SANAA -- A backlash against the United States is gaining strength in a country that is considered vital to the American antiterrorism campaign.

In the impoverished Arab country of Yemen, where fugitive terrorists are believed to have found haven in lawless tribal regions, there is growing resentment of U.S. pressure tactics that have left scores of Yemenis languishing in jail for years without a trial.

At a time of widespread anger at the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and an American missile attack that killed six people in Yemen last November, the hostile mood could hamper Washington's efforts to track down the followers of Osama bin Laden, who remains popular in Yemen, the homeland of his ancestors.

At least 190 Yemenis are currently in custody on suspicion of terrorist activities, and most have been imprisoned in miserable disease-ridden conditions for months or years without charges or trials.

Yemeni newspapers have begun complaining of the "tragic life of torture and pain" suffered by the dozens of Yemenis who are still held in prison on suspicion of involvement in the bombing of the warship USS Cole, which killed 17 American sailors in 2000.

After 30 months in jail, the Cole suspects have not yet had a chance to defend themselves in court. Two of them, along with eight others accused of being terrorists, escaped from a high-security prison in the southern Yemen port of Aden this month, fuelling speculation that sympathetic guards may have allowed them to flee.

"A lot of people sympathize with these prisoners because they've been there for two years without a trial," said an adviser to Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh. "It has caused a lot of suffering."

The presidential adviser, who spoke on condition he not be named, blamed the United States for delaying the trials of the bombing suspects. Every time the government has attempted to hold a trial, U.S. officials insisted on a postponement while they continue seeking the masterminds of the plot, he said. Some of the suspects were jailed on flimsy evidence, he added.

The main Islamic opposition party has been campaigning against the "arbitrary imprisonment" and "brutal torture" of innocent Yemenis, not just in the Cole case but in other cases as well.

It accuses the government of an "unprecedented rise" in arrests of suspects without trial.

Even senior government officials have acknowledged that the terrorism suspects have been jailed too long without a trial. Hamood Al-Hitar, a high-court judge and government adviser, said the prisoners cannot legally be jailed for more than six months without a trial.

Judge Al-Hitar, who has spoken to many of the prisoners, confirmed that their trials have been delayed because of U.S. pressure.

Many Yemenis, including Judge Al-Hitar, have also criticized the U.S. missile attack last November that killed six alleged terrorists in a remote region of Yemen.

The six men were killed by a missile fired by an unmanned Predator drone; it was the first U.S. military action against alleged members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization outside Afghanistan.

The Yemeni suspects should have been given a trial, the judge insisted.

"It was 100 per cent wrong," he said. "I am against any illegal killing."

Mohammed Al-Hazmi, a religious scholar and member of the Islamic opposition, accused the United States of interfering in Yemen's internal affairs.

"If one of your people was killed in this way, you wouldn't accept it either," he said in an interview.

© 2003 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc

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