Australians training in Yemen terrorist camps

An Arab intelligence agent has told the ABC's Foreign Correspondent program that Australian citizens have been seen in Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Yemen.

Yemen is fast earning a reputation as a launching pad for Jihadi-inspired terrorism.

The Arabian Peninsula nation is also the refuge of American-born radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, who recently became the first US citizen to be placed on the CIA's official assassination list.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has listed 20 Australian citizens as persons of interest because they seem to have disappeared from the radar after travelling to Yemen.

Now there is new evidence young Australian men have indeed been recruited to Al Qaeda training camps.

For several months Foreign Correspondent has been in touch with an Arab intelligence agent who says he visited Al Qaeda camps and observed several Australians there.

"They have all kinds [of training]. They have Islamic studies; they have training in weapons; they have training in explosives," he said.

"They also have a classroom with computers for training on the internet."

The intelligence operative claims the camps are directed by Anwar Al Awlaki, a man whose other devotees have included the so-called underpants bomber - a young Al Qaeda-trained Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.

"Their leader is Anwar Al Awlaki; he is their spiritual guiding father; he is second only to Osama bin Laden," he said.

"He knows that the internet is more powerful than the gun."

In a desperately poor country with little oil or water, Al Qaeda has taken root in small desert villages in Yemen's south.

There are sporadic clashes with government troops, but in some places Al Qaeda is the law. Its fighters have the run of communities.

Western intelligence agencies have long suspected that foreigners - new recruits of radical Islam - have also been lured there.

Former US ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodine, says the troubled country is the ideal destination for those recruits.

"If, for whatever has motivated you, you want to join the worldwide jihad, and you look at, 'I can go to Iraq, I can go to Afghanistan, I can go to Pakistan or I can go to Yemen,' Yemen is a much better place to go," she said.

At the urging of Western governments, Yemen is clamping down on its own citizens suspected of associating with extremist organisations.