Yemen is a lesson in the limits of Western power

It is 3 a.m. in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and the Horse Shoe nightclub is a tableau to inflame the Jihadi heart with rage. To thumping music, Yemeni prostitutes cavort with fat, thuggish-looking local men. The tables are dotted with bottles of single malt costing $500 each (almost a year’s wages for the average Yemeni).

The hotel which houses the Horse Shoe, the Mövenpick, is assumed to be one of al-Qa’eda’s main targets, after the British and US embassies just across the road.Visiting journalists usually ask for rooms at the back, just in case a truck bomb makes it past the Yemeni army machine-gun emplacements at the entrance.

Still, no one — neither the famously charming and hospitable Yemenis, nor Sana’a’s flinty expat population — seems particularly anxious about an al-Qa’eda attack. That is partly because of the checkpoints ringing the capital and the presence of a secret policeman on every street corner. It is also that the Jihadis are not viewed as either very numerous or very competent. The success of the pants-bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, in only setting fire to his own crotch is seen as reassuringly symbolic.

Yet, it would be a mistake to underestimate al-Qa’eda in Yemen. Since unifying with the Saudi branch last year, it has behaved less like a small, national franchise and more like an international hub. A Yemeni regional governor says Saudi and Egyptian volunteers have been steadily arriving, some battle-hardened fighters squeezed out of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The pants plot did, after all, cause a crisis in the US government and probably years of misery ahead for air travellers. Al-Qa’eda, if you believe its own statement on the matter, sees it as a success from that point of view. There may be a next time — the attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day is evidence that al-Qa’eda is running an active research programme, constantly looking at ways to get dangerous materials through the airport security scanners.