Yemen: the new Afghanistan?
than 350,000 people.
The central government is already not in control of vast swaths of Yemeni territory, and terrorists have been moving into these territories for three or four years now. If this nominal government collapses, terrorist networks will be able to act with impunity throughout the country.
Experts agree that the deteriorating situation in Yemen is making the country attractive to terrorists. Magnus Ranstorp, one of the world’s leading experts on terrorism, told the Independent that “Yemen has become the new Afghanistan.”
Moreover, the killing of Osama bin Laden has made Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born leader of an al Qaeda affiliate operating out of Yemen, even more prominent. Sajjan M Gohel, director for international security for the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, described al-Awlaki. as “the most dangerous ideologue in the world.”
Ranstorp, research director at the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College, added: : “One of the significant issues we’re seeing is the number of foreign fighters going to Yemen. The German authorities are very worried. At least 70 Germans are thought to be in training camps, with about 200 traveling there in the last two years.” The U.K. government says about thirty Britons are believed to be training there.
Al Qaeda has deep roots in Yemen. The country is bin Laden’s ancestral home, and one of the group’s first attacks took place there in 1998, when sixteen tourists were kidnapped. In January 2009, various strands and affiliates of al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia and Yemen joined to create the “al Qaeda of Jihad Organization in the Arabian Peninsula.” It did not take long for the new organization soon to earn a reputation as the most aggressive arm of al Qaeda’s global network of sympathizers and affiliate groups.
Two weeks ago, the United States let it be know that it was intensifying the UAV campaign against terrorist targets in Yemen — and that the CIA drones would fly to their missions from a secret base in the region.
The United States has been operating UAVs over Yemen since November 2002, when a CIA-controlled high-altitude Predator drone fired a Hellfire missile at an SUV in the Yemeni desert containing Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, a Yemeni suspected senior al Qaeda lieutenant believed to have been the mastermind behind the October 2000 USS Cole bombing that killed seventeen Americans. He was on a list of targets whose capture or death had been called for by President George W. Bush. In addition to al-Harethi, five other occupants of the SUV were killed, all of whom were suspected al Qaeda terrorists, and one of whom, Kamal Derwish, was an American.
On 5 May 2011, a missile fired from a U.S. drone killed Abullah and Mosaad Mubarak, brothers who may have been militants. The missile was fired on their car and both died instantly. The strike was aimed at killing Anwar al-Awlaki, but al-Awlaki appears to have survived.
On 3 June 2011 American jets or drones attacked and killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel al Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. Four civilians were also reportedly killed in the strike. The strike was reportedly coordinated by American special forces and CIA operatives based in Sana.
President Obama last week announced the beginning of the end of the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. What future Afghanistans — countries making themselves into havens for terrorist, and thus requiring U.S. military attention — will the U.S. face in the future?
Ben Frankel is the editor of Homeland Security NewsWire
