The CIA deputy director coordinated with Yemen’s president on Thursday on fighting al-Qaeda and discussed the fate of some 100 Yemeni detainees locked up in Guantanamo Bay.
Stephen Kappes made an unannounced visit to the country to meet Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the southern city of Taiz, about 275km south of the capital Sana. Saleh’s office said they discussed security cooperation and combatting terrorism.
The impoverished country on the tip of the Arabian Peninsula, a US partner in the fight against terrorism, has re-emerged as a potential base for al-Qaeda. Two Saudi former Guantanamo detainees are believed to be leading Yemen’s branch of al-Qaeda.
The country has also been rocked by a recent flare-up of violence in the south, where separatist sentiment is mounting against the central government. Southerners accuse the central government of marginalization. The north and south fought a civil war in 1994.
Kappes and Saleh also talked about the fate of the Yemeni prisoners in Guantanamo, said security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
US President Barack Obama wants to close Guantanamo, but the discussions over where to send the Yemeni detainees have delayed plans to close it.
The Yemenis are the largest national group among the 241 detainees still at the prison. Obama’s administration has been negotiating with Saudi Arabia and Yemen for months to send them to Saudi terrorist rehabilitation centers.
Earlier this month, Obama spoke directly with Saleh about the detainees and also discussed how their countries could work together on counterterrorism policy.
Saleh has resisted the idea of sending the detainees to Saudi Arabia, saying his country would set up its own rehabilitation centers. But his office said on Thursday he was scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia tomorrow for talks on security issues and other matters.
US officials have made a strong push for Yemen to endorse the Saudi plan, which would reduce the number of detainees that would be relocated to the US. US senior security official John Brennan visited Yemen in March. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates also discussed the plan with Saudi officials during a recent trip.
Gates at the time said that Saleh could be “reluctant to speak out openly and say that this would be a good idea, in part because he may feel that it reflects an inability in Yemen to handle the problem.”
Few dispute that Saudi Arabia has one of the most successful jihadist rehabilitation programs in the world. Thousands of extremists, including Guantanamo detainees, have received job training, psychological therapy and religious re-education before being sent back to society. The vast majority have not rejoined the fight, Saudi officials and terrorism experts said.
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