Within the last week, six young men left from Aden governorate, Maalla district, Yemen, in transit to Iraq as suicide bombers, a reliable source indicated to the Jawa Report.

Over the last two years, many youth in Aden have traveled to Iraq to participate in suicide bombings targeting American and Iraqi forces and civilian targets. A Yemeni newspaper recently counted 1283 jihaddists who made the trek to Iraq, mostly in 2006. Some estimates are as high as 2000. All the men were young, many were teen-agers and most were unemployed.

The six were subject to "intense mental pressure", the source reported. They had been brainwashed for an extended period of time. Most Yemeni fighters go to Syria as the first stop en route to Iraq. Multiple sources report that "influential persons" in Yemen provide the training, money and passports for the suicide bombers. US officials have estimated that 90% of suicide bombers in Iraq are foreigners, and the vast majority of those are from Yemen and North Africa.

The Yemeni regime has taken several measures to stem the flow of combatants to Iraq. One measure transferred control of airports from the Political Security Organization to the National Security Organization. Another prohibited men under 35 years of age from traveling to Syria or Jordan without special permission. However these adjustments had little impact on the number of Yemeni terrorists exiting the country. Many of Yemen's counter terror strategies are more spin than substance.

Posted by: JaneNovak at 06:28 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 250 words, total size 2 kb.