Aden Abyan Islamic Army (AAIA) -- Founding Group and Faction

<a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=AF">Afghanistan</a>, <a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=LY">Libya</a>, <a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=UK">United Kingdom</a>, <a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=US">United States</a>, <a href="terrorist_organizations_by_country.asp?id=YM">Yemen</a>

Around 1990, after the Soviets pull out of Afghanistan

Sponsored by Osama bin Laden. It has also raised money via kidnapping, and supporter networks overseas

Yemen Islamic Jihad is composed of Yemenis, Egyptians, Algerians, Saudis and other Afghan war veterans who followed Tariq al-Fasdli back to Yemen after the war to help President Ali Abdullah Saleh defeat the socialists of South Yemen in 1994.  Al-Fasdli and several other leaders immediately joined the triumphant government, but the new government's failure to incorporate the hundreds of Islamic Jihad fighters into the Yemeni army left them to pursue their militant Islamist aims.  Nevertheless, the group enjoys de facto support from political elites at many levels of Yemen's government, enforcing their own brand of Sharia in the South. <P><br /><br />Yemen Islamic Jihad has also taken on foreign targets. In 1992, U.S. troops headed for Somalia were targeted in two hotel bombings during their stayover in Yemen and in 1993 Egyptian authorities blamed Yemen Islamic Jihad for an attempted assassination of the Egyptian Prime Minister. The government of Yemen continued to turn a blind eye until the attempted assassination of Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak in 1995 by Yemeni-based militants.  <P><br /><br />Tariq al-Fasdli met Osama bin Laden during his years in Afghanistan and Yemen Islamic Jihad is closely affiliated with, and substantially funded by, Al Qaeda.  In 2000 the two groups, along with the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, were implicated in the bombing of the USS Cole. The group is based in Yemen, but is believed to have militant wings in Palestine, Afghanistan, the US and the UK.