Al-Qaida claim over failed airliner attack shows its weakness, says Obama

Barack Obama today dismissed Osama Bin Laden's attempt to claim responsibility for the failed Christmas Day attack on a US airliner, a plot thought to have been hatched in Yemen, as evidence that al-Qaida was greatly weakened. Bin Laden associated himself with the attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a transatlantic Northwest flight over Detroit in a recording claimed to be from "Osama to Obama" – but the US president questioned the assertion. "Al-Qaida itself is greatly weakened from where it was back in 2000," he told ABC news. "Bin Laden sending out a tape trying to take credit for a Nigerian student who engaged in a failed bombing attempt is an indication of how weakened he is, because this is not something necessarily directed by him." US attention is instead increasingly focused on Yemen, where Abdulmutallab is believed to have been trained and supplied with explosives. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is expected to attend a London conference on the threat from Yemen tomorrow. Prior to the talks, Saudi Arabia agreed to play a leading role in helping the Yemeni government confront the growing threat from al-Qaida on its soil. Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, is attending the conference along with ministers from the five other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which will join a new Friends of Yemen group to monitor the country's security, economic and development issues. No new financial pledges will be made, but diplomats said the Saudis had agreed to host a follow-up conference in Riyadh next month to discuss aid. The US and Britain have been pressing the Saudis to play a bigger role in Yemeni affairs amid concerns about the spillover of the Houthi rebellion in the north, growing unrest in the south and the dangers posed by a resurgent al-Qaida. Obama's national security adviser, General Jim Jones, visited Saudi Arabia this month for talks with King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sultan, who oversees Saudi Yemen policy. Saudi Arabia is Yemen's biggest single donor, but hands out millions of dollars annually directly to influential figures, tribal leaders and religious foundations, often to promote its austere brand of Sunni Islam. "Saudi influence and leverage in Yemen is equal to, or more than, the rest of the world's," Abdel-Ghani al-Iryani, a Sana'a consultant, said. "So if the Saudis agree to collaborate with the other stakeholders, it will be a massive departure." Washington and London hope the Saudis will promote development, good governance and economic reform and fight corruption. But there is no sign that they and their GCC partners are ready to open their labour markets to Yemeni workers, banned since the 1990 Gulf war. Tomorrow's two-hour meeting at the Foreign Office, convened by Gordon Brown, is designed to launch a process of closer engagement with Yemen – something that will need President Ali Abdullah Salih to address widespread international concerns. Yemen was the subject of an international conference in 2006, when around $5bn (£3bn) in aid was pledged – but less than 10% of that has been spent because of a lack of capacity and the problems posed by corruption. Yemen will now be asked to engage with the IMF on financial reforms as a condition for aid. The poorest of the Arab countries, it is often described as a fragile state that is in danger of failing and faces crises ranging from the depletion of water and oil to illiteracy and rapid population growth. But the recent focus has been on the danger that al-Qaida would find a safe haven in its "ungoverned spaces" – tribal areas beyond the reach of the now cash-strapped central government. "December 25 had an electrifying impact and made the international community ... this was a time to get past the excuses and get back to work," Daniel Benjamin, the counterterrorism coordinator at the US state department, said.