BY_ AZMAT KHAN
FROM_ FRONTLINE
MAY 30 2012
How Al Qaeda
Grew in Yemen
Former Amb.
Barbara Bodine
She was the
former U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 1997 through 2001, at the time when Al
Qaeda attacked the USS Cole. She is now a lecturer in public and international
affairs and the director of the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative at
Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International
Affairs.
When I got
there in 1997, there was already an Al Qaeda presence. We knew about it. The
Yemenis knew about it. Everyone knew about it.
Numbers
[are] always impossible to know, but these people were primarily foreign
nationals. One of the best ways to describe the presence is that they were
largely warehousing lower-level people in peripheral areas. They didn’t have an
operational or leadership presence there in any sense. … To the extent that we
knew — by methods I will not discuss — these people were largely unhappy,
largely bored and spent most of their time trying to figure out how to get out
[of Yemen].
The Yemenis
were aware of them and not pleased, and were actually taking steps to the
extent that they could find these guys that were foreign nationals, and pretty
aggressively working to deport them. … The Yemenis were neither unaware or
unconcerned, but it wasn’t a major issue.
Oddly
enough, it wasn’t a major issue for us. At one point in 1998 or 1999, the
Yemenis came to us and asked for a MOU [memorandum of understanding] on
counterterrorism cooperation. All they really wanted were vehicles and radios.
The security forces, one of their problems was that they had trouble getting to
where the Al Qaeda people were, and they had a hard time [communicating]. So it
was a pretty low-level kind of cooperation that they were asking for … and we
turned them down.
Why?
Because it
wasn’t a focus of our intention honestly.
After the
African Embassy bombings, a request was sent out probably all over the world,
but also to Yemen that if Osama bin Laden showed up, they would like the host
government’s cooperation in arresting him and turning him over to us. The
Yemenis made it very clear that if Osama bin Laden showed up: “Don’t worry; we
will turn him over to you. We don’t want him. We’re not going to give him a
safe haven. But can we cooperate on this larger issue of these warehouse guys
in the country?” And that’s how that conversation came up. And the fear was
that now we’ve got bigger fish to fry, and we’re really just not interested. So
we didn’t. I thought at the time that probably wasn’t the best decision, but
you don’t win every policy issue you raise. …
“By about
2004, we and the Yemenis had the conventional Al Qaeda problem reasonably under
control. We then took our eye off the ball [with] Iraq.” Former Amb. Barbara
Bodine
After 9/11,
the Yemenis were very cooperative on counterterrorism, and I think the general
assessment all the way up [to] our government is that by about 2004, we and the
Yemenis had the conventional Al Qaeda problem reasonably under control.
We then took
our eye off the ball [with] Iraq. The Yemenis also got very distracted by the
Houthis [an armed movement in the North that fought Yemeni and Saudi Arabian
forces between 2004 and 2010] and a few other things.
More
importantly, Al Qaeda also changed its focus. You had that huge spike in
terrorism in Saudi Arabia. That was 2004, 2005 when you had a couple of housing
compounds blown up. It was the first time that Saudi Arabia felt the direct
threat from Al Qaeda, and the Saudis, with our help, came on Al Qaeda very
hard, very, very hard. Those that they did not capture or kill went across the
border into Yemen. That’s when you start getting the toxic stew because what
then started to happen is that the Saudis who came in had a different
organizational skill, a different leadership skill. You had the prison break
[in February 2006, when Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who would later go on to found AQAP,
escaped from a Yemeni prison with 22 others]. On that one we missed it again. …
It comes together and creates itself as AQAP, and that’s the game changer.
Former Amb.
Edmund Hull
He was the
former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen from Sept. 17, 2001 to July 2004, and had
previously been acting coordinator for counterterrorism in the State
Department. He is the author of High-Value Target: Countering Al Qaeda inYemen.
Given 9/11
and the history of Al Qaeda activity in Yemen prior to 9/11 — notably but not
just the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 — countering Al Qaeda in Yemen was the
clear priority during my tenure there
To do so, we
adopted a broad strategy that linked security with development. Our motto —
which the Yemenis adopted to a remarkable extent – was, “No development without
security and no security without development.”
The initial
blow against Al Qaeda was the [2002] drone strike, which eliminated its chief,
Abu Ali al Harithi [as well as an American citizen]. It was a “surgical”
operation that entailed no collateral casualties, and it was done with the
agreement of the Yemeni government.
However,
what was particularly significant was the subsequent actions against Al Qaeda
that eliminated it as a functioning organization were undertaken by the Yemenis
themselves with assistance — training, equipment, intelligence, etc. — from the
U.S. The Yemeni campaign notably had the support of the Yemeni people.
Also
significant was that this security effort was accompanied by economic
development work, particularly in Yemen’s remote areas where Al Qaeda was
seeking to create a safe haven, and with political development, notably largely
free and fair parliamentary elections and development of civil society.
Gregory D.
Johnsen:
He is the
author of The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia
(forthcoming W.W. Norton) and a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at
Princeton University. He also writes the Yemen blog, Waq al-Waq.
The roots of
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula can be traced back to the jailbreak in
February 2006 [when] … 23 Al Qaeda suspects escaped from a maximum-security
prison in Sana’a.
Among the
escapees were Nasir al-Wuhayshi, who had been bin Laden’s personal secretary
for four years in Afghanistan prior to Sept. 11, and Qasim al-Raymi. Together
these two men rebuilt Al Qaeda in Yemen up from the ashes of its earlier
defeat. Wuhayshi, who has been described as bin Laden’s “shadow” in the late
1990s, essentially used bin Laden’s blueprint from Afghanistan to resurrect Al
Qaeda in Yemen. He also went to school on the failures of Al Qaeda in Iraq and
Saudi Arabia, and worked to limit Muslim civilian casualties in Yemen, which he
believed was a key reason Al Qaeda had been defeated in those countries.
… As Al
Qaeda grew and developed more of an infrastructure in Yemen in 2007 and 2008 it
started to expand its targeting, moving from local targets to regional ones and
finally to international ones. As you track the attacks and compare it to the
group’s public statements a pattern emerges in which Al Qaeda sets itself a
goal and then attempts to match its actions to its rhetoric.
… In 2009,
Wuhayshi publicly welcomed several former Guantanamo Bay detainees into the
organization and adopted the name Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),
signifying greater regional and international ambitions as the group continued
to attract new members. Later that year, Al Qaeda attempted to assassinate
Muhammad bin Nayif, the Saudi prince in charge of counterterrorism and, of
course, on Christmas Day it put a bomber on a plane to Detroit. Both operations
failed, but the bombs hadn’t been detected
“Wuhayshi
has constructed AQAP in a way that is designed to survive the loss of key cell
leaders. He learned from the first phase of the war [when a 2002] drone strike
… basically destroyed Al Qaeda in Yemen.” Gregory D. Johnsen
… What we
know of the organization is far from complete, and indeed one has to be very
careful about not reading too much into too little evidence. There is a great
temptation to take the fractured pieces of evidence that bubble to the surface
and construct a coherent narrative from all these disparate pieces.
That being
said, what we do know suggests that Wuhayshi has constructed AQAP in a way that
is designed to survive the loss of key cell leaders. He learned from the first
phase of the war in Yemen in which the [2002] drone strike that killed Abu Ali
al-Harithi basically destroyed Al Qaeda in Yemen. To avoid that, Wuhayshi has
appointed what he refers to as emirs, or commanders, to different regions of
Yemen. These men are often tied by tribal or family connections to the area
where they oversee. And like bin Laden, Wuhayshi gives his commanders a certain
degree of operational flexibility, mimicking the philosophy of “centralization
of decision making and decentralization of execution” that bin Laden preferred.
Charles
Schmitz
He is a a
specialist on the Middle East and Yemen, and has been a professor of geography
at Towson University in Baltimore, Maryland since 1999. Schmitz is president of
the American Institute for Yemeni Studies and a member of the executive board
of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers.
Al Qaeda and
its local insurrection, the Ansar al-Sharia, gained ground quickly last year
when security forces were engaged in the political battles between the Saleh
regime and the opposition in Sana’a and Taizz. The military and security forces
abandoned much of the south during the protests and left significant weaponry
behind. Ansar al-Sharia benefitted tremendously by this, and many accused the
Saleh regime of deliberately abandoning the south to Al Qaeda’s Ansar al-Sharia
as a way of showing the international community that Saleh was the only person
who could effectively rule Yemen. The alternative was Ansar al-Sharia. …
The
Relationship between AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia
Ansar al
Sharia, the local franchise of Al Qaeda Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visits in Ja’ar, was
started last year to provide AQAP with foot soliders and a new image. Experts
disagree about the exact relationship between the two groups.
Gregory D.
Johnsen
… The first
time we heard the name Ansar al-Sharia was in early 2011, when Adil al-Abab,
AQAP’s chief cleric, announced that Ansar al-Sharia was the name Al Qaeda used
to introduce itself to people in Yemen. Just as bin Laden realized that the
name “Al Qaeda” had become in Arabic almost a byword for terror, so too did
AQAP come to the conclusion that the name Al Qaeda had too much negative
baggage associated with it.
Adopting the
name Ansar al-Sharia has basically been a rebranding attempt. We know that
Nasir al-Wuhayshi heads both AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia. We know that the different
emirs for Ansar al-Sharia accept the bay‘a or oath of allegiance on behalf of
Wuhayshi. And we know that members claimed by Ansar al-Sharia are also claimed
by AQAP.
The more one
reads the material put out by AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia – from newsletters,
“martyr” biographies, statements of responsibility and so forth – the clearer
it becomes that the two are different faces of the same organization. This is
not unprecedented in Yemen. In fact, in 2008 there was a similar debate over
two names in Yemen, who in the end both turned out to be Al Qaeda. What we
don’t know is whether everyone who self-identifies as Ansar al-Sharia would
also identify as a member of AQAP.
Jeremy
Scahill
He is the
national security correspondent for The Nation magazine. A two-time winner of
the George Polk Award, Scahill is author of the international best-seller
Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He has
reported from Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and other U.S. war zones.
… I believe
— based on my reporting in and out of Yemen — that Ansar al-Sharia has been
used by some elements of AQAP in a crude rebranding effort. I also believe that
Ansar al-Sharia is not simply a thinly-veiled front for AQAP. One
well-connected Yemeni analyst told me the majority of Ansar’s fighters are
“angry tribesmen” out for “revenge” against the Yemeni government and the U.S.
with a small core of AQAP people. A well-connected analyst who has close ties
to Al Qaeda told me that was an exaggeration and that Ansar shares Al Qaeda’s
main goals, but is an AQAP-led movement trying to build a flatter organization
not tarnished by the Al Qaeda brand. Other — mostly Western — analysts say it
is the same old AQAP, just a new name. Somewhere in the mix of all of that is the
truth and the many truths.
Former Amb.
Barbara Bodine
When [Ansar
al-Sharia] first popped up, everyone … just kind of wrote them off as cover
story for AQAP. I don’t think that we know still quite who they are. But I
think what you’ve got is sort of the remnants of the Islamic Army of Aden and
Abyan crowd. There is a traditional, anti-government, violent, extremist strain
in Abyan that goes back decades and decades. … They’ve got some of their own
agendas that are complimented and certainly support the Al Qaeda agenda, but
they’re not exactly the same. And that’s why I’ve got this growing sense that
what we’ve got is both a counterterrorism issue — AQAP attempts to blow up
airplanes, blow up Saudi officials — if you want the traditional Al Qaeda
agenda. And then you’ve got this Ansar al-Sharia that’s almost more of an
emerging insurgency.
“What we’ve
got is both a counterterrorism issue … and then you’ve got this Ansar al-Sharia
that’s almost more of an emerging insurgency. …You now end up with a dual threat
that needs to be managed with two different sets of tools.” Former Amb. Barbara
Bodine
Now, Al
Qaeda isn’t generally an insurgency organization. Look at them in Afghanistan;
it was the Taliban who were the insurgents, not Al Qaeda itself. Their mandate
is the rest of the world. I think in a sense, Ansar al-Sharia is almost a
development of their own Taliban. And with that, you now end up with a dual
threat that needs to be managed with two different sets of tools.
… If we
could get the guys who really lead, really manage, really organize AQAP, if we
were somehow able to get rid of them, I think Ansar al-Sharia would still be
there. And you might even be able to make the case that if the Yemenis were
able to get rid of Ansar al-Sharia, you might not necessarily get rid of AQAP.
So they feed on each other. They support each other. They certainly are
related, but they’re not identical.
The
U.S.-Yemeni Partnership
While
attention on the U.S.-Yemeni relationship often focuses on recently ramped up
coordinated air strikes, the partnership that grew after 9/11 is much broader.
“AQAP continues to be Al Qaeda’s most active affiliate, and it continues to
seek the opportunity to strike our homeland,” John Brennan, President Obama’s
chief counterterrorism adviser, said last month in a speech justifying how U.S.
officials decide to use drone strikes to target suspected terrorists. Brennan —
President Obama’s point man in Yemen — has made frequent public visits to the
country over the last year, elevating the importance of America’s efforts to
work with the Yemeni government in the war on Al Qaeda.
Former Amb.
Barbara Bodine
In 2009,
2010, I think we were starting to do the smart thing, which was we were really
going in and trying to train up the Yemeni capability. The Yemenis have always
said, and I think they have been reasonably sincere, that they wanted to go
after Al Qaeda, but they didn’t have the capability. They didn’t have the
trucks and the radios in the late ’90s. They certainly didn’t have them in the
mid-2000s to go after these guys. And we did start to change our approach, more
to training Yemeni capabilities.
… They went
out and shot at AQAP and got shot back at. We and some of our allies helped the
Yemenis establish the National Security Bureau as kind of an internal
intelligence apparatus that we could work with. We built up the Central
Security Organization and their counterterrorism unit. We didn’t work with the
Yemeni military very much because they’re just a fairly worthless organization.
And so we redirected more toward Ministry of Interior forces, which was
probably right.
Jeremy
Scahill
After 9/11,
then-Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh flew to Washington and basically
pledged his loyalty to the U.S. in the so-called “war on terror.” He seemed to
take seriously the “You’re with us or the terrorists” line that was being
pushed by President Bush and other members of that administration. Indeed,
Yemen was among the early targets being considered by U.S. war planners right
after 9/11, particularly because of the fact that the USS Cole had been bombed
in October 2000, and many within the government were frustrated at what they
saw as Yemen’s non-cooperation in bringing the alleged perpetrators to justice.
A little
known fact is that the first drone strike we know of outside of Afghanistan was
in fact in Yemen in November 2002. A number of known militants were killed, as
was a U.S. citizen from Buffalo, NY. But the strike happened with little fanfare.
Rather than declaring Yemen a battlefield in the global war, the Bush
administration began building up counterterror units in Yemen that would be
trained and supported by U.S. Special Forces and the CIA. These units operated
under the command of President Saleh’s relatives and received a
disproportionate amount of the U.S. military aid to Yemen. In theory, these
forces were the most elite in the country, but what we have seen over the past
six to eight years is that these forces have primarily been used for the
defense of the regime and to fight the minority Houthis in the north and
political opponents in the south of the country. Saleh played the U.S. like a
piano on the counterterror issue. He realized it was a cash cow that also could
benefit him politically.
In contrast,
the conventional Yemeni military is underfunded and underarmed. Many of the
soldiers I saw on the frontlines in Zinjibar in Abyan province appeared
underfed and desperate. The U.S. and Saudis have provided air support in the
south to the 25th Mechanized Brigade as well as delivering supplies via
helicopter. But, in general, it is the Yemeni intelligence and counterterrorist
units that receive the most U.S. aid, despite the fact that the Yemeni Army is
taking the most casualties and is indeed on the front lines.
A lot of
focus has been recently placed on the U.S. drone strikes in Yemen, but that is
just one aspect of the unilateral U.S. war in Yemen. The U.S. has used cruise
missiles and cluster bombs. It has fired missiles from submarines and other
vessels based of the Yemeni coast. JSOC has had boots on the ground in Yemen
“painting” targets and tracking specific people using signals intelligence. The
CIA has a limited number of operatives on the ground. And recently, the U.S. resumed
training of Yemeni forces.
What kind of
coordination and cooperation takes place between the U.S. and Yemen today? How
has that changed since President Hadi came to power in February?
Hadi is far
more accommodating to the U.S. than Saleh ever was. He cannot and does not
stand up to the U.S. Saleh was far more clever, a much better chess player and
had perfected the art of manipulation of the U.S., Yemeni tribes and political
forces in Yemen. Saleh played the U.S. State Department off the CIA, the CIA
off the military, the military off the White House and on and on. The U.S.
always believed it was smarter than Saleh and often was proved painfully wrong
when it came to Yemeni affairs. Hadi is not allowed to say no to anything
Washington demands and is not powerful enough to manipulate the situation in
the way Saleh did. Saleh still wields quite a bit of influence in Yemen. But I
would describe Hadi as a temporary, malleable figure that is very acceptable to
the U.S.
Gregory D.
Johnsen
The
airstrikes have increased dramatically since Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi was sworn in
as president in late February. Hadi has a very shallow base of support within
Yemen and as a result he is incredibly dependent on strong U.S. and
international backing to offset what he lacks domestically. Hadi and the U.S.
appear to be moving down the road toward a mutually dependent relationship. The
U.S. needs Hadi to be able to do what it wants in Yemen, which is primarily
targeting Al Qaeda, while Hadi needs strong and unambiguous support from the
U.S., which he has received, in order to offset the lack of strong base of
support domestically.
Jeremy
Scahill
You’ve
raised concerns about where the millions of dollars of aid the U.S. has given
to Yemen each year over the last decade has gone. Explain why.
“The Saleh
regime used the issue of terrorism as a cash cow. Washington was like a crack
dealer that got him hooked on it, and he would do anything to keep it flowing.”
Jeremy Scahill
The Saleh
regime used the issue of terrorism as a cash cow. Washington was like a crack
dealer that got him hooked on it, and he would do anything to keep it flowing.
He played both sides of the game—sometimes allowing Al Qaeda forces to break
out of prison, seize territory or conduct attacks, so that he could go to the
U.S. and say, “We need more money and weapons and training.” Then, when the
U.S. started to get pissed off with his lack of action, he’d suddenly have his
forces carry out some series of raids or strikes.
It was kind
of shocking how cleverly he played the U.S. The bottom line in Yemen is true in
many countries: the U.S. appears to be supporting a corrupt, undemocratic
regime, while the country implodes and its people are left to fend for
themselves. The message the U.S. has sent to the Yemeni people is: We see how
bad life is for you, but, but, but, terrorism terrorism, terrorism. And
terrorism!
Former Amb.
Barbara Bodine
The argument
that sometimes gets made is that for years the U.S. was giving money to Yemen
for counterterrorism — hundreds of millions of dollars a year — and that there
was incentive for Yemen not to fight this problem and to take that money and
allow terrorism to fester. What do you think about that?
I think
that’s garbage. I think that is a remarkably cynical assessment. The Yemenis
were aware that Al Qaeda was a threat to them, that if nothing else, it impeded
economic development, it impeded investment, it impeded a lot of other stuff.
“That the
only person that you see who visits [Yemen] is John Brennan [President Obama's
chief counterterrorism adviser], tells the Yemenis that’s the only conversation
Americans want to have.” Former Amb. Barbara Bodine
I do think
that what did happen — and I give us a lot of responsibly for this — is that
our conversation became almost wholly about Al Qaeda, if you look at what we
were giving in terms of economic development, if you look at what we were doing
in terms of governance. In the late ’90s, we had I think a far more complex and
balanced relationship. By the time you get to the late 2000s, the only thing
we’re talking about is Al Qaeda. The only thing we will give money for is Al
Qaeda. And if you’re the Yemenis, if that’s the only conversations the
Americans are going to have, if it’s the only way they’re going to pay you,
provide you any assistance, and they don’t want to talk to about anything else,
they don’t want to do anything else. That’s the conversation you have. I think
we’re the ones who set up that behavior pattern.
… The fact
that John Brennan [chief counterterrorism adviser to President Obama] has been
the Yemen desk officer for three and half years, that the only person that you
see here who visits is John Brennan, tells the Yemenis that’s the only
conversation Americans want to have. Now I don’t think that Al Qaeda going as a
way of keeping the pipeline going, because the money that was coming in from us
wasn’t doing anything else. It wasn’t like this was a way of getting our
attention, getting other money for things they felt was important. And I think
they would have loved to have gotten rid of Al Qaeda. I think we’re overstating
how much we gave them, we’re talking about, honestly hundreds of millions of
dollars. …
America’s
Ramped Up Targeted Killing Program
On Nov. 3,
2002, the U.S. carried out the first known drone strike in Yemen in a barren
stretch of the Ma’rib desert. The strike targeted and killed the alleged
mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, as well as five suspected members of Al
Qaeda, including an American citizen. It would be another seven years before
the U.S. targeted Yemen in another air strike, but soon afterward the U.S.
ramped up a campaign of air and drone strikes carried out by the CIA, the
military and others that have come to define President Obama’s policy in Yemen.
Clinton
Watts
He is a
senior fellow with the George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy
Institute and consultant at Navanti Group. He was formerly a special agent with
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and an executive officer of the Combatting
Terrorism Center at West Point.
Several
factors have led to the increase in AQAP’s manpower necessitating an increase
in drone operations. First, the flow of Yemeni and Saudi foreign fighters to
Iraq decreased substantially starting about 2008. Potential Yemeni Al Qaeda
recruits as well as foreign fighters returning from Iraq bolstered AQAP’s
ranks.
Second,
Saudi Arabia effectively destroyed the first iteration of AQAP by the end of
2006, sending remnants of this first wave into Yemen.
Third, Al
Qaeda — prior to bin Laden’s death — identified Yemen as an alternative safe
haven to Pakistan and likely began redirecting operatives to Yemen. Finally,
after bin Laden’s death in 2011, I would assume many operatives located in
Afghanistan and Pakistan saw Yemen as the next opportunity for pursuing jihad.
In total, the migration of Al Qaeda operatives to Yemen has brought with it
increased targeting from drone strikes in recent months.
On the
counterterrorism side, drone resources and intelligence support previously
dedicated to the fight against Al Qaeda in Pakistan have likely been shifted to
Yemen after the death of bin Laden, the successful dismantling of Al Qaeda’s
networks in Pakistan and the Pakistani government’s restrictions on the use of
drones beginning in 2011. …
Finally, I
believe recent increases in drone engagements suggest the U.S. has finally
dedicated enough intelligence resources in Yemen to generate sufficient
targeting information to engage AQAP on a more regular basis.
Jeremy
Scahill
Which
different agencies or groups carry out the drone and air strikes in Yemen
today? Who is in charge?
The answer
to this question has shifted over the past two and a half years that President
Obama has been authorizing strikes in Yemen. The first known strike Obama
authorized was the Dec. 17, 2009 cruise missile strike in al-Majala in southern
Yemen. That killed dozens of women and children. It was famously covered up by
the Yemeni military, which claimed it had conducted the operation. The
Wikileaks cables proved that false, as did the photos and videos of the U.S.
cruise missiles and cluster bombs, conveniently still bearing their “Made in
the United States” labels. When I was there in January, the missiles were still
laying out in the open.
Since that
strike, both the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the CIA have
carried out strikes in Yemen. And there has been tension between those entities
over who is in control of Yemen ops. It seems that both are striking Yemen now.
The drone
strike that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan — both U.S. citizens — last
September was reportedly the CIA. The strike that killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki,
Anwar’s 16-year-old U.S. citizen son, two weeks later was, I understand, a JSOC
hit. It remains unclear who the target was in that strike and has caused a lot
of anger in Yemen. …
Where does
the U.S. get intelligence to target AQAP leaders or members of Ansar al-Sharia?
…
There is a
great deal of evidence to suggest that the U.S. has relied on faulty, sometimes
blatantly false, intelligence provided by the Yemeni government. In some cases,
there is evidence that suggests the U.S. has killed opponents of the regime
based on intelligence given to the U.S. saying the target was Al Qaeda, when in
fact they were tribal people opposed to the government.
There are
many villages with unexploded cluster bombs just waiting for innocent children
to touch them. And kids have been killed by these munitions days after the
strikes were supposedly over. The advent of the so-called “signature strikes”
[or targeting groups of men whose identities are not necessarily known] is a
great indicator of how bad the U.S. intel is. The idea that you have to make
guesses based on patterns of life, rather than actual human intel that result
in killing people is a harrowing development.
“A big part
of the problem here is that journalists uncritically report that ‘suspected
militants’ were killed. What does that phrase even mean? And how do reporters
know who died? Because the U.S. or Yemeni government told you?” Jeremy Scahill
The U.S. has
repeatedly said it has believed it killed various “senior” members of AQAP, but
most of its leadership is still alive. One senior AQAP leader has been killed
at least a half dozen times by U.S. media outlets and is still alive. The U.S.
has had some “successes,” such as Awlaki and Fahd al-Quso. But, I also believe
a big part of the problem here is that journalists uncritically report that
“suspected militants” were killed. What does that phrase even mean? And how do
reporters know who died? Because the U.S. or Yemeni government told you? That
logic is a major violation of rule one of journalism.
I would
argue that the U.S. has failed to make a legitimate case as to why the
assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki was justified or legal. That is also my position
on anyone described as a “suspected militant.” There is a difference between
being a “militant” and being an Al Qaeda “terrorist,” but, in this war, the
goal posts are constantly being shifted by the U.S., with a lot of help from
the press.
My broader
concern is this: If you don’t have solid intelligence on the ground, and you
are killing people based on superficial patterns of life or because they are
“militant,” then you are entering into dangerous territory and the odds of
killing a large number of innocent people is real. We are now into “pre-crime”
territory, Minority Report-style. That should be disturbing to many Americans.
Clinton
Watts
… I believe
the escalation in drone and SOF [Special Operations Forces] operations has kept
AQAP in check during a time when the U.S. has been absent an effective Yemeni
counterterrorism partner that can effectively resist the terror group.
“Drones
provide the most effective and least casualty-producing method for engaging
AQAP. Any other option that could apply equal military pressure on AQAP would
likely inflict far more civilian casualties on the Yemeni population.” Clinton
Watts
Today,
members of AQAP in Yemen are plotting terrorist attacks against U.S. targets as
seen by this past month’s revelation of Ibrahim al-Asiri developing a third
generation underwear bomb likely able to pass through airport security. The
U.S. has no other effective option for countering AQAP’s current threat to the
U.S. homeland. AQAP’s repeated attempts to attack the U.S. necessitate a
persistent counterterrorism response. Inaction is not an option.
Media
reports and anti-drone advocates have rightly noted that civilian casualties
have occurred from drone strikes and increases in these casualties enrage local
populations and bolster support for AQAP. However, drones provide the most
effective and least casualty-producing method for engaging AQAP. Any other
option that could apply equal military pressure on AQAP would likely inflict
far more civilian casualties on the Yemeni population. [See this post at
KingsOfWar for some appropriate comparison.]
Former Amb.
Barbara Bodine
I think we
underestimate how damaging the drone strikes are to our general level of
support in Yemen, and I don’t think we’ve fully interalized what’s going on in
the south, and is taking on the characteristics of an insurgency. I’m not
saying we should go in ourselves. Part of recognizing this as an insurgency is
recognizing that there’s a large number of IDPs [internally displaced persons],
refugees. The Yemeni government in order to get this under control will need to
clear, build and hold — restore destroyed villages. So the Yemenis need to
approach this as an insurgency. The drones are very counterproductive.
Young
Yemenis want our support until we mention the drones, which they see as killing
innocents, whether or not you can make an empirical case that we’re killing the
bad guys. … The[re is a] cost-benefit analysis that you always have to do with
drones: Is the target worth the cost of the collateral damage? I’m not sure
that the targets are high enough value to warrant the political loss. …
We need to
make it not just appear but have the Yemenis out in front and give them the
support, the training, the assistance and the credit. I think some of it is a
U.S. domestic need to be see as going after Al Qaeda … but we fail to
understand that the other guy doesn’t want to feel as though he is just a proxy
battleground. …
Gregory D.
Johnsen
The drone
and airstrikes are an incredibly powerful weapon that give the U.S. an amazing
advantage over AQAP when they work as they are intended to work. However, when
they go wrong – such as they did with the Dec. 17, 2009 strike [in Majala that
killed dozens of civilians] – they become a powerful weapon in the hands of
AQAP that helps the group bolster its ranks with new recruits. AQAP can
basically hold up the image of shattered corpses of women and children who have
died in strikes with the caption “Made in the USA.” This is a powerful
recruiting tool.
… In
December 2009, AQAP had roughly 200 to 300 members and controlled no territory.
Today it has over 1,000 members and controls significant amounts of territory
in Abyan and Shabwa. This begs a very simple question: Why has AQAP grown so
strong in such a short time? Now, I don’t think U.S. drone and airstrikes are
the only reason for the rapid growth of AQAP – one also has to consider the
collapse of the Yemeni state in 2011 – but in my view it is certainly one of
the key factors.
Jeremy
Scahill
I think it
is hard to underestimate the rage that these strikes cause, even when they do
hit their intended target. No one on earth wants to be bombed. When the U.S.
kills innocent people — even in the pursuit of the actual 1,000 or so members
of AQAP — it sparks rage.
What the
U.S. is doing now in Yemen is giving people a non-ideological reason to hate
America. When you kill someone’s wife or children, when you leave unexploded
munitions near their homes, the instinct of many people across the globe is to
want revenge or justice. That was certainly the collective response of
Democrats and Republicans alike in the U.S. post-9/11. There was a lot of talk
of justice, but a lot louder talk of revenge and killing those responsible.
Combine all of this with poverty and hopelessness and Yemen could be a factory
for producing a generation that despises the U.S. and its proxies in the
region.
Michelle
Shephard
She is an
award-winning journalist and author of Decade of Fear: Reporting from
Terrorism’s Grey Zones (2011) and Guantanamo’s Child (2008). She is the national security
correspondent for The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, and has
reported among other places from Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Albania, Turkey,
Kenya and Guantanamo Bay.
The success
rate of strikes had been grim until the deaths of Anwar al-Awlaki and Fahd
al-Quso, wanted for the 2000 USS Cole bombing. One of the most devastating
strikes was in [Majala in] Abyan province, in December 2009. Fifty-five were
killed and among the victims, 14 women and 21 children. The U.S. failed to
acknowledge the botched mission, which just made people angrier.
When looking
at the effectiveness of the strikes, in addition to these tragic cases, there’s
also the fact that AQAP is a smart, fairly tight organization that learned from
past mistakes, when Yemen’s branch of Al Qaeda had been all but defeated after
9/11. Many terrorism analysts both in Yemen and the U.S. believe they have
built a group that can survive the loss of its leadership.
The civilian
deaths undoubtably make AQAP’s recruitment drive easier. One analyst, whom I
respect, suggested that Ansar al-Sharia’s movement began following the 2009
deaths. I think this negative impact is really underestimated in Washington.
In addition
to the outrage these killings evoke, there’s also the fact that tribal
allegiances drive much of Yemen. Too often this is confused in the West as
support for AQAP’s ideology. Take for instance the protection Awlaki enjoyed
before his death. Much of that was thanks to his family’s powerful tribe
connection, not support in the ideology he espoused. So if the use of
“signature [strikes]” – those that target regions instead of individuals –
erroneously kill tribal leaders, women or children, the blowback is an increase
in anti-U.S. sentiment of which AQAP will deftly capitalize.
You’ve
reported on the death of Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son,
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Oct. 14, 2011, just
two weeks after his father. What did you find out about who he was and what was
so controversial about the circumstances surrounding his death?
“I didn’t
find many in Yemen mourning [Anwar al-Awlaki's] demise – but there was concern
about the death of his son. By all accounts, Abdulrahman had been living quite
a normal teenage life since his father cut off contact and went into hiding in
2009.” Michelle Shephard
Awlaki had
fascinated me for years. In the summer of 2009, I tried to find Anwar al-Awlaki,
who was relatively unknown then — this was pre-Fort Hood & Dec. 25 failed
bombing attempt — but whose name was a footnote in various domestic cases,
including one in Canada. I was amazed to discover that almost no one in Yemen
had heard of him, including those who tracked AQAP closely. This later made me
question assertions that he had a key operational role in the organization
(although few would dispute his influence online and appeal to Western youths).
The
situation was of course different after news broke about his involvement in
high-profile cases and then the publicity surrounding his inclusion on the list
of CIA-sanctioned killings, given his American citizenship.
Going back
this year following his death, I didn’t find many in Yemen mourning his demise
– but there was concern about the death of his son. By all accounts,
Abdulrahman had been living quite a normal teenage life since his father cut
off contact and went into hiding in 2009. The 16-year-old had run away
purportedly to find his father, but was in the wrong part of the country when
Anwar al-Awlaki was killed. It is unclear who was the target of the drone
attack that killed him shortly after, but Yemenis are still waiting for
answers. Some of the youths who brought down President Ali Abdullah Saleh
during 2011 protests also demonstrated about his death.
Has the U.S.
government commented at all on his death?
Not on
Abdulrahman’s death, not as far I know. …
Charles
Schmitz
Yemenis also
question the basis upon which people are being targeted. When President Obama
signed the order to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, Yemenis asked what court has
convicted him of a crime? What did he do besides give some speeches? And when
Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son was killed by a drone, Yemenis were outraged. The
U.S. claimed he was in the company of a target, but such arguments are not
convincing in Yemen. It appears to Yemenis that the U.S. is judge, jury, and
executioner without any recourse to law for Yemenis. …
Atiaf
Alwazir
She is a
Yemeni-American researcher based in Sana’a, Yemen. She also blogs at Woman from
Yemen and tweets at @WomanFromYemen.
… While on
the very short term, these strikes may target some militant leaders, in the
long term, it is actually counterproductive. Drone strikes have hit many
civilian homes, displacing the families, killing the inhabitants and enraging
the citizens. Enraged tribal leaders — who are key in helping the government
fight militants — have refused to cooperate with U.S. and Yemeni government-led
counterterrorism efforts precisely because of these drones, while family
members of drone strike victims have joined these groups to seek vengeance.
More precisely, southerners who already feel marginalized have felt even more
neglected by the government.
“A song by a
well-known southern singer … condemns the silence of officials and citizens
against the bloodshed and destruction of the city. ‘Why are you silent when the
sea is burning, and the sky and ground are on fire,’ he sings.” Atiaf Alwazir
A song by a
well-known southern singer Abood Khawaja, entitled, “Abyan Is Wounded,”
condemns the silence of officials and citizens against the bloodshed and
destruction of the city. “Why are you silent when the sea is burning, and the
sky and ground are on fire,” he sings.
Anti-Americanism
has also increased dramatically. It is important to note also that citizens in
some parts of Abyan have been forbidden to leave their area by the militants.
This meant that they have become prisoners in their own areas, always fearful
that a drone may hit them. With nowhere else to channel their anger,
disenfranchised young men become easy targets for recruitment.
Ibrahim
Mothana
He is a
writer and activist based in Sana’a, and the co-founder of Watan Party and the
Yemen Enlightenment Debate. He tweets at @IMothanaYemen.
Like many
others in Yemen, I believe the drone program and strikes succeeded the most in
the “Talibanization” of tribal areas and radicalizing people who are not
ideologically related to the radical militants in the country.
… The
civilian cost of such strikes created legitimate grievances that gave a golden
opportunity to AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia to recruit fighters, operate in larger
areas of the country and become part of fabric of the society in many areas.
[And] new foreign political players in Yemen, like Iran, also seized this
opportunity to gain more influence in the south. Drones added anger to the
apathy [of] the Yemeni tribes, who are pragmatic and ready to cooperate yet
never [have] been approached or given the incentives to join this fight against
radical militants. …
Are There
Alternatives to the Strikes?
Clinton
Watts
Excellent
question and one that remains absent from the discussion put forth by those
opposing the use of drones in Yemen. I’ve argued with anti-drone advocates over
the past year asking, “If the U.S. should not use drones, then what should the
U.S. do to stop an AQAP that is planning to attack the U.S.?” I’ve not heard of
one viable solution put forth by a critic of drone warfare.
The spectrum
of alternatives for countering AQAP encompasses diplomacy, public
affairs/strategic communications, information operations, foreign aid, economic
development, training and equipping foreign militaries, training and equipping
local Yemeni militias, U.S. military advisers and intelligence operations, as
well as full-scale U.S. military intervention similar to what has been used in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
The current
state of Yemen’s government makes options such as economic development and
diplomacy inappropriate. In contrast, the past decade of large-scale
counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrates the massive costs and
questionable results of broad military intervention for deterring Al Qaeda.
Today, it
appears the U.S. is pursuing strategic communications campaigns against AQAP
and working with the Yemeni military and local militias. However, none of these
efforts effectively disrupts AQAP’s current operations as well as drones.
Additionally, anti-drone advocates continue to cite civilian casualties and
blowback as justification for abandoning the use of drones in Yemen. However,
these same advocates fail to address the incredible loss of life and harm to
civilian populations that occurs during the conduct of large-scale
counterinsurgency operations, Yemeni military advances or tribal militia
battles.
In
comparison to these military options, I would argue that drone operations are
the least invasive and civilian casualty producing counterterrorism option able
to deny AQAP safe haven and disrupt their plotting against the U.S.
Charles
Schmitz
The
alternative is what is working right now. The Yemeni military allied with the
“local committees” in Abyan have turned the tide against Al Qaeda’s
insurrection. Ansar al-Sharia is led by Al Qaeda, but it is a different kind of
movement than the terrorist organization of Al Qaeda. Ansar al-Sharia tried to
hold territory and to govern local affairs. In the Abbottabad papers, bin Laden
told his leaders that this was a mistake. Al Qaeda was not in a position to
govern and to provide services to people. Furthermore, controlling territory
meant opening up a front of conventional military conflict that Al Qaeda cannot
win.
Bin Laden
was right: Ansar al-Sharia was only successful when the Yemeni military and
security were divided and fighting amongst themselves. They exploited some
local grievances, and they capitalized on the large number of unemployed, poor,
young who have no future in Yemen to patch together a fighting force. Only the
Yemeni forces can effectively fight such a counterinsurgency battle. They know
the territory and the people and only Yemenis can put together a political
solution that will address the issues that Ansar al-Sharia exploited. A local
military commander in Yemen explained that what the Yemeni need from the U.S.
is economic aid to relieve the extreme poverty that feeds Ansar al-Sharia.
As far as Al
Qaeda the terrorist organization, local cells can hide and operate anywhere.
They have shown their ability to strike in Sana’a, Hudeida, Aden; and recall
that the 9/11 conspiracy was run from Hamburg, Germany. Fighting this kind of
organization requires good intelligence and good police work, which in turn
depends upon the legitimacy of the government. If people feel that the
government is on their side, they will work with intelligence and the police
help root out illegal activity.
The same
applies to tribes. If tribes feel that the government is fair and can be
trusted then they will side with security forces against Al Qaeda. The U.S.
administration claims that Yemen is an ungoverned space in which Al Qaeda can
operate freely, but Yemen is not ungoverned. There is local law and local
society. The recent years saw lots of political conflict and chaos, and Al
Qaeda exploited it, but the drone campaign is a short-term and short-sighted
solution. Only political and economic stability will work in the long run, and
in the short run drones may delay stability by inflaming people against the
Americans and their Yemeni supporters.
Jeremy
Scahill
I believe
the escalation of this bombing will ultimately make the U.S. and Yemen less
safe and will create more enemies than it eliminates. I think a huge part of
the problem with the U.S. in Yemen is that we are ignorant of Yemeni cultures.
We see enemies everywhere and we rely on powerful forces with their own agendas
— the Saudis and the Yemeni regime — for intelligence. If the U.S. invested
more in studying Yemen and developing non military ties with Yemeni groups and
tribes, I believe that there are many creative paths to take to confront the
relatively minor, non-existential threat of terrorism emanating from Yemen. I’m
not saying there is no risk of a plane being brought down by AQAP, but that I
believe that old-fashioned intelligence is far better than “signature strikes”
and letting the Saudis and Yemeni regime make the U.S.’s target lists so the
military or CIA can zap people—who maybe are AQAP and maybe just a farmer with
a long beard and a lot of friends—from the sky.
Charles
Schmitz
The American
military is enamored of the example of the Awakening in Iraq that led local
people to rise up against Al Qaeda. And they are seeing the same phenomena in
the example of the “Local Committees” that have formed in Abyan to fight Ansar
al-Sharia, particularly in Lawdar.
The local
committees are not tribes though; they are locals organized into fighting
units. These include local townspeople and tribesmen. They are not tribes
fighting as tribes. The south was socialist and it has a tradition of local
mobilization to draw upon. …
The key
thing to remember is that tribes are like local government and their interests
are in their local area. They make their decisions based upon their calculation
of benefits to their local group. If the government abandons the area and Al
Qaeda shows up, the tribe will have to deal with Al Qaeda, they are the local
power. If Al Qaeda attacks the tribe, then the tribe will turn against Al
Qaeda, as has happened. If the government is trusted to provide security and
deliver services, then the tribe will turn against Al Qaeda and go with the
government.
Abdulwahab
Alkebsi
He is the
regional director for Middle East and Africa programs at the Center for
International Private Enterprise (CIPE). Alkebsi also served as the director of
the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) Middle East and North Africa
division and as the executive director at the Center for the Study of Islam and
Democracy (CSID).
At this
time, some say that the tribal structure is benefiting from the war on terrorism
by playing both sides for the sheikh’s benefit. It’s to their advantage to
prolong the conflict to take advantage of the largesse being distributed and
the leverage they’ve attained over the state by being perceived as team members
in the war on terror, while at the same time they play the role of protectors
of AQAP and Ansar al-Sharia, without whose support, the latter would not be
able to survive.
Alternatively,
most Yemenis believe that a democratic state in Yemen with a decentralized
system of governance, which empowers local powerbrokers, tribal and civilian,
would change the rules of the game. The war on terror would change its
character from one that pits the U.S. and its “allies” in the state against
AQAP into one where local actors would battle with the terrorists for local
development and advancement. Currently, the locals in South and North Yemen
don’t believe that they have a “dog in the fight.” …
Amel Ahmed
She is a
Yemeni-American freelance writer and law student, and covered the Yemeni
uprising as a special correspondent for Al Jazeera English during the summer of
2011. She tweets at @AmelScript.
The nation
is literally starving to death. Yemen’s economic and social problems pose a
greater threat to the nation than Al Qaeda does. The presence of Al Qaeda is a
byproduct of these failing conditions, but instead of addressing these problems
our strategy has been to approach the situation with blinders on, a plan that
fails to take into account the link between security and a fractured state. A
weak central government and collapsing economy provide a vacuum for extremists
to exploit, and as long as these issues are inadequately addressed, the region
will continue to be vulnerable to extremist elements.
For the
U.S., it’s become an absurd game of numbers, I think. We define our success
against Al Qaeda by the amount of extremists we kill and nothing else. It is an
incredibly misguided approach and it misses the point. Al Qaeda would not be in
Yemen but for a discredited central government that has failed to provide its
people with opportunities and better living conditions. This was decades in the
making. Yemen’s economic and social problems need to be included in any
strategy to defeat Al Qaeda otherwise the conditions that first brought them there
will continue to work in their favor. …