When Osama Bin Laden appointed two of his most trusted lieutenants to establish al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula , he sent one, Yousif al-Aiyeri, to Saudi Arabia and the other, Abdurrahman al-Nasheri , to Yemen . Al-Nasheri was a powerful terrorist; his focus was on naval ships. He had been one of Bin Laden?s senior deputies in Afghanistan . He created the explosive that was used against the USS Cole , he organized the attack on the French tanker the Limburg , and he masterminded the thwarted plot against the USS Sullivans . When he was apprehended in the United Arab Emirates in late 2002 and extradited to the United States, he was found to have been planning attacks against the US 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain and against US and UK ships passing through the Straits of Gibraltar.

Though it was a major victory to capture such a mastermind, al-Nasheri left behind him a network and an unknown number of cells in Yemen. These provided supply routes, weapons, and explosives for their more active counterparts in Saudi Arabia across the vast tribally-dominated areas of the Yemeni-Saudi border. A number of these terrorists have been captured by Yemeni officials. However, since Saudi Arabia has become a less-friendly place for terrorists, many are believed to have headed to other Arabian Peninsula countries, in which Yemen is probably the easiest to hide.