DUBAI, 8 February 2004 — The purported leader of a Yemeni radical group known as “Aden-Abyan Islamic Army” denied in remarks published yesterday that such an outfit even existed, charging the intelligence services had invented the name.
“The name ‘Aden-Abyan Islamic Army’ is a creature of the security and intelligence services. We never proclaimed this name,” Khaled Abdennabi told Al-Hayat newspaper in an interview.
“We practice violence (only) against those who practice violence against Muslims. We do not have any (animosity) toward Western interests or foreigners in Yemen,” he said.
Abdennabi, who was reported to have died in clashes with security forces in Abyan province last June before it turned out that he was alive and had been granted a pardon by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused Yemeni security forces of cracking down on Islamists at the behest of the United States.
“Regrettably, Yemeni security is working full time on hunting bearded men at America’s request while allowing gangs to commit all sorts of crimes,” he said.
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army figures on a list of terrorist organizations issued by the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
It is believed to be made up of a handful of diehard militants including veterans of the Afghan war against the former Soviet Union.
Abdennabi was thought to have succeeded the group’s leader Abu Bakr Al-Mehdar alias Abul Hassan, who was executed a year after the 1998 abduction of 16 Westerners in southern Yemen, four of whom were killed during a botched police raid.
Sanaa later claimed to have wiped out the group, but its name surfaced again among suspects for the suicide attack against USS Cole in Aden port in October 2000 that killed 17 American sailors.
Two years later, a statement in the group’s name claimed that it carried out a blast that struck a French supertanker off the Yemeni coast, but its authenticity could not be verified.
Washington attributed the Cole bombing to Al-Qaeda network.
Abdennabi, who fought in Afghanistan in 1991, said he had no links with Al-Qaeda.
Abdennabi, 37, accused the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP) members, which he said were present in the intelligence services and security forces despite being out of power, of inciting the government against Islamists.
He said the socialists were seeking revenge for the Islamists’ support for the Sanaa government in a 1994 civil war sparked by a YSP-led secession bid in south Yemen.
Abdennabi was reported to have been killed by security forces during clashes with gunmen from the two groups last June in Jabal Hatat, 120 km (75 miles) northwest of the southern port city of Aden.
But authorities later said a charred body initially thought to be his was in fact that of a Saudi, and that Abdennabi had surrendered and been granted a pardon by Saleh.
