On the streets of Sana, the nation’s conflict-stricken capital, the news of the death of Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American propagandist for Al Qaeda who inspired jihadists around the world, was largely overshadowed by the continuing domestic turmoil here.
Many Yemenis had not even heard that Mr. Awlaki had been killed, even by Friday night. And most had only a faint sense of why the United States considered him a highly significant target. If anything, Yemenis thought his death would only increase their woes.
“I don’t know why he was important, except that he was a terrorist,” said Belal Masood, who works in a restaurant in Sana’s old city. “But maybe this will create a problem for us Yemenis, because when you strike Al Qaeda they normally strike back larger. Really, we wish they could have killed him in another country.”
Another man, Walid Seneb, who was sitting on a street curb with three friends on Friday night, said, “We don’t like these terrorists who make problems for us. Mr. Seneb was the only one of the four men who had heard of the cleric’s death.
“But right now there are worse problems,” he said. “Our national crisis is the biggest problem. There is no water, electricity, everything from the government stopped.”
After eight months of antigovernment protests that began during the Arab spring, Yemen’s government has been torn apart. The armed forces are divided between those loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and those who follow a rebel military commander. Conflict between the two sides turned into urban warfare in Sana two weeks ago, with over 100 people being killed. With fears that a large-scale civil war may break out and a debilitating economic crisis , Yemenis are sufficiently absorbed with their own problems that they do not have much time or attention to devote to the death of a man who was most known for reaching out to the English-speaking world of Muslim extremists.
“Awlaki’s life or death doesn’t matter for Yemenis,” said Nadwa al-Dawsari, who works for a nonprofit organization in Sana. “It is not a priority for us. Not many Yemenis know who Awlaki was anyway. It doesn’t matter how many Al Qaeda members are killed as long as the underlying causes that makes extremism thrive exist.”
But a major concern for some, especially among Yemenis in the opposition, is that the Saleh family provided information to the United States on Mr. Awlaki’s whereabouts to gain political favor.
Although the Obama administration has been working diplomatically to find a way to ease Mr. Mr. Saleh from office, his family controls the security apparatus responsible for counterterrorism activities. They know that Mr. Awlaki’s death was coveted by the United States, and they fear that it will somehow alter the administration’s desire to have Mr. Saleh give up power.
“Now he is going to show the people he can kill al Qaeda,” Nader al-Qershi, a youth organizer at Sana’s large antigovernment demonstration, said of Mr. Saleh. “That there is al Qaeda in Yemen, and who can kill them except Ali Abdullah Saleh?
“Why does Ali Abdullah Saleh kill him at this time? He has a lot of information about these people in Al Qaeda. The protesters at the university are happy about this action, but we just want to know why it happened at this time.”
It was widely assumed in Yemen that Mr. Saleh’s government must have been aware of Mr. Awlaki’s whereabouts long ago, but was reluctant to hand over that information to the Americans or kill Mr. Awlaki, because he is from a powerful tribe in southern Yemen that might seek retribution if he was killed.
Then why was Mr. Awlaki tracked down on Friday? Some Yeminis thought they knew. “Saleh wanted to show the world that he is a hero against Al Qaeda,” said Hussein Mohammed, who runs a small hotel in Sana’s old city.
But Mr. Mohammed, like many people here, did not think that Mr. Awlaki’s death would alter the political dynamic in their country. He said it was not al Qaeda, but the struggle among Yemen’s political elites that poses the greatest risk to the country’s future.
Tribesmen loyal to Mr. Saleh’s main political rival, Hamid al-Ahmar, have engaged in almost daily street warfare with the government’s security forces in a northern district of Sana over the past few weeks. The sound of artillery fire echoing through the capital has become commonplace.
“They struck Anwar al-Awlaki, why don’t the Americans strike Ali Abdullah Saleh and Hamid al-Ahmar?” Mr. Mohammed asked.
This story, "Yemenis say they have bigger problems than al-qaeda," originally appeared in The New York Times.