Analysis: Yemen's al Qaeda may raise profile after bin Laden

An anti-government protester reads a newspaper featuring a photo of Osama bin Laden at the site of a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Sanaa, May 3, 2011.

DUBAI/SANAA (Reuters) - Al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, already at the top of U.S. security concerns, may step further into the spotlight after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, possibly by organizing revenge attacks.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has staged several foiled strikes on U.S. and Saudi targets, using daring and novel tactics. Such aggression may help AQAP claim symbolic leadership in a global al Qaeda movement that now consists mostly of loosely linked networks of like-minded Islamist militants.

"Bin Laden's death is a good thing for AQAP -- no doubt about that," said Jarret Brachman, a senior adviser to the U.S. government on counterterrorism.

He said the absence of an overall al Qaeda leader would increase the importance of the organization's Yemeni wing. "It opens up space for AQAP to exert further influence over the future direction of the global movement," he said.

Bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, is front-runner to inherit his mantle. But analysts suggest he lacks the charisma to be an inspirational guide as well as an operational leader.

Yemen was bin Laden's ancestral homeland and is now in the throes of a stand-off between President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a U.S. ally against al Qaeda, and a protest movement bent on his ouster, threatening political chaos that AQAP could exploit.

A former AQAP member who asked not to be named told Reuters in Sanaa that he feared the group would try to boost its standing in the leadership stakes with a spectacular attack.

"They will use this as an incentive for a strike. Not very soon, but sometime, I'm expecting a big operation from them, because there is going to be competition between it and the branches in Iraq, Pakistan and Morocco for leadership."

Yemeni political analyst Ali Seif Hassan also anticipated a violent response to bin Laden's killing. "It will have a big effect on AQAP," he said. "I'm expecting revenge attacks."

WAITING TO SPREAD

Yet AQAP, with a strong foothold in Yemen's rugged deserts and mountains, has been quiet lately -- apparently waiting out the storm as the impoverished country is wracked by popular protests aimed at toppling Saleh, once an important U.S. and Saudi partner against al Qaeda.

Saleh, however, has played an ambiguous game, sometimes manipulating militants for his own advantage, and often seeking to extract more funding and support from the United States as the price for his cooperation in counter-terrorism efforts.

The anti-Saleh protests, in which AQAP has only a marginal role, if any, offer a new challenge to the organization.

"What they want to do is regroup and find new strongholds and strengthen their relationships for after Saleh falls," said Barak Barfi of the Century Foundation.

"They're not being hunted, they're going to spread out ... knowing the capability of the United States and its Yemeni allies, they're going to try to create a more durable infrastructure that can withstand and sustain attacks."

Yemen welcomed bin Laden's killing, while pro-democracy activists urged protesters not to brandish his image to avoid giving the authorities a pretext for a tougher crackdown.

AQAP is unusual among al Qaeda franchises in having not only an effective operational commander but also charismatic members such as the eloquent, U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of AQAP, was a close personal aide to bin Laden in Afghanistan in the 1990s, and he has stuck closely to the leader's ideology and operational tactics.

He created AQAP after breaking out of a Yemeni prison in 2006. It works largely independently of the original al Qaeda and has won praise from militants after innovative albeit abortive attacks on U.S.-bound airplanes in 2009 and 2010.

"Bin Laden's death won't have much of an impact at all on AQAP in the short term," said Princeton scholar Gregory Johnsen.

But if militants still sought to someone to emulate, "they could raise up Wuhayshi as a man who studied with the master, as someone they should then go and join," he added.

Bin Laden himself cemented a leadership role after his influential mentor Abdallah Azzam, a cleric who called for jihad in Afghanistan, died in a bomb blast in the late 1980s.

GLOBAL BRANDING

Another useful card in AQAP's hand is Awlaki, who left the United States in 2001 and joined al Qaeda in Yemen. He was in touch with a U.S. Army major who in November 2009 allegedly went on a shooting rampage on a U.S. military base at Fort Hood, Texas that killed 13 people and wounded 32.

The cleric, of Yemeni origins, was also linked to a Nigerian man who studied in Yemen and botched an attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound passenger plane in December 2009.

"(Awlaki) will rise in the ranks. He is really quite charismatic and one of the few people among the jihadi leaders to have that sort of charisma -- there's something bin Laden-esque about his charisma," said Thomas Hegghammer, senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment.

A fixation on Awlaki by the U.S. government and Western media has raised his profile among militants worldwide and helped gain AQAP a more global profile, analysts say.

"That may play in to the position for leadership of the movement now," said William Mccants, founder of the blog Jihadica. "Having that brand name, which is a lot of what bin Laden was about, really helped."

AQAP's high profile could attract funds and recruits, as well as increasing its influence with other al Qaeda networks.

"Given there is an operational gap in terms of leadership and a gap in terms of charisma (after bin Laden's death), I think maybe de facto it just shifts to AQAP," said Mccants.