Yemenis Say They Have Bigger Problems Than Al Qaeda
Yemenis Say They Have Bigger Problems Than Al Qaeda
By LAURA KASINOF
Published: September 30, 2011
SANA, Yemen — On the streets of Sana, the nation’s conflict-stricken capital, the news of the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American propagandist for Al Qaeda who inspired jihadists around the world, was largely overshadowed by the continuing domestic turmoil here.
“Our national crisis is the biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything from the government stopped.” — Walid Seneb
Many Yemenis had not even heard that Mr. Awlaki had been killed, even by Friday night. And most had only a faint sense of why the United States considered him a highly significant target. If anything, Yemenis thought his death would only increase their woes.
‘I don’t know why he was important, except that he was a terrorist,’ said Belal Masood, who works in a restaurant in Sana’s old city. ‘But maybe this will create a problem for us Yemenis, because when you strike Al Qaeda they normally strike back larger. Really, we wish they could have killed him in another country.’
“They struck Anwar al-Awlaki, why don’t the Americans strike Ali Abdullah Saleh and Hamid al-Ahmar?” — Hussein Mohammed
Another man, Walid Seneb, who was sitting on a street curb with three friends on Friday night, said, ‘We don’t like these terrorists who make problems for us. Mr. Seneb was the only one of the four men who had heard of the cleric’s death.
“But right now there are worse problems,” he said. “Our national crisis is the biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything from the government stopped.”