November 25: A series of failed prosecutions for qat possession has cast doubt on whether Yemen’s favourite pastime is illegal throughout the United States.

Although qat (or "khat") is not specifically mentioned in federal drugs law, and in only a few state laws, it is regarded by police as an illicit drug. Prosecutions usually occur because of two alkaloids found in qat: cathine and cathinone

Cathine was banned by federal law in 1988, and cathinone in 1993. Local laws in many American states banned both substances in 1988, but some states took no action against qat until the federal ban on cathinone came into effect in 1993.

When making arrests for qat, police usually charge the suspect with possession of cathinone (since it is a Schedule I drug), rather than cathine, which is only Schedule III or, in some parts of the US, Schedule IV. The reason for this is that the more serious the charge, the better it looks on the arresting officer’s career record.

In fact, the amount of cathinone in qat is tiny: about 36 parts in every 100,000 when it is freshly picked. But cathinone is unstable and it rapidly degrades into cathine. Qat smuggled into the US a day or two after picking is therefore likely to contain only slight traces of cathinone.

Nevertheless, according to one lawyer, police who seize 100 pounds of qat are liable to claim that they have nabbed "100 pounds of Schedule I narcotics" - which, again, looks good on their career record.

Qat’s larger ingredient, cathine, can be found in salt form, as pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, in Sudafed, Dexatrim, and other non-prescription medicines.

Under US law, people must be given "fair notice" that a substance is illegal - which in practice means that it must appear on the banned list.

A law-abiding citizen who wanted to check the legality of qat before buying it would not find it on the federal list nor on the local list in most American states. It would also be unreasonable to expect the average person to know that qat leaves contain cathinone and cathine, two items which do appear on the lists.

In this respect, the law’s failure to mention qat is different from the way it treats other drugs of vegetable origin. For example, "marijuana" is listed in addition to its active ingredient, THC; "coca leaves" are listed in addition to cocaine.

Lack of "fair notice" has now been accepted as a defence against charges of qat possession by courts in at least six American states. One lawyer recently told Yemen Gateway that he had obtained qat 14 acquittals in a row by using this defence.

Outside Yemen and parts East Africa, where qat is widely chewed, legal attitudes vary greatly. In Britain, where qat is legal, its use is mainly confined to members of the Yemeni and Somali communities and their friends, and it has caused no social problems. Chewing is a slow, rather messy business, so it is unlikely ever to catch on as a "club culture" drug where people usually seek an instant high.

Prosecutions in the United States sometimes look more like a way of victimising ethnic minorities than maintaining law and order.

In the light of recent court rulings, the US could decide to amend its laws to include qat, by name, as a banned substance. A more sensible course would be not to tighten the law immediately but to suspend prosecutions and see if that leads to any real problems.

See Yemen Gateway's QAT PAGE

NO NEWS ... GOOD NEWS

NOVEMBER 15: We scarcely dare mention this for fear that it may tempt disaster, but here goes: no foreigners have been taken hostage in Yemen for five months. This is the longest period without a kidnapping since 1996.

We doubt that Alberto Alessio, the 40-year-old chairman of an Italian archaeology foundation, who was kidnapped in Marib on June 16 and held for four days, will be Yemen's  last foreign hostage, but even so the signs are encouraging.

With almost 11 months gone, there have been only five kidnaps this year involving foreigners, compared with 10 or more in each of the last three years. And the total of foreigners kidnapped this year is only seven so far, compared with 27 in 1999, 42 in 1998 and 50 in 1997.

The Yemeni government always maintained that the kidnaps, or at least many of them, were instigated by Saudi Arabia in furtherance of the border dispute. We reserve judgment on that, but it is interesting to note that the most recent kidnap took place just as the border dispute was being settled.

Another explanation is that there are simply fewer opportunities for the kidnappers. Foreigners who go to Yemen are more aware of the risks, and take care. Security is also tighter: police permits are needed even for visits to places such as Shibam/Kawkaban, just a few miles outside Sana’a.

Continuing awareness and care should help tourism to recover, but it will take time. Such is Yemen’s reputation now that on a recent visit to Sana'a we met several tourists who had lied  to family and friends about their destination, to avoid alarming them. 

One - who had told his mother he was surfing in Sharm al-Sheikh - even had a map, helpfully marked by staff at the Italian embassy, showing all the places where foreigners had been kidnapped: places he was making sure to avoid.

EMBASSY BOMB

SANA’A, 14 October: A bomb hit the British Embassy in Yemen yesterday, only hours after a suicide attack on an American warship in the south of the country which killed 17 people and injured 35.

The blast, just after 6 am in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, caused "considerable damage", according to an embassy official.

Guards were on duty at the front of the building, but the bomb appeared to have been thrown over the wall of the embassy compound from waste land at the side.

No one was hurt but windows of the Chancery building – which includes the ambassador’s office - were smashed and an outer wall was blackened by smoke. Officials would not comment on the internal damage. Windows of an adjacent school were also broken.

SANA’A, 13 October: The United States says the explosion which blew a 12-metre hole in the USS Cole as it refuelled in Aden yesterday was a terrorist act, carried out by suicide bombers.

Yemen's initial reaction was that the explosion probably not a deliberate act, though the authorities acted swiftly to demonstrate their concern. President Ali Abdullah Salih was shown on Yemeni television visiting the injured in hospital.

The state-run television said that President Salih has spoken by telephone to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and had "clarified to Albright that present information indicates that it was not a deliberate act."

The US says that a small boat from the harbour, which had been helping to moor the guided missile destroyer, pulled alongside it. As it drew close, two men on the boat stood to attention and saluted – at which point it exploded.

Some Yemeni witnesses say there was a fire on the warship before it exploded, but the US says the hole in the warship, which is just above the waterline, was caused by the Yemeni boat exploding. It says the damage indicates and explosion from outside the warship, not from inside.

Yemen has been plagued by generally low-level terrorism for many years. Following the Afgan war, many Muslim fighters took refuge there, taking advantage of lax security, the ready availability of weapons, and the rugged terrain to use it as a base for training and activities in other countries.

Usama bin Laden, whose family originally came from southern Yemen, has maintained links with the country, and he has a number of followers there.

Southern Yemen, under Marxist rule, was classified by the US as a "rogue state". The Marxists provided Carlos the Jackal with a passport. But Yemen was removed from the US list when the south and north of Yemen were unified in 1990.

For several years, Yemen has been quietly nurturing its relations with the United States, despite opposition from some sections of public opinion.

Relations have moved a long way since 1990-91 when Yemen's attitude to the conflict with Saddam Hussein led to American aid being cut off. In 1997, during the arms inspection crisis with Iraq, Yemen kept a noticeably low profile. Later, following the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania last August, President Salih wasted no time in sending condolences to President Clinton - though one of the bombing suspects carried a Yemeni passport.

In 1998, Yemen and the United States held their first joint military exercises, and the US provided help with clearing mines left behind by the 1994 civil war.

There have been persistent rumours - denied by the Yemeni government - that the US would like to establish a military base in Yemen. Although the government sees good relations with the US as vital to its long-term interests, it has had had to endure criticism of its policy at home - particularly from Islamists, but also from some nationalists.

Two years ago, opponents of military co-operation circulated a document entitled: "US Department of State: Report on some important issues for 1998" which claimed, among other things, that the US Marines had established a base in Aden.

The US Embassy in Sana'a said the document was a forgery containing "numerous lies". A spokesman said: "The United States does not have - and does not intend to establish - any military bases in Yemen."

However, the US has been using Aden for oil bunkering and resupply of its fleet.

American involvement in Yemen was one of the grievances of the so-called Islamic Army of Aden-Abyan, which kidnapped 16 mainly British tourists in southern Yemen at the end of 1998. Four of the tourists died during a rescue by Yemeni security forces, and the leader of the Islamic Army was later executed.

A group of young Muslim men from Britain had earlier been arrested on terrorism charges and were alleged to have been plotting attacks on various US and British targets in Aden. The Yemenis believed that the tourists were kidnapped in the hope of securing their release.

The men were linked to Abu Hamza al-Masri, the imam of Finsbury Park mosque in London, who runs an organisation called Supporters of Sharia. After kidnapping the tourists, the leader of the Islamic Army called Abu Hamza by satellite phone.

Although any attackers would have had little forewarning of the arrival of the USS Cole in Aden, all activity involving the US military is watched closely by local opponents of the co-operation.

If yesterday's explosion turns out to have occurred in the way suggested by the Americans, it would have needed considerable planning, with infiltrators obtaining jobs in Aden port.

There is no suggestion of involvement by the Yemeni authorities, but there are certainly a number of people in Yemen who would not only approve of such an attack - especially in the light of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - but would be willing to co-operate with it.

THE JIHAD EXPERIENCE

JULY 11: It’s happened again. Less than two years after Abu Hamza’s lads went "on holiday" to Yemen in search of the Jihad experience and ended up in jail, we find 30 Britons studying an extreme version of Islam at what is variously described as "a religious institute" or "a camp".

One of them, who went out to Yemen when he was only 15, was shot dead on July 8. The story, not entirely convincing, is that a fellow Briton killed him accidentally while cleaning a gun. 

If it were simply a matter of learning about Islam there would be no need to go to Yemen. There are almost two million Muslims in Britain; books and cassettes about the faith are freely available; there are hundreds of mosques. But in British mosques, people don’t have guns.

Wad'aa Religious Institute - or camp - is in Sa’ada province, in the wild far north of Yemen. Foreigners are not encouraged to go there because of the risk of kidnapping.

The version of Islam taught there is not mainstream, but Salafi. "The movement is considered one of the largest and most radical Islamic movements in the country," the Yemen Times said yesterday in an email to its subcsribers. "They have accused many other Islamic groups of infidelity, and have spread their own religious thoughts and beliefs to a large sector of the foreigners who turned to Islam." (See Yemen Times report on on the Salafieh movement and its founder)

The dead youth, Hosea Walker, appears to have been a convert to Islam who was accompanied to Yemen by his elder brother, 17-year-old Malachi.

There have been reports of some Islamic leaders in Britain recruiting youngsters to attend training camps abroad, in the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Some are later sent to fight in Chechnya and elsewhere.

In Yemen, there have also been reports of youngsters being offered large sums of money to fight in Chechnya.

APRIL 9: So, Yemen is at last enjoying a tourist boom. Three groups of Israeli tourists have arrived in the space of a fortnight and a fourth is said to be on the way.

These are not, however, typical tourists. Typical tourists do not include the inside of the prime minister's office or the parliamentary Speaker's house in their proposed sightseeing intinerary. Typical tourists do not have their travels reported in detail by the media back home.

Ostensibly, the tourists are in Yemen to visit relatives among the country's small Jewish community, but there's little doubt that their main purpose is to open up further cracks in Arab solidarity against Israel.

The fact that this has happened at a critical stage in the Middle East peace process, and that it coincided with President Salih's official visit to the United States, cannot be an accident.

Several weeks ago, Yemen's foreign minister complained that his country was being pressurised by the United States into normalising relations with Israel. Then there were the antics of the Israeli ambassador in Amman, who kept phoning the Yemeni embassy and asking to speak to the ambassador (who contrived never to be available).

Someone, clearly, has decided to try to "pick off" Yemen. Possibly similar moves are under way in other Arab countries, but Yemen is more exposed than most: it has a Jewish community and it badly needs help and support from the United States. Salih, when he went to the White House, was looking for favours from Clinton and Clinton, in turn, was looking for favours from Salih.

In the official statement after their meeting, Clinton went so far as to praise Yemen's new attitude to Israeli tourists. Back in Yemen, meanwhile, there is uproar from large sections of the opposition.

It is not clear, though, whether much has really changed. Yemen has allowed Jews to visit the country for many years, and some of them have been welcomed personally by high-level government figures. The issue has always been one of documentation: Israeli passports, or others with an Israeli stamp are not allowed. Claims that the first tourist group used Israeli passports to enter the country (as opposed to carrying them in their bags) have not been confirmed, and they are said to have presented American and British passports on arrival at their hotel. The most recent group seems to have got travel documents through the Yemeni delegation to the UN.

Whatever technical devices have been used, the Yemeni government can claim that the official boycott of Israel stands, while President Clinton and the Israelis can claim that it doesn't - and congratulate Yemen for being so helpful.

But where does this leave the US State Department, whose advice is that tourists should not travel to Yemen? Rather belatedly, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has also advised tourists to avoid visiting Yemen "before there are more fitting security arrangements".

FRONTIERS OF JOURNALISM

FEBRUARY 24: A Yemeni journalist has been banned from his profession for life after writing an article which was considered "insulting to Saudi Arabia and harming the interests of Yemen". Jamal Amer was also fined $31 and the newspaper he works for, the Nasserist al-Wahdawi, has been shut down for a month. [Report: Reuters]

There are few Yemenis who have not, at some time, been rude about the Saudis. It’s as much a national pastime as the British insulting the French. It may not be an enlightened way to behave, but when the British newspaper, the Sun, printed the headline "HOP OFF, YOU FROGS!" nobody tried to close it down.

Meanwhile Qassem Sallam, Ba’athist leader and a member of the Consultative Council (appointed by the president) is threatened with prosecution for writing an editorial in his party newspaper, al-Ihyaa al-Arabi, accusing Saudi Arabia of "expansionist ambitions". Mr Sallam is claiming that he cannot be prosecuted because he has parliamentary immunity. [Report: AFP]

Until recently, the Yemeni government was not altogether unhappy to see anti-Saudi talk in opposition newspapers. Far from "harming the interests of Yemen", it helped to rally people round the flag in the midst of a border dispute.

From a legal viewpoint, both writers seem to have fallen foul of Article 103 of the press law - a catch-all clause which forbids the publishing of "false" information. This gives the authorities wide powers to punish journalists for vaguely-defined offences. In practice the law has been used rather less in Yemen than similar laws in other Arab countries, but its use appears to be on the increase.

The motivation behind both cases is almost certainly the border negotiations between Yemen and Saudi Arabia which have reached a crucial stage. Possibly the Yemeni government is trying to prepare public opinion - after years of hostility - for a settlement.

Although the frontier line is the main issue, it is not the only one. There is a long history of mutual suspicion between the two neighbours, and of interference (actual or perceived) in each other’s internal affairs.

The framework for the current talks is the 1995 Memorandum of Understanding, brokered by the Americans, which seeks to reduce tension and encourage co-operation between Yemen and Saudi Arabia in various ways. Article 8 of the memorandum says:

Both countries confirm existing obligations whereby their territories will not be used as bases or centres of aggression against the other: nor will they be used for political, military or propaganda purposes against the other party …

This also helps to explain the latest action against Yemeni newspapers and, in a slightly different arena, the current high-level discussions about the future of Mowj.

MOWJ AND THE BORDER

FEBRUARY 22: The Yemeni government is coming under pressure to accept a reconciliation with Mowj, the exiled opposition group, as part of a border settlement with Saudi Arabia.

Mowj comprises various southern elements who in 1994 attempted to secede from Yemen and establish a separate state in the south. They were defeated by northern forces in a brief war and their leaders fled the country.

Although the southerners had their own motives for fighting, they received strong backing from Saudi Arabia. Northern leaders maintain that the separatists had struck a border deal with the Saudis in return for this support. It is claimed that if the separatists had succeeded, they would have granted the Saudis a land corridor through southern Yemen to the Arabian Sea.

After the war, Mowj set up headquarters in London, where it has waged a propaganda campaign against the Sana’a government - though it has largely abandoned its calls for separatism.

From his London exile, the Mowj leader, Abd al-Rahman al-Jifri, has frequently called for "national reconciliation". In 1998, however, the separatist leaders were tried in their absence by a Yemeni court on treason charges. Five were sentenced to death but al-Jifri himself was merely given a suspended sentence, leaving open the possibility that he might eventually return to Yemen.

Recently Mowj has been in contact with various mainstream political figures in Yemen, including President Salih’s party. Some of these contacts are reported in this week’s Yemen Times, which also includes an interview with al-Jifri.

Towards the end of January, Mowj representatives visited the US State Department, where they put their case to Diana Shelby, head of the Yemen and Oman section. Mowj later described the talks as "positive and useful". The representatives apparently believe they succeeded in persuading the Americans that rehabilitation of Mowj should be included in an overall settlement.

A couple of weeks later, US Assistant Secretary of State Edward Walker arrived in Sana’a, where he met President Salih and offered to mediate in the border dispute.

A reconciliation with Mowj would certainly cause an upheaval in the delicate political balance within Yemen and, at first sight, there is no pressing reason why President Salih would agree to it. However, some Yemeni sources suggest that deteriorating relations between the government and powerful sheikhs in northern Yemen may persuade the president to strike a deal with al-Jifri.

A CURIOUS KIDNAPPING

FEBRUARY 10: In the long and monotonously repetitive catalogue of Yemeni kidnappings, the abduction of Kenneth White on the night of January 25-26 stands out as one of the oddest.

The pattern of tribal kidnappings in Yemen is all too familiar. A vehicle is intercepted on a country road - often in the Marib area - and the occupants are whisked away to a mountain village. The kidnappers make their demands, giving away their identity and the location of their hostages in the process. Security forces surround the area and, if possible, arrest a few relatives of the kidnappers. A stand-off ensues until, eventually, the hostages are released. From start to finish, the typical kidnapping is relatively unsophisticated and, in some cases, hopelessly amateurish.

Mr White, an American oil worker, was indeed kidnapped in the Marib area, but there the similarities end. He was abducted at night, from his bedroom in the secure compound of the company he worked for, Halliburton. Several other foreigners slept on nearby, undisturbed. The alarm was raised next day when a wire fence surrounding the compound was found to have been cut. The kidnappers had also skilfully covered the tracks of their getaway vehicle. In the words of the Yemen Times, it was the most professional kidnapping that Yemen has seen.

Unusually for Yemen, the security forces seemed to have no idea where Mr White was being held.

As the intended use of the land was already known, Munkadh's acquisition seems to have been an unusually low-risk speculation with the possibility of a very high return. The government, however, did not take kindly to Munkadh's ploy - which would explain why Munkadh allegedly commissioned Mr White's kidnapping to back up its $400 million "compensation" claim.

Munkadh, meanwhile, is said by the government to be owned by people connected to Islah but so far there is no indication of their names or what their involvement with Islah really is.

There could, of course, be some deeper political intrigue behind the government's desire to link the affair with Munkadh and Islah. But there is no doubt that Mr White's kidnapping has touched on some sensitive spots. The reports of his release, on February 10, were notable for their brevity and lack of information about what actually happened.

FEBRUARY 13: President Salih is said to be considering a government reshuffle. The next couple of months will probably be the last opportunity to introduce some new blood and allow ministers enough time to establish themselves before the parliamentary elections which are due in April next year.

On the other hand, cabinet reshuffles often bring problems - so the president could decide to wait until after the election. One of the achievements of the current government, under Dr Abd al-Karim al-Iryani, is that it has avoided the huge public bust-ups that have dogged previous administrations since 1990.

There is speculation that Abd al-Qadir Bagammal, the current foreign minister, will take over as prime minister if the president does decide on a change. Mr Bagammal is a southerner from Hadramaut, who was prominent in the Socialist Party before unification. There are also suggestions that Mohammed al-Tayyib, the minister of labour, would be given a key role, including liaison with western governments on human rights issues.

Current government list