Saudi border with Yemen still welcoming for Al-Qaida

The five Yemeni men, all of them rail-slim, clutched their knees as they sat staring across the sand at the narrow road, which separates the Arab world's poorest country from its richest.

"They're waiting for us to move on," said the Saudi border guard with a tired smile, as he sat watching from the front seat of a gleaming SUV. "Waiting so they can seek to cross."

This remote 1,100-mile border, once an unfussy crossing point for Bedouins and goats, has become an emblem of the increasingly global threats emanating from Yemen: fighters from Al-Qaida, Shiite insurgents, drugs and arms smuggling and, well under the world's radar, one of the biggest flows of economic refugees on earth.

Every day hundreds of illegal migrants are caught and sent back to Yemen, Saudi officials say, including many who have come from Africa and across Yemen's deserts fleeing battle and hunger.