been used to depend on their Sheikhs to
15:52
Super:
Dr. Abu Bakr Al Qirbi
Foreign Minister, Yemen
rule and to administer their regions, and in modern government this is not acceptable and whether there is terrorism or not, the Government has to extend its authority to all parts of Yemen.
16:28
Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider meeting
Corcoran: At the fortified residence of one of Marib’s traditional leaders, we meet Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider of the Al Ashraf tribe. Out of courtesy, most, but not all the weapons have
been removed.
16:43
Sheik Haider is a master of desert diplomacy. He says he doesn’t know what all the fuss is about, because there is no arms smuggling. As for Al Qaeda - he insists it simply doesn’t exist.
16:58
Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider
Sheik Zaid Ahmed Haider: There is no Al Qaeda. This is just a campaign against Islam. Sometimes they use Al Qaeda, to attack Iraq, to attack Afghanistan. And even if the Al Qaeda exists – who has created Al Qaeda armed Al Qaeda and provided Al Qaeda with all these things? Isn’t it the United States? We are not part of the equation.
17:12
Sana’a streets
Corcoran: Back on the streets of Sana’a there’s surprisingly little opposition to American involvement here, but what people do deeply resent is Washington’s support for Israel and the U.S. led invasion and occupation of Iraq.
17:48
Gamal Al Jaabi: They are angry from American policy.
Corcoran walks with Al Jaabi
Corcoran: Gamal Al Jaabi – is a prominent Human Rights lawyer and Yemeni nationalist. He says Al Qaeda enjoys considerable support because it symbolises an effective resistance against the U.S.
18:05
Gamal Al Jaabi
Gamal Al Jaabi: The problem with Al Qaeda is that it represents a challenge to American supremacy. The sympathy that it enjoys is due to its standing up against its enemies - the American enemy - who unconditionally supports the Israelis against the Palestinians.
18:22
Music
18:51
Amin Al Mashrigi with dagger
Corcoran: This man symbolises Yemen’s highly unorthodox approach to the War on Terrorism.
18:57
Amin Al Mashrigi is a former army officer turned poet and propagandist. These days he goes to war armed only with verse and his traditional dagger, worn as a sign of solidarity with the tribesmen whose hearts and minds he seeks to win with his message.
Amin al Mashrigi
Amin al Mashrigi: It’s a noble undertaking which conveys messages of love and peace and fights terrorism in all its forms and spreads high ideals of compassion and cooperation and the renunciation of all bad tradition and habits.
19:22
Amin in car
Corcoran: To the bemusement of the Americans, Amin’s missions take him beyond Sana’a to the tribal communities that harbour Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists.
19:46
Amin arrives at village
His arrival in a village is regarded as a huge honour.
20:00
Singing
Corcoran: About half of Yemen’s population – mainly northerners -- claim a strong tribal affinity, and in such society poets are highly respected figures who in the past have even resolved tribal feuds.
Again today, the guns are stashed away as a courtesy.
20:11
Amin al Mashrigi: The Yemeni person does not comply if you tell him that this is the rule of the law or the government regulations or set traditions, but he will listen if he’s told that is what the poet is saying.
20:33
Men at qat session
Corcoran: The recital takes place during the daily qat session. As with most traditional Yemeni business it’s a men only affair. Those gathered chew huge quantities of this mildly narcotic leaf that seems to stimulate their passion for verse.
20:56
Amin al Mashrigi: Oh weapon – your mind is the best weapon to defend your rights and honour!
21:12
Corcoran: The message is simple – Islam prohibits terrorism – Islam is a religion of peace and love.
Amin al Mashrigi: …because you’re a loser when you hear the explosions and the screams of the people in the streets, and the sight of the spilt running red blood!
21:27
Jibla
Call to prayer
Corcoran: Al Qaeda is as much an ideal as a movement. The call to prayer ringing out across the mountains is interpreted by extremists as a call to arms - to strike down infidels. Even here – in the relative peace of Jibla – an ancient town in central Yemen.
21:51
Little has changed over the years – apart from the arrival in the 1960s of American Southern Baptist missionaries who established one of the country’s leading hospitals here.
22:18
Gwen and Ken Clezy walk
For five years Jibla Hospital has been home for Australian surgeon Dr. Ken Clezy and his wife Gwen.
22:34
Super:
Dr Ken Clezy
Clezy: The average Yemeni will live and let live. Even if people disagreed with us in many ways, they would come here for treatment often. So provided there weren’t attempts at open evangelism, we got on well.
22:45
Outside hospital
Corcoran: That peaceful relationship came to an abrupt end one morning in December 2002, when a gunman burst into this crowded hospital compound, killing three American staff. Dr. Clezy had just stopped for a meal after his morning rounds.
23:08
Clezy: When you’ve got three close colleagues gunned down while you are having breakfast, that shakes you like a lot of things never would.
23:27
Music
Abed Abdulrazak Al Kamil surrounded by police
Corcoran: The attacker, Abed Abdulrazak Al Kamil, was soon arrested, and linked to a fundamentalist group that just days earlier, had also murdered one of Yemen’s leading secular politicians.
At his trial, Kamil proudly boasted that the Americans deserved to die because they were Christian missionaries. He has since been found guilty and sentenced to death.
23:50
Music
Clezy
Clezy: He didn’t belong to this part of the country. He was a Muslim extremist, he didn’t believe in freedom of religion or democracy I guess. He felt that killing Christians was a good thing to do.
24:23
Hospital compound
Corcoran: The attack came just days before the Baptists were due to hand over control of the hospital to Yemen’s Government.
After the murders all foreign staff were evacuated and the hospital closed its doors – a propaganda victory for the fundamentalists.
But then an extraordinary thing happened – Ken Clezy and the other foreign staff came back.
24:45
Clezy visits patients
Clezy: The hospital we thought was finished but it did go on and we decided to come back, basically, because there were difficulties in recruiting staff. They wanted another surgeon and when this part of the world – the Arab world in general thinks Christians are Caucasians who drop bombs on you – it seemed important to correct that belief.
25:15
Clezy visits patients
Corcoran: For Yemen’s Government Jibla Hospital has become an important symbol in its war on terror. The President has ordered it remain open – whatever the cost.
25:45
Clezy
Clezy: Now we’ve got soldiers on the place and I guess they are some protection, but if you look round up the back here – if someone with a grenade launcher up there wanted to cause trouble they could do it very easily.
26:00
Hadramawt Wadi
Music
Corcoran: Yemen’s campaign against terrorism has also touched the lives of a very different group of foreigners.
Far from mountains of Jibla stands the spectacular mud towers of Hadramawt Wadi – dubbed the ‘Manhattan of Arabia’.
This region is renowned as Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland. Although his father moved the family to Saudi Arabia more than 70 years ago.
26:25
Music
Religious school
Corcoran: Today Hadramawt Wadi attracts foreign Muslims seeking Allah’s guidance – at the Dar Ul Mustafa Religious School in Tarim.
Many of the 600 students are Indonesian, although there is a sprinkling of westerners, including 26 year old Yahya Rhodus – a Christian convert from California.
26:58
Yahya
Corcoran: How long have you been here for now?
Yahya: I’ve been here about three and a half years.
Corcoran: And what’s life like here?
Yahya: Life, mashallah, is very beautiful, life here is focussed on religion, focussing on getting close to God and a lot of places in the Moslem world now – because of the impact of some of the negative aspects of the west, such as materialism and like have had upon them, you’ll find a lot of these countries aren’t implementing Islam as they should be at a societal level.
27:24
Religious school
Corcoran: The school survived a government purge of religious institutions that closed dozens of fundamentalist centres and led to the expulsion of thousands of foreign students, who were declared extremists.
The crackdown was a critical step in denying Al Qaeda local recruiting bases – one that Pakistan and other countries battling fundamentalism have failed to emulate.
27:56
Yahya at religious school
The authorities regard Yahya and the other foreigners here as moderates, and today he’s helping settle in nine recent arrivals from Australia. Including 20 year old Rameh Zaoud, a student of Lebanese decent from Sydney.
28:27
Rameh Zaoud
Rameh Zaoud: I finished high school in Australia – finished year 12 – and I studied the Koran after high school – memorised most of the Koran, and then I was favoured by God to come here and study Islamic studies.
28:43
Corcoran: Rameh, who dreams of returning one day to Australia as a Moslem missionary, admits Yemen is tough going.
29:02
Super:
Rameh Zaoud
Islamic student
Rameh Zaoud: It’s a big sacrifice. I mean as you know in our country, we have lots of comforts (laughs) and here some of that – it’s not available – but it’s a sacrifice – for anyone who wants to become anything – you must sacrifice.
29:09
Corcoran: What is your view on Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda – do you condemn them?
Rameh Zaoud: Well I’ll tell you the truth, I was in Australia, and I seen a lot on TV – but I really don’t have any … Nothing makes sense – I didn’t study it, I didn’t really go into it – and nothing really makes sense to me. Like you’d probably know more than me –I really haven’t studied it much.
29:24
Corcoran: Al Qaeda is an extremely sensitive topic here. One that Yahya and another American student monitoring our interview want us to avoid.
29:46
Corcoran: As a young Australian, you read newspapers, you watch the TV – it’s been everywhere for the past two and a half years – you must have an opinion - you don’t condemn them?
Rameh Zaoud That’s the thing…
(Yahya interjects off camera): What he is saying is that he is not a legal judge such that he can condemn someone. The question itself is a little bit offensive for us to talk bad about someone behind their back without sufficient knowledge of that person.
29:55
Music
Yahya
Corcoran: Yahya hopes to return to the United States as an Islamic missionary. He knows he’ll be going home to a nation jolted by September 11, that he will face suspicion and hostility because of his faith.
30:27
Corcoran and Yahya
For Yahya – difficult days may lie ahead. He says the attacks of September 11 were wrong, but he is also critical of America’s response.
30:46
Super:
Yahya Rhodus
Islamic student
Yahya: Innocent lives were taken on that side and then some of the retributions from that – there were also innocent lives taken on the other side. So the point is, I think we have to be balanced in the way we look at things.
30:58
Corcoran: Do you condemn Al Qaeda? How do you regard Al Qaeda?
Yahya: Well, again I don’t really know too much about them enough to say yes I am for them or no I’m against them. My main focus now is studying the life of the prophet Mohammed – peace be upon him – people want to ask me questions about Islamic sacred law.
Music
31:13
Corcoran walks with Clezy
Corcoran: But as the young Moslem missionaries contemplate their long road ahead, one old Christian missionary is nearing the end of his journey. After half a century of tending the sick, Ken Clezy is also ready to go home.
31:45
He’ll leave behind close friends. In accordance with their last wishes, two of the slain American Baptists --William Koehn and Martha Myers -- were buried here in the hospital grounds.
32:06
Clezy: Bill had been here for 28 years. the place ran like clockwork. He was very good.
32:19
Martha – yeah she’d been here about 25 years – as well as working in the hospital, she had an immunisation program going around. She would take her Land Rover to villages where even Yemenis wouldn’t go I think.
Music
Corcoran: A peace of sorts has descended upon Yemen. It’s now more than a year since the last major attack by the fundamentalists – the murder of the Americans at Jibla. This is being interpreted as a rare if somewhat qualified victory against terrorism.
32:56
Dr. Al Qirbi
Dr. Al Qirbi: Yemen is doing an excellent job in fighting terrorism – in controlling it. I don’t think we can say we have eliminated it, but we have achieved a great success in Yemen.
33:19
Hull: Yemen has largely been denied as an operational base to Al Qaeda and that constitutes a significant victory, but one that has to be continually confirmed.
33:36
Music
Qat session
Corcoran: But there’s another more chilling view: That the extremists are simply biding their time. For now, happy to sing along with the Government songs, content in the belief that Yemen’s political leaders have sown the seeds of their own destruction by collaborating with Washington.
34:01
Gamal Al Jaabi
Gamal Al Jaabi: Yemeni Government cooperation with the Americans in their fight in their so-called “War on Terror” will create more social problems in Yemen. This will represent a danger to all the regimes.
34:18
Qat session
Music
Corcoran: Yemen’s fate, and America’s claim to victory, may well rest in the hearts and minds of these tribesmen.
34:43
Reporter: MARK CORCORAN
Camera: GEOFFREY LYE
Sound: KATHRYN GRAHAM
Research: VIVIEN ALTMAN
Editor: GARTH THOMAS