THE TELEGRAPH: Yemeni officials have admitted they are losing the battle against al-Qaeda and the terror group is extending its reach into remote regions where state control has all but disappeared.
Regional politicians have presented a much bleaker prognosis than the authorities in the capital Sana'a, who have repeatedly sought to play down the threat posed by extremists in the wake of the Detroit terror attack.
They say al-Qaeda has forged its strongest relationship with local tribes in the sparsely populated mountains and desert of the south, where long simmering resentment of the government has given way to near-rebellion.
On the outskirts of Zinjibar, the ramshackle principal town of Abyan province, the gates of an ageing villa set deep in a banana plantation are guarded by more than a dozen Yemeni soldiers and policemen.
Sitting inside his heavily protected official residence, Ahmed al-Misri, Abyan's governor, is a gloomy man who frankly admits he regrets ever having taken up the job.
As well he might, Yemen observers say. Along with the provinces of Shabwa and Marib, Mr Misri's fiefdom forms an ungovernable crescent east of Sana'a and Aden, Yemen's main cities, which many commentators have described as "the new Waziristan". >>> Adrian Blomfield in Zinjibar | Monday, January 11, 2010
Wiki: Zinjibar >>>
