Yemen Security Forces announced on Monday its men had managed to identify and apprehend a gang of kidnappers, all thirteen of them after it was established they were responsible for kidnapping two UN aid workers earlier in March. Keen to crackdown on such criminal trend security officials vowed last month to address Sana’a growing insecurity crisis.
If kidnappings have always been somewhat of an occasional hazard in this poorest nation of the Arabian Peninsula, with tribesmen using foreigners as bargain chips in their negotiations with government officials, 2011 uprising saw the inception of a more sinister trend: kidnapping for hire.
On the wake of al-Qaeda 2011 insurgency movement, terror militants quickly established that foreigners would prove to be invaluable assets, an effective way to raise cash for its campaigns. From that moment on Islamic militants set out to target any foreigners, preferably westerners as they came to represent high value assets, intent on throwing off Yemen’ security apparatus through a constant erosion of its resources. But rather than risk their own operatives, al-Qaeda cunningly sought to hire local tribesmen to do its bidding.
Al Qaeda would quite simply point at a target and tribesmen would arrange for the abductees to be delivered, pending compensation to their new keepers. As it happens, Yemen security forces are catching up with criminals, determined to foil the targeting of foreign nationals on their soil.
Sources at the Interior Ministry have stressed that Monday’s announcement should be understood as part of the interior ministry’s zero tolerance for crimes. Set to reform the ministry from the inside out, newly appointed Interior Minister, Major General Abdo Al Tarab has already proven to be a force to be reckoned with.
In a statement published on the ministry’s website, officials noted that the “arrest involved operations extending from the capital, Sana’a, to Mareb and other provinces, and will be followed by more measures against other suspects of kidnappings.”