SANAA, Yemen – Islamic radicals have long held sway in the southern Yemeni town of Jaar. They turned it into a Taliban-style microstate, where the movie theater was converted into a mosque, men and women are banned from mingling in public and drinking alcohol is punishable by 100 lashes.
In recent weeks, they consolidated their authority in Jaar. As Yemen was thrown into turmoil by protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, armed Islamic radicals pushed out the military units based in the mountain town of 50,000 people and took over without a shot, seizing a neighboring town as well.
The situation in Jaar offers a worst case scenario of what could happen if Saleh’s rule crumbles: Islamic militants will become bolder and move to take advantage of the vacuum of power in the Arab world’s poorest country.
The biggest worry is over al-Qaida’s branch in Yemen, which the Obama administration considers the top terrorist threat to the U.S. Washington has given Saleh millions of dollars to fight the terror group, which is believed to have several hundred fighters holed up in mountain hideouts. The Obama administration fears that cooperation would be jeopardized if the longtime leader is ousted, although it has denounced the
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