Saudi Border With Yemen Is Still Inviting for Al Qaeda
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ON THE SAUDI-YEMENI BORDER -- The five Yemeni men, all of them rail-thin, clutched their knees as they sat staring across the sand at the narrow road, which separates the Arab world's poorest country from its richest.
"They're waiting for us to move on," said the Saudi border guard with a weary smile, as he sat watching from the front seat of a gleaming S.U.V. "Waiting so they can try to cross."
This remote 1,100-mile frontier, once a casual crossing point for Bedouins and goats, has become an emblem of the increasingly global threats emanating from Yemen: fighters from Al Qaeda, Shiite insurgents, drugs and arms smuggling and, well under the world's radar, one of the largest flows of economic refugees on earth.
Every day hundreds of illegal migrants are caught and sent back to Yemen, Saudi officials say, including many who have come from Africa and across Yemen's deserts fleeing war and hunger.
The porousness of the border is essential to Al Qaeda's Yemen-based branch, which has become a major terrorism concern for the United States as well as Arab countries. Al Qaeda draws recruits from Saudi Arabia, where they can cross and recross without being noticed, and it has sent militants across to try to kill Saudi leaders in their efforts to topple the oil-rich kingdom.
In response, the Saudi authorities have embarked on a multibillion-dollar effort to strengthen the border, evacuating scores of villages that once straddled it and building elaborate defense networks to keep intruders out.
Earthen berms now prevent cars from crossing, and layers of concertina wire line the roads, some of it strewn with the rags and dried blood of desperate migrants who still try to get through. Floodlights and thermal cameras focus on different parts of the border at night, and intelligence units stand ready to interrogate anyone who is deemed suspicious.
"They adapt very quickly to every strategy we have," said Lt. Muhammad Qahtani, a seven-year veteran of the border patrol. The migrants wear their shoes backward to confuse trackers, or strap sponges to their soles to leave no footprints at all. They trek through arid mountains where the border is loosely patrolled.
Many smugglers are heavily armed and will fight to the death when surrounded, Lieutenant Qahtani said, because they know convicted drug traffickers are usually beheaded in Saudi Arabia.
First Published October 27, 2010 2:01 am
