The ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, Yemen is home to an al-Qaeda franchise—al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—which is its most active and lethal, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
AQAP maintains safe havens in Yemen that provide the group the cover to plan, direct, and train for attacks. It has been operating since 1992, when it bombed a hotel in Aden where American troops were staying.
In 2000, it attacked the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 Americans. In September 2008, the U.S. Embassy was attacked, 19 people were killed, 6 of whom were terrorists.
On Christmas Day 2009, AQAP attempted to bomb a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner. The suspect traveled to Yemen, joined an affiliate of AQAP, which trained and equipped him with an explosive.
A January 2010 report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, titled ominously “Al Qaeda in Yemen and Somalia: A Ticking Time Bomb,” described the plot as “a nearly catastrophic illustration of a significant new threat from a network previously regarded as a regional danger, rather than an international one.”
In October 2010, a plot was uncovered to send explosives in courier packages from Yemen to synagogues in Chicago.
The Defense Department is providing Yemen’s security forces with $150 million worth of training and equipment for fiscal year 2010. But it is the belief of most observers that the government is incapable of taking on AQAP alone.
As in Pakistan, U.S. Special Forces have been pursuing and killing a number of senior al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. The U.S. military would like to catch Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, suspected of creating the most recent explosive packages, and Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical U.S.-born cleric who has called for the slaughter of Americans and has become a senior leader of AQAP. A May 5 drone strike targeting Awlaki was unsuccessful.
Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad said he was inspired by Awlaki, and accused Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan exchanged e-mails with Awlaki, according to ABC News, May 6.
Airstrikes have not been popular with the Yemenis when innocent civilians are killed. On May 4, 2010, an air raid targeting al-Qaeda killed five people, among them Jaber al-Shabwani, the province’s deputy governor who was mediating between the government and the militants. Some Yemenis believe he was killed by a missile fired from a U.S. drone, but the Yemeni government accepted responsibility in order to ease the anger of Shabwani’s tribe, which subsequently attacked local oil pipelines, set up roadblocks, attacked government buildings, and clashed with the Yemeni army, according to the CRS.
Saleh Refuses to Step Down
Yemen’s estimated 24 million inhabitants are quite young with a median age of 18, and highly illiterate with 50 percent unable to read and write.
The Arab Spring reached Yemen’s capital Sana’a in late January when the protests began. Within a month, the protests had spread to the major cities. By March, the protesters had united behind the demand that President Saleh step down. On March 18, over 50 protesters were shot and killed.
President Saleh has ruled in Yemen since 1978. He became the first president of the Republic of Yemen when the north and south unified in 1990. The central government’s authority is being challenged by three insurgencies: a rebellion in the north, a secessionist movement in the south since 2007, and AQAP. Over 145 anti-government protesters have been killed in clashes with security forces, according to Amnesty International estimates from May 11.
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The former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, Edmund J. Hull, 2001-2004, advises not placing hope with the GCC. The deal, he says, “noble as it was, has failed, and [is] not likely to succeed.” Hull was speaking May 17 at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) on the crisis in Yemen.
The protesters are frustrated that after all this time Saleh still clings to power. “They have begun blocking roads and staging mass strikes that have ground commerce to a halt in several cities,” says the Lebanese newspaper, the Daily Star. The Star estimates the Yemeni government is losing about $3 million a day from the loss of exports, its main source of revenue.
Finding a Coherent Strategy
To the consternation of the United States, the Yemeni government has switched from counterterrorism to regime protection and survival. It cannot make AQAP its top priority while it deals with “economic failure, corruption, and governance,” said Christopher Boucek, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, at the AEI forum. “Eighty percent of violence in Yemen is about people fighting over water, which affects everyone,” said Boucek.
Saleh is dealing with pressure from all sides, domestic and international, to resign. Moreover, his “cooperation with American counterterrorism efforts has historically been spotty,” according to the Ticking Time Bomb report.
His government “angered Washington by releasing militants who claim to have renounced violence, including some former Guantanamo detainees,” reads the report.
Some analysts think the United States is not doing enough given the level of threat AQAP poses.
“I think that if we are going to have a successful military approach to the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula problem, it’s going to have to go beyond drone strikes,” said Frederick W. Kagan, director of AEI’s Critical Threats Project, May 17 at AEI.
To rely almost entirely on Special Forces teams on capture/kill missions will not be a successful strategy to defeat AQAP, he said. He worries that another attempt at an attack on U.S. soil, especially if it were successful, might lead the United States to overreact, such as an invasion and large military presence in Yemen, which would be highly undesirable, Kagan said.
“Unfortunately, we have seceded a lot of operating space to al-Qaeda,” Hull said, and he thinks the United States has lost the initiative. The problem now is that we have “retreated into a bunker mentality in Yemen” because of the attacks on our embassy, says Hull. We are confined to Sana’a and only occasionally get out to Aden and Taiz. We need to change that, he said.
Hull warned of a lack of full support on the civilian side of the strategy. The U.S. State Department and U.S. AID provide the civilian personnel who can help make the development in Yemen’s economy and infrastructure happen, but, unfortunately, “Bagdad and Kabul have sucked all the talent in those directions,” said Hull. While Joint Special Operations Command, Navy SEALs, and the CIA will be protected in the budgetary process, there is little awareness in Washington that the civilian side matters, Hull said.
