Posts
The al-Qaeda'threat' may or may not exist, but a very real war is being waged by the United States
US
drone strikes kill seven alleged al-Qaida members in Yemen
Attack
in Shabwa province comes days after US government says intelligence
showed increase in terrorist 'chatter
7
August, 2013
New
US drone strikes reportedly killed seven alleged al-Qaida members in
southern Yemen on Wednesday after the government in Sana'a claimed to
have foiled a large-scale terrorist attack and the US and Britain
evacuated their embassy staff.
Security
officials told the Associated Press the latest drone attacks hit
targets in Shabwa province, where residents reported seeing two
vehicles and several bodies on fire.
The
news came as details emerged in the capital of an ambitious plan by
al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a "franchise" of
the global terrorist network, to attack oil installations and towns.
Rajeh
Badi, press adviser to Prime Minister Mohammed Salem Basindwa, said
the plot involved dozens of fighters in Yemeni army uniforms storming
the facilities on Sunday night, and holding them. Yemeni officials
spoke of a plan to take control of the Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal,
which is run by Canada, in the Mukallah region on the Arabian Sea.
The
US state department said on Tuesday that its decision to close its
embassy and to repeat a call for all US citizens to leave the country
had been prompted by a "specific and immediate threat."
US
intelligence is reported to have earlier intercepted "chatter"
indicating an impending terrorist attack, along with a conversation
between the al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is believed to be
in hiding in Pakistan, and Nasser al-Wuhayshi, the head of AQAP.
The
New York Times said the conversation represented one of the most
serious plots since the 9/11 attacks prompting the closure of 19 US
embassies worldwide. Britain and several other western countries
followed suit. "This was significant because it was the big guys
talking, and talking about very specific timing for an attack or
attacks," the New York Times quoted one official as saying.
Yemeni
officials told AP they believe the motive for the planned attacks was
retaliation for the killing of Wuhayshi's deputy, Said al-Shihri, who
was critically wounded in a November drone strike and later died of
his injuries.
The
US response to the threat has triggered renewed criticism of the
Obama adminstration's approach to Yemen, which is said to include
tactics tried in Pakistan and Afghanistan but which are inappropriate
to conditions in the Arab world's poorest and intensely tribal
country.
"US
efforts to decapitate the leadership of al-Qaida in the Arabian
peninsula have resulted in the deaths of many civilians, yet there is
no certainty as to who the targets really are," commented
Christina Hellmich of Reading University. "The membership of
AQAP remains unknown while the deaths worsen the problems for the US
in the region, by supporting the political legitimacy of the jihadis
as they struggle to establish a position in the contested state."
AQAP
has attempted to mount several attacks on US soil, including a bid to
bring down a passenger plane over Detroit in 2009 by a man wearing
explosives in his underwear, and a failed plot to send bombs
concealed in printers.
Earlier
that year the group tried to assassinate the Saudi security chief,
Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, with a bomb that was concealed on the
attacker's body.
The
Sana'a government said this week that it was hunting 25 named AQAP
operatives it suspects of planning attacks.
Even
Yemeni Government Spokesman Finds Foiled Plot Hard to Believe
7
August, 2013
Even
the spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, D.C. is having a
hard time believing a plot by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that
the Yemeni government says it foiled.
Several
news agencies -- including the BBC,
the New
York Times,
and Bloomberg,
among others -- reported this morning that the Yemeni government
claimed it had stopped a large AQAP attack in Yemen's Hadhramaut
province. As the BBC reported:
Yemeni
government spokesman Rajeh Badi said the plot involved blowing up oil
pipelines and taking control of certain cities -- including two ports
in the south, one of which accounts for the bulk of Yemen's oil
exports and is where a number of foreign workers are employed.
"There
were attempts to control key cities in Yemen like Mukala and
Bawzeer," said Mr Badi.
"This
would be co-ordinated with attacks by al-Qaeda members on the gas
facilities in Shebwa city and the blowing up of the gas pipe in
Belhaf city."
That
didn't sound right to Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman for the Yemeni
embassy, and he said so on his personal Twitter account:
For the record: #AQAP doesn't have the man power nor the capabilities to capture a city the size of Mukkala in Hadramout #Yemen #CommonSense
14 RETWEETS 4 FAVORITES
Word. | RT @gregorydjohnsen Along with many I'm skeptical of the reports that AQAP was about to seize ports in #Yemen
@BaFana3 @gregorydjohnsen I second that
1 RETWEET
AQAP
notably tried
to seize Yemeni towns
in 2011 and 2012, as the country's popular uprising drew the
military's attention to the capital, Sanaa. And it was a strategic
blunder for the organization. AQAP and its political arm, Ansar
al-Sharia, alienated the towns they occupied and were ousted by the
Yemeni military and "popular committees" -- militias formed
by local sheikhs to retake the area. Since being pushed out in
mid-2012, AQAP has remained in hiding.
The
New
York Times
was more measured in its appraisal of the threat, reporting
that the target was not whole cities, but rather a specific
Canadian-operated oil installation in the Hadhramaut port capital of
Mukallah. But even this seemed strange to some Yemen experts.
"[Yemeni
authorities are] claiming that this plot that they've foiled includes
attacks planned against oil pipelines here, specifically to take
control of several ports in Yemen," Iona Craig, a correspondent
for the Times
of London,
told
BBC World
Service
from Sanaa. "Now, the oil pipelines get attacked on a regular
basis -- in fact, they've been blown up twice in the last two weeks
-- so that's not unusual, and it's not always related to al Qaeda."
In fact, oil pipelines are frequently
targeted
by Yemeni tribal groups as a means of forcing concessions from the
central government.
Adding
to the dubious nature of the report: The Yemeni government did not
specify how
it thwarted the supposed attack. The United States conducted an
airstrike
in neighboring Shabwa province on Wednesday, killing seven, but that
hardly seems sufficient to stop what was, by the Yemeni government's
account, to be a large-scale attack.
The
Yemeni government has a history of making outsized claims about its
counterterrorism successes; on at least two occasions, officials
claimed
to have killed AQAP's deputy emir, Said al-Shihri, only for Shihri to
release statements demonstrating that he was still very much alive.
But there's little wonder why the Yemeni government would claim a
victory now. With the U.S. diplomatic community in lockdown in
response to a terror threat emanating from Yemen -- Craig, speaking
to the BBC, describes the persistent hum of P-3 Orion electronic
surveillance planes circling Sanaa today -- the government has every
reason to try and demonstrate that it's doing its part in combating
AQAP. As for what precisely that part has consisted of -- well,
Yemeni officials have been more tight-lipped on that front.
Yemen
Plot the New Excuse for Not Closing Gitmo
Officials
Say Detainees Won't Be Released to Yemen
7
August, 2013
Two
and a half months after Obama Administration officials indicated
that they were preparing to “speed up” plans to let detainees
cleared for release from Guantanamo Bay actually return home,
officials have a new excuse not to do so.
Fresh
off of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s visit to DC, at
which he pressed President Obama to release the detainees, suddenly
the focus on a huge plot in Yemen has
officials saying that any plans to do so are indefinitely
“on hold.”
Of
course in the two and a half months between then and now there was no
indication that officials were actually considering any serious
releases of detainees in the first place. Now they just have a new
excuse.
It’s
particularly noteworthy that Hadi’s visit came after the first
drone strikes aimed at the plot were launched but before it went
public, giving Hadi a chance to feign “pressing” the US for the
detainees’ release shortly before the excuse would come to life.
Al-Qaeda
will continue to exist as long as the US needs it
Obama:
Al-Qaeda ‘On the Way to Defeat’
Insists
US 'Not Terrorized' by Terrorists
7
August, 2013
While
reiterating that al-Qaeda remains a threat “to the homeland,”
President Obama insisted today that his military offensives have
decimated the group’s leadership and it is “on
the way to defeat.”
Obama
went on to insist that “those who cowardly attack civilians”
don’t understand his position that the US “do
not get terrorized”
by terrorism and will keep up its current foreign policy in place to
prove that Americans “will never retreat from the world.”
The
comments come as the US has closed dozens of embassies abroad over
fear of terrorist attacks, and has issued a global travel warning for
the rest of the month, urging civilians to avoid any travel anywhere
on the planet.
He
was addressing Camp Pendleton Marines at the time, and it is possible
that the broad position of the speech was penned before all of the
embassy closures, though Obama did note that the recent days are a
“reminder” of the global war on terror.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.