Al-Qaeda Blamed as North Yemen Suicide Car Bombing Kills 14

Attack Targeted Shi'ite Tribesmen in al-Jouf Province

by Jason Ditz, August 14, 2011

At least 14 tribesmen were killed today and five others were wounded in the northern Yemeni Province of al-Jouf after a suicide car bombing attack against a gathering of the Houthi tribesmen.

The Houthi are a Shi’ite group which ran a secessionist rebel campaign for years against the Saleh regime, primarily based on complaints that Saleh was allowing Wahhabists inordinate influence in the government and ignoring the northern Shi’ite province.

The al-Jouf province, like so many others across Yemen, is entirely out of regime control at this point, with the tribesmen signing a truce with the opposition movement and the Joint Meeting Parties appointing a new governor this weekend.

The attacks were blamed preliminarily on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), though the group has yet to claim responsibility. If confirmed this would add another element to the increasingly complex situation in Yemen, as it would have the terrorist group fighting for the regime against the Shi’ites in the north even as they are fighting against the regime and in favor of Ansar al-Sharia in the southwest.

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