Saudis will have to hit Qaeda in Yemen: analysts

DUBAI: With its campaign against Yemeni rebels at full throttle, Saudi Arabia has spared Al-Qaeda which has capitalised on the chaos, but experts say Riyadh will have to hit them eventually.

Faced with the Shiite rebels´ march on Aden, President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi´s southern refuge, Riyadh assembled a Sunni-Arab coalition that launched a campaign of air strikes on March 26.

Since then, coalition warplanes have pounded Huthi positions and those if its allies across the country, as Sunni tribesmen joined the fight against the rebels.

"The growing confessional nature of the conflict definitely gives the extremists on both sides a bigger margin for manoeuvre, so fighting Al-Qaeda might not seem like the most urgent priority," said Elie al-Hindy, political science professor at Notre Dame University in Lebanon.

This might explain why Riyadh did not react when Al-Qaeda on April 2 seized Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt province.

Experts have spoken of an adverse effect of the military intervention, evoking a "circumstantial alliance" between Riyadh -- cradle to the austere Wahabism school of Islam -- and Al-Qaeda, which considers Shiites to be heretics.

Saudi Arabia has been in war with Al-Qaeda for more than a decade, hitting what it calls the "deviant group" with an iron fist.

"A de facto alliance can be ruled out," Hindy said.

AQAP exploiting the chaos

Taking advantage of Hadramawt being generally spared the air raids, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula seized Mukalla airport and a military base full of heavy weaponry.
"While the coalition is busy with its job (striking Huthis), AQAP is benefiting from the situation by seizing positions," said Mathieu Guidere, Islamic studies professor at the University of Toulouse in France.

He argues that if the coalition succeeds in defeating the Huthis, "the next step will be to tackle AQAP which also threatens the legitimate authority in Yemen".

However, opening a second front now would complicate Riyadh´s task. So key ally Washington is doing its share by pressing its campaign of drone attacks against the jihadists.

AQAP acknowledged this week that its ideologue Ibrahim al-Rubaish was killed in a drone attack near Mukalla.

And late on Saturday, three other militants died in the same manner in the southern province of Shabwa.

Since last year, Yemen´s government has been caught between the Huthi rebels in the north and Al-Qaeda in the southeast.

But as the rebels allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh advanced on the south after seizing Sanaa, government forces collapsed and the president fled to Saudi Arabia.