It wasn't so much the black banner of al Qaeda that was fluttering in the wind above the old mosque. Far more sinister was the ease with which the dozens of fighters had been able to sneak into the city. But perhaps "sneak" is too strong a word. "It's quite possible that soldiers even welcomed them," says a local journalist, describing the situation in Radda, a city of 60,000 that has been under al Qaeda control since Jan. 16.

Radda is a two-hour drive southeast of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa. The tourism ministry promotes the city as a popular tourist destination, with its brick buildings, the country's oldest surviving citadel and the palace-like 16th-century Amiriya Mosque.

On Jan. 14, about 20 visitors unexpectedly turned up at the mosque and began their afternoon prayers. It didn't seem to bother them that the mosque had been closed for years as it underwent renovations for future tour groups. But tourism was not on al Qaeda's agenda.

"We asked them not to break anything at the mosque and not to break off any branches from the trees. Their leader, Tariq al-Dahab, promised to comply," said Jahiya al-Nusairi, the local official in charge of historic preservation. Al-Nusairi added that the al Qaeda militants held a Koran reading, hoisted their black flag and then withdrew to the citadel.

After that, while government offices, businesses and schools were closed, the prison was opened. According to one resident, local police offered no resistance and surrendered their weapons, stations and vehicles to the rebels. Local tribal leaders negotiated with the armed militants, while young men drove around the streets in the commandeered police cars. At the same time, a civil rights activist told the AFP news agency, a demonstration against President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's ruler since 1978, was held as planned.

The largely peaceful takeover by al Qaeda militants of the provincial city of Radda, which practically stands at the gates of the country's capital, is not so much evidence of the strength of the terrorist network. Rather, it is an indication of how complex the current balance of power in Yemen is.

The leader of the militant group, Tariq al-Dahab, is a brother-in-law of Anwar al-Awlaki, the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), who was killed in a CIA drone attack in late September. The organization claims to control a number of small cities in the sparsely populated southern provinces of Abyan and Shabwah.

Al-Dahab himself was arrested some time ago in Syria while attempting to cross the border into Iraq. The government in Damascus reportedly extradited him to Yemen recently. The opposition sees this as evidence of secret cooperation between the Saleh regime and al Qaeda...

Regime opponents claim that AQAP and its fighters are being used to justify keeping the old regime and its support structure in place for as long as possible. It is a theory that is shared by Khaled al-Dahab, the brother of the al Qaeda commander, who apologized for the attack on Radaa and told the Saudi-owned television news broadcaster al-Arabiya that it had been "coordinated with senior officials in the national security council, the Republican Guard and the former interior minister, as well."

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