ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) – Somalis fleeing war have long found refuge in Yemen, seen as a way station to Saudi Arabia, but fear of al Qaeda infiltration has cooled their welcome.

“Because we are Somali refugees, we’re suspicious,” complained Ali Mohamed Othman, an unemployed man in the dusty Basateen slum in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden.

Yemeni authorities have been on alert since Somalia’s hardline Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, already battling an interim Somali government at home, said last month it was ready to send fighters to help al Qaeda in Yemen.

“After the (Shabaab) remarks we’ve taken several measures such as to limit refugees’ movements to other provinces,” said Major Ahmed al-Humaiqani, head of Basateen police station.

ADEN, Yemen, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Somalis fleeing war have long found refuge in Yemen, seen as a way station to Saudi Arabia, but fear of al Qaeda infiltration has cooled their welcome. "Because we are Somali refugees, we’re suspicious," complained Ali Mohamed Othman, an unemployed man in the dusty Basateen slum in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden. Yemeni authorities have been on alert since Somalia’s hardline Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, already battling an interim Somali government at home, said last month it was ready to send fighters to help al Qaeda in Yemen. "After the (Shabaab) remarks we’ve taken several measures such as to limit refugees’ movements to other provinces," said Major Ahmed al-Humaiqani, head of Basateen police station. Refugees now get fingerprinted and their pictures registered in a central computer to help track their movements. A failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner, claimed by an al Qaeda group in Yemen, heightened Western and Saudi fears that militants will exploit state weakness in the impoverished southern Arabian country to prepare new attacks. Yemen, which has traditionally had close ties with Somalia, has given prima facie refugee status to all Somalis escaping the clan strife and famine that engulfed the Horn of Africa country after warlords toppled President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. It has offered no such favours to a growing influx of Ethiopians and Eritreans, often detaining them on arrival and deporting them, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. Yemen hosts 171,000 registered refugees, mostly Somalis, according to UNHCR figures for December, up from 140,300 a year earlier. Many more unregistered Somalis are thought to roam there, most of them hoping to move to richer Gulf countries. After surviving a two-day voyage across the Gulf of Aden in a small boat, Shafir Abdullah dreams only of work in Saudi Arabia, which shares a 1,500 km (937 mile) border with Yemen. "I don’t have a job, but I wash cars sometimes," said the 25-year-old from the anarchic Somali capital Mogadishu, as he sat with friends in Basateen. "I am saving for Saudi." Yemen itself is mired in poverty. With more than 40 percent of its 23 million people living on below $2 a day, it has few resources to cope with the human tide from the Horn of Africa. QUEST FOR BETTER LIFE "Many come to try to move on to other Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia," said Mohamed Deriya, Somali community leader in Basateen where 40,000 Somalis and Yemenis with Somali ties live in makeshift houses, many made of wood or corrugated iron. Some in Basateen’s unpaved streets say police hassle them. "We have received a number of reports by refugees who have been harassed by the local population and by authorities," said Rocco Nuri, a UNHCR spokesman in Aden. Since al-Shabaab offered to send fighters to Yemen, four Somalis have been detained on suspicion of having links to al Qaeda, said Hussein Mahmood, Somalia’s vice-consul in Aden. "They are now being interrogated," he said. Yemeni has also accused some Somalis of joining so-called Houthi rebels in the north, saying 30 had been arrested there, but diplomats say they have no evidence to substantiate this. Houthis might force some Somalis to join them as they head for the Saudi border, said Mahmood, the Somali diplomat. Others say Somalis might fight for a while if offered money or the prospect of a border crossing later. "They are desperate, they need money," said Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee. Abdullah Ali, a Somali living in Sweden who was visiting relatives in Basateen, agreed: "Some might be willing. All the boys here don’t have a job. They want money, a car, a living." Yemen’s Western and Arab donors hope to save the country from replicating Somalia’s fate of chaotic breakdown. "Yemen has the advantage to have a government that wants to work with us," said Pauline Baker, head of the Washington-based Fund for Peace which does research on failed states. "Somalia is a failed state, whose transitional government controls just some blocks in Mogadishu," she said. Somalis desperate to flee their homeland pay smugglers up to $150 depending on the sea route, and are totally at their mercy. "Smugglers are ruthless people who don’t care about the well-being of those being transported. They might be thrown over board, they might be beaten up," said the UNHCR’s Nuri. "Many cases of rape happen before, during and upon arrival in Yemen." Most Somalis in the urban squalor of Basateen are focused on survival, not on al Qaeda militants or Houthi rebels. "I have no job. I don’t know what to do," said Yurub Wase, a refugee depending on U.N. aid who arrived with her four-year-old son in November after paying $150 to smugglers for the voyage. "I feel sick but I can’t afford medicine," she said. Khadija Sheikha Ahmed, a mother of five, agreed: "Our life is a mess. I would go anywhere else." (Editing by Alistair Lyon) (ulf.laessing@thomsonreuters.com, ulf.laessing.reuters.com@reuters.net)

ADEN, Yemen, Feb 9 (Reuters) – Somalis fleeing war have long found refuge in Yemen, seen as a way station to Saudi Arabia, but fear of al Qaeda infiltration has cooled their welcome. "Because we are Somali refugees, we’re suspicious," complained Ali Mohamed Othman, an unemployed man in the dusty Basateen slum in Yemen’s southern port city of Aden. Yemeni authorities have been on alert since Somalia’s hardline Islamist rebel group al-Shabaab, already battling an interim Somali government at home, said last month it was ready to send fighters to help al Qaeda in Yemen. "After the (Shabaab) remarks we’ve taken several measures such as to limit refugees’ movements to other provinces," said Major Ahmed al-Humaiqani, head of Basateen police station. Refugees now get fingerprinted and their pictures registered in a central computer to help track their movements. A failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner, claimed by an al Qaeda group in Yemen, heightened Western and Saudi fears that militants will exploit state weakness in the impoverished southern Arabian country to prepare new attacks. Yemen, which has traditionally had close ties with Somalia, has given prima facie refugee status to all Somalis escaping the clan strife and famine that engulfed the Horn of Africa country after warlords toppled President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. It has offered no such favours to a growing influx of Ethiopians and Eritreans, often detaining them on arrival and deporting them, according to the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR. Yemen hosts 171,000 registered refugees, mostly Somalis, according to UNHCR figures for December, up from 140,300 a year earlier. Many more unregistered Somalis are thought to roam there, most of them hoping to move to richer Gulf countries. After surviving a two-day voyage across the Gulf of Aden in a small boat, Shafir Abdullah dreams only of work in Saudi Arabia, which shares a 1,500 km (937 mile) border with Yemen. "I don’t have a job, but I wash cars sometimes," said the 25-year-old from the anarchic Somali capital Mogadishu, as he sat with friends in Basateen. "I am saving for Saudi." Yemen itself is mired in poverty. With more than 40 percent of its 23 million people living on below $2 a day, it has few resources to cope with the human tide from the Horn of Africa. QUEST FOR BETTER LIFE "Many come to try to move on to other Gulf countries such as Saudi Arabia," said Mohamed Deriya, Somali community leader in Basateen where 40,000 Somalis and Yemenis with Somali ties live in makeshift houses, many made of wood or corrugated iron. Some in Basateen’s unpaved streets say police hassle them. "We have received a number of reports by refugees who have been harassed by the local population and by authorities," said Rocco Nuri, a UNHCR spokesman in Aden. Since al-Shabaab offered to send fighters to Yemen, four Somalis have been detained on suspicion of having links to al Qaeda, said Hussein Mahmood, Somalia’s vice-consul in Aden. "They are now being interrogated," he said. Yemeni has also accused some Somalis of joining so-called Houthi rebels in the north, saying 30 had been arrested there, but diplomats say they have no evidence to substantiate this. Houthis might force some Somalis to join them as they head for the Saudi border, said Mahmood, the Somali diplomat. Others say Somalis might fight for a while if offered money or the prospect of a border crossing later. "They are desperate, they need money," said Yemeni journalist Nasser Arrabyee. Abdullah Ali, a Somali living in Sweden who was visiting relatives in Basateen, agreed: "Some might be willing. All the boys here don’t have a job. They want money, a car, a living." Yemen’s Western and Arab donors hope to save the country from replicating Somalia’s fate of chaotic breakdown. "Yemen has the advantage to have a government that wants to work with us," said Pauline Baker, head of the Washington-based Fund for Peace which does research on failed states. "Somalia is a failed state, whose transitional government controls just some blocks in Mogadishu," she said. Somalis desperate to flee their homeland pay smugglers up to $150 depending on the sea route, and are totally at their mercy. "Smugglers are ruthless people who don’t care about the well-being of those being transported. They might be thrown over board, they might be beaten up," said the UNHCR’s Nuri. "Many cases of rape happen before, during and upon arrival in Yemen." Most Somalis in the urban squalor of Basateen are focused on survival, not on al Qaeda militants or Houthi rebels. "I have no job. I don’t know what to do," said Yurub Wase, a refugee depending on U.N. aid who arrived with her four-year-old son in November after paying $150 to smugglers for the voyage. "I feel sick but I can’t afford medicine," she said. Khadija Sheikha Ahmed, a mother of five, agreed: "Our life is a mess. I would go anywhere else." (Editing by Alistair Lyon) (ulf.laessing@thomsonreuters.com, ulf.laessing.reuters.com@reuters.net)

KAWKABAN, Yemen, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Clinging to a cliff, this Yemeni village once bustled with tourists drawn by its mountain views, centuries-old stone houses and narrow alleys. Now it is eerily quiet in the thin air of Kawkaban, 2,800 metres (9,200 feet) above sea level. Coachloads of visitors no longer arrive from the capital Sanaa, 35 km (22 miles) away. Faded signs adorn long-closed guest houses and restaurants. Village boys play in the street outside one deserted hotel. Yemen had looked to tourism as an alternative to dwindling oil income, which plunged to $2 billion last year from $4.4 billion in 2008, but attacks by al Qaeda militants, kidnappings and chronic instability have driven most foreign visitors away. "The tourism sector is facing a huge problem. Bookings from Europe have dropped 90 percent," said Abu Taleb, a travel agent in Sanaa. "It should be high season right now. Some people still come, but at their own risk." In the past Yemeni tribesmen frequently kidnapped foreigners to try to force the government to deliver local benefits and usually freed their victims unharmed. But a resurgence in al Qaeda militancy now keeps all but the boldest tourists away. The government declared "open war" on the militants after the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for a failed Dec. 25 attack on a U.S. airliner. But state control is weak in many parts of Yemen, a country almost as big as France. The tourists who do venture here can explore the stunning old city of Sanaa, the sleepy southern port of Aden or the distant island of Socotra — but little else. Foreigners need police permits to travel outside Sanaa, a measure authorities say is meant to protect them. NO-GO AREAS The scenic Sanaa-Aden road via the mountainous city of Taiz is risky because of separatist unrest in the south. The northern city of Saada, famous for its old town, is a war zone where government forces battle so-called Houthi rebels. Hadramaut in the southeast, home to the 16th century towers of Shibam, dubbed the "Manhattan of the desert", is also off limits. So is the lawless eastern region of Maarib, where the pre-Islamic kingdom of Saba had its capital. "Nobody is coming because of all the problems," complained Motjar al-Thawar, a shopkeeper in the old city of Sanaa selling the traditional daggers worn by Yemeni tribesmen. Al Qaeda has mounted several attacks on tourists, including a suicide bombing that killed four South Koreans in Hadramaut in March 2009. Gunmen killed two Belgian women in January 2008. A car bomb blast killed seven Spaniards in Maarib in July 2007. Last month, a Yemeni official said negotiations had begun with the kidnappers of a German couple and their three children and a Briton held since June. Three other foreigners abducted at the same time in the northern province of Saada were found dead. The Houthis have denied they were behind the kidnapping, for which no group has claimed responsibility. The slump in tourism is more bad news for an impoverished country of 23 million people, of whom more than 40 percent survive on less than $2 a day. "The number of European tourists has started to fall, this is for sure," Tourism Minister Nabil al-Faqih acknowledged in a recent interview, adding that Yemen would try to attract more Gulf Arab and other Middle Eastern visitors to compensate. But Yemen’s reported plans to lure a million visitors a year by 2010 and 1.5 million by 2015 look doomed, diplomats say. Official figures include anyone with a tourist visa — which means business people, oil contractors and Yemenis with foreign passports, as well as genuine holidaymakers. Local analysts say tourism never contributed more than 2 or 3 percent of Gross Domestic Product — well below the 6.5 percent target mentioned on the tourism ministry’s website. Some donors still fund projects to develop tourism but officials privately say their best hope is to persuade Yemeni expatriates to spend their summer vacation at home. (Additional reporting by Abdulrahman al-Ansi) (Editing by Alistair Lyon) (ulf.laessing.reuters.com@reuters.net; ulf.laessing@thomsonreuters.com)

SANAA (Reuters) – The United States should increase aid to Yemen to prevent the poor Arab country becoming a failed state and not just focus on assistance to fight al Qaeda there, research house Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said.

Yemen was thrown into the spotlight of the U.S. war against terror after a Yemen-based regional wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed December 25 attack on a Detroit-bound passenger plane.

The United States and Yemen’s neighbor Saudi Arabia fear rising poverty and escalating chaos in the Arab country located strategically on the southwest rim of the Arabian peninsula will help al Qaeda to turn it into an operating base.

“It is essential that Washington take a holistic approach to Yemen,” Carnegie told the U.S. Congress. “Although the major U.S. foreign policy concern with regard to Yemen since 2001 has been security and counterterrorism, the country’s deteriorating security is a result of problems unrelated to security.”

SANAA, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The United States should increase aid to Yemen to prevent the poor Arab country becoming a failed state and not just focus on assistance to fight al Qaeda there, research house Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said. Yemen was thrown into the spotlight of the U.S. war against terror after a Yemen-based regional wing of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed Dec. 25 attack on a Detroit-bound passenger plane. The United States and Yemen’s neighbour Saudi Arabia fear rising poverty and escalating chaos in the Arab country located strategically on the southwest rim of the Arabian peninsula will help al Qaeda to turn it into an operating base. "It is essential that Washington take a holistic approach to Yemen," Carnegie told the U.S. Congress. "Although the major U.S. foreign policy concern with regard to Yemen since 2001 has been security and counterterrorism, the country’s deteriorating security is a result of problems unrelated to security." "It is in Washington’s interests to engage Yemen on other issues that will contribute indirectly to improving domestic security," Carnegie’s Christopher Boucek said in written testimony. Yemen is under severe economic pressure as gas exports cannot offset dwindling oil reserves, while its population of 23 million, of which some 40 percent live on less than $2 a day, is set to double within 10 years. Carnegie said greater aid to Yemen — and not just increased security aid — would "help prevent state failure, as well as offset the difficult economic choices that need to be made in Yemen as it prepares to transition to a post-oil economy". Sanaa increased fuel prices by up to 14 percent this week to ease the budget of $2 billion for diesel subsidies this year — the equivalent what Yemen earned from oil exports in 2009. The United States should also help Yemen enforce a stricter legal regime to stop an excessive use of water as reservoirs deplete in several parts of the huge country, the group said. To achieve this goal, Yemen should be encouraged to start importing qat — a mild narcotic dominating life in Yemen — from East Africa as a significant part of its water consumption is currently used to irrigate qat. "So much land is being used for qat cultivation that the country is now a net food importer," Carnegie said, adding that Yemeni famers should shift to growing cereals and other foodstuffs. Donors pledged some $4.7 billion in aid at a conference in London in 2006 but much of the money has not been spent yet as the country did not have the capacities to absorb such sums. (Reporting by Ulf Laessing, Editing by Richard Williams) (ulf.laessing@thomsonreuters.com, ulf.laessing.reuters.com@reuters.net)

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemen’s northern Shi’ite rebels said on Tuesday they were open to a prisoner swap with neighboring Saudi Arabia if Riyadh was committed to peace, but said the kingdom had carried out more air strikes against them.

Saudi Arabia declared victory over the rebels last week. Three months ago it was drawn into the conflict between the Yemeni government and the insurgents, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination.

The rebels would have to return six missing Saudi soldiers if they wanted hostilities to end, Saudi Assistant Minister of Defense Prince Khaled bin Sultan said at the time. Prince Khaled told state media on Tuesday the body of one missing soldier had been found.

“The issue of the Saudi prisoners is not an obstacle if there is a will for peace. Perhaps the matter can be solved through a prisoner swap,” the rebels said on their website.

SANAA, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Yemen’s northern Shi’ite rebels said on Tuesday they were open to a prisoner swap with neighbouring Saudi Arabia if Riyadh was committed to peace, but said the kingdom had carried out more air strikes against them. Saudi Arabia declared victory over the rebels last week. Three months ago it was drawn into the conflict between the Yemeni government and the insurgents, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination. The rebels would have to return six missing Saudi soldiers if they wanted hostilities to end, Saudi Assistant Minister of Defence Prince Khaled bin Sultan said at the time. Prince Khaled told state media on Tuesday the body of one missing soldier had been found. "The issue of the Saudi prisoners is not an obstacle if there is a will for peace. Perhaps the matter can be solved through a prisoner swap," the rebels said on their website. Yemen, which is also pursuing a crackdown on al Qaeda and struggling to contain a southern secessionist movement, rejected on Sunday a ceasefire offer from the rebels, saying it did not include a promise to end hostilities against Saudi Arabia, with which it shares a 1,500-km (900-mile) border. Saudi Arabia had said rebel snipers were still entering Saudi territory. The insurgents denied this and said the Saudi military was attacking them. Saudi fighter jets carried out 24 strikes on 10 northern districts on Monday and fired more than 200 rockets and rounds of heavy artillery, the rebels said on their website. Yemen will next week start the trial of 35 Shi’ite rebels on terrorism and sabotage charges, a Defence Ministry website said. Growing instability in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, is a serious worry for Western powers and neighbouring countries. They fear the Yemen-based regional wing of al Qaeda, which claimed a failed Dec. 25 bomb attack on a U.S.-bound plane, could strengthen its operations there and use it as a base for more international attacks. The government also faces separatists in the south who complain of economic and social marginalisation, a charge Sanaa denies. REFORMS NEEDED Diplomats say President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 31-year rule is tainted by corruption and doubts about its democratic credentials. Last week, Yemen promised Western and Arab donors gathered at a London meeting to work on reforms and to start talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a programme to revamp the economy and fight poverty. On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said the government’s decision to reduce fuel subsidies that were weighing on the economy was part of such reforms. [nLAE154950] Yemen’s partners would support Sanaa but the government would have to make economic and political changes, Ivan Lewis, Britain’s minister of state in the foreign office, said after meeting Qirbi and the president in Sanaa. "In the long term, security and stability depend on getting the economy moving, giving people decent services and having a political dialogue where people of different political persuasion can at least agree on working together in the interest of the country," Lewis told a news conference. He also said Britain was helping Yemen to upgrade airport security to eventually allow the lifting of a suspension of direct flights by state carrier Yemenia to Britain, suspended last month on security grounds after the failed Dec. 25 attack. [nLAE234286] (Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

SANAA, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Security forces and airline staff sometimes outnumber passengers at Yemen’s main airport since a crackdown by Sanaa after al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attack on a U.S.-bound plane in December. Providing effective security presents a challenge however, experts say, and a new, bigger and potentially more secure terminal will not be ready for two years at least. Sanaa’s airport, like its sister airport in Aden in the south, operates without electronic signboards and boarding for some flights is done using handwritten passes. Domestic passengers often only have to show their boarding passes to bypass immigration and enter a luggage hall shared with international travellers. Customs then have to sort out again who is who. The failed Dec. 25 plane attack focused attention on air security in Yemen, where the accused bomber is believed to have embraced militant views. Sanaa has declared open war on the global militant network and launched manhunts for its members. Experts funded by the European Union are currently reviewing gate and passport control procedures at Sanaa and other Yemeni airports, project manager Fawzi al-Zioud of the International Organisation for Migration said. "We hope to work with authorities to fill the gaps," Zioud said, adding he would recommend more equipment to boost passport control and training for staff, some of whom speak poor English. "From our discussions here, authorities are open and willing to improve the situation," he said. Even with equipment such as body scanners, which can detect explosives such as the one used in the botched Dec. 25 bombing of the Detroit-bound plane, the task will not be easy. "Even if Yemen were to adopt body scanners, the security staff at the airport have to operate them with care and skill," said David Learmount, Operations & Safety Editor at air publications Flight International and flightglobal.com. "The UK, which is the Islamist terrorists’ next most favoured world target after the USA, feels it cannot take a chance with aircraft flying from Yemen," he said. Britain suspended direct flights from Yemen last month over security. STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT For now, Sanaa has just one arrival and departure hall in the 1970s-built airport for both domestic and international flights, and passenger planes share runways with air force missions against Shi’ite rebels in the north. Yemen, located on the Arabian Peninsula’s strategically important southern tip, is trying to fight a threat from resurgent al Qaeda fighters as well as quash a Shi’ite revolt in the north and separatist sentiment in the south. The West and Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, fear Yemen could become a failed state and worry al Qaeda could exploit the ensuing chaos to turn the poorest Arab country into a launchpad for further international attacks. Flagship carrier Yemenia flies to almost 40 destinations in Europe, Africa and Asia, according to its website. To fill planes, Yemenia combines domestic and foreign routes which poses another logistical challenge. The Sanaa-Abu Dhabi flight, for example, goes via Aden with security splitting domestic and international passengers before passport control only to let them mingle again at the gate. Other foreign routes go via the western port of Houdeida or Mukalla, a very small airport in the distant southeast. Yet authorities see the limited space at Sanaa airport, which handles some 30 flights a day, as advantage. "There is no chance for anyone not going through security," said Mohamed al-Farasi, deputy manager of Sanaa airport. British inspectors had been satisfied with the airport at the end of January. They made only a few suggestions, mainly for gate management, to be reviewed by them in a month, he said. (Editing by Louise Ireland and Cynthia Johnston)

SANAA, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Anwar al-Qadasi is too worried about the impact of Yemen’s diving currency on his auto parts business to pay much attention to a high-level meeting going on in London to galvanise international support for his country.

Like many of his fellow Yemenis, he has no time for international diplomacy and little hope it can improve his lot as he struggles to make ends meet in a country facing myriad economic problems and a rising threat from Islamist militants.

Yemen’s currency, the riyal, has plunged to its lowest level in years against the dollar as people worry about rising instability in the Arab world’s poorest nation.

For Qadasi, the currency’s fall has meant a surge in the cost of steel, a key material for his business, which opens out onto a small dusty street in the capital Sanaa and is filled with old welding machines and workers huddled over spare parts.