The southern province of Abyan is reportedly a base for Islamic militants affiliated with Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, accused mastermind of the August 1998 twin bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. A Yemeni associate of bin Laden, Tariq al-Fadhli, is believed to have established several terrorist training bases in southern Yemen. In 1992, U.S. troops headed for Somalia were in Yemen and were targeted in two hotel bombings linked to Islamic militants.

The Aden-Abyan Islamic Army is suspected of being an offshoot of the Yemeni branch of Islamic Jihad, a group of some 200 militants based in a training camp in south Yemen who are believed to be funded by bin Laden. Following the kidnapping incident, FBI agents flew to Yemen to investigate and, according to media reports, the FBI has established a link between the kidnappers, Islamic Jihad and bin Laden. Following U.S. reprisal attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan in August 1998, the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army issued a threat to retaliate by attacking U.S. interests in Yemen.

Egypt contends that Yemen hosted Islamic Jihad cells responsible for the 1993 assassination attempt against the Egyptian prime minister. Only after the 1995 assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak did Yemen acknowledge the existence of the training camps. According to Yemeni officials, one of the kidnappers killed in the recent kidnapping raid was an Egyptian wanted in Cairo on charges of Islamic extremism.

The Yemeni Government, however, has been accused of being slow to respond to its domestic Islamic extremist threat. Observers of Yemen have noted that this had been the case because Islamists joined government troops to help President Ali Abdullah Saleh win Yemen's civil war in 1994.

According to the U.S. State Department, the Government of Yemen has taken measures to rein in foreign extremists. It has increased its security cooperation with other Arab countries and has reportedly forced several foreign extremists to leave Yemen. The Government also instituted the requirement that Algerian, British, Egyptian, Libyan, Sudanese and Tunisian nationals seeking entry into Yemen travel directly from their home countries. However, the State Department notes, "... the government's inability to control many remote areas continued to make the country a safehaven for terrorist groups."

Next: The Kidnapper's Trial