Writing in the Waq al-Wag blog, Gregory Johnsen refers to the case of eight men who were apparently arrested by mistake during a raid against al-Qaeda in Yemen. After almost two months in detention they have now been released, thanks to the efforts of a tribal sheikh.

Incidents like this are not at all unusual in Yemen and they highlight a wider problem. Johnsen comments:

This case illustrates, yet again, the difficulties even for the Yemeni government of conducting counterterrorism raids in Yemen. Often the government is unaware of who exactly it holds. It is much easier to just arrest everyone than it is to assign blame and determine who is a militant or who is a member of al-Qaeda. After all, it is not like these guys carry cards – (there are no "card carrying members of al-Qaeda"). 

In practice what this means is that by arresting the wrong people the government often invites tribal retaliation that then gets chalked up as al-Qaeda violence, further muddying the waters of an already murky conflict. 

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 13 November 2010