Gulf | Yemen
Al Qaida attacks hit Yemen tourism sector
Government struggles to offset flagging oil revenues and increase security for visitors by providing armed escorts
- Reuters
- Published: 21:54 February 25, 2008
- After the shooting of Belgian tourists last month, several Western countries tightened their travel warnings - moves that the Sana'a government says only serve the goal of terrorists.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Sana'a: Foreigners wander freely among the handsome stone and baked-brick houses of Sana'a's Old City, but elsewhere in Yemen Al Qaida attacks have damaged a fledgling tourism industry already hurt by tribal kidnappings.
The government, which hopes tourism earnings can help offset flagging oil revenues, is struggling to shore up security by providing armed police escorts for travel to certain areas. It even plans a satellite system to track tourist vehicles.
Tourism Minister Nabeel Hassan Al Faqih said the system should be working within two months. "This will help the tourism police and [local] governors," he said in an interview.
Yemen can ill afford any more shocks like last month's killing of two Belgian tourists and two Yemenis by gunmen in Hadramout, a southern province previously thought safe.
Killings
That shooting occurred only six months after a suicide car bomb killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis in the troubled Marib region, 100 kilometres east of Sana'a.
Yemen earned $424 million [about Dh1.5 billion] from 379,000 visitors last year, but Faqih said a 15 per cent growth target set for 2008 would have to be lowered after the Hadramout killings.
Insecurity is bad news for the tourism sector and chances of foreign investment in the Middle East's poorest country, where infrastructure is ramshackle and quality hotels are few.
Yemen, where Osama Bin Laden's family originated, is viewed in the West as a haven for militants and a "pipeline" for those bent on fighting US-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Ali Abdullah Saleh joined Washington's "war on terrorism" after the September 11 attacks on US cities, but his government has steered an ambivalent course since Yemeni mujahideen began returning from Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Many were recruited into the army and a Yemeni analyst, who asked not to be named, said they had yet to be purged. The authorities had effectively offered to tolerate the militants as long as they caused no trouble in Yemen, he added.
The government has also used Muslim scholars to "re-educate" militants, but some of those freed after renouncing violence then went to Iraq or renewed their activities in Yemen. "Now there is a third Al Qaida generation with no links to Afghanistan," said a European diplomat. "These youngsters lack respect for the ("Afghan") mujahideen because of the deals they did with the government - and they oppose the West."
Oil installations
Apart from striking at tourists, Al Qaida has targeted oil installations that produce about 300,000 barrels per day, two thirds of which is exported, generating most of Yemen's revenue.
Oil Minister Khalid Mahfoudh Bahah said such "external" attacks were a greater threat than that posed by tribesmen who sometimes kidnap tourists or expatriates to press for better schools, roads and services or for the release of prisoners.
"When it comes to the tribal people looking for water or schools, it doesn't disturb me. I know their demands and I can deal with them," he said.
"But when it comes to external factors, that really worries us. It is not only for Yemen, it has become a phenomenon worldwide, which is terrorism in general," he added.
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