What Happens in Yemen does not stay in Yemen
In the latest issue of Sada al-Malahim, the Internet magazine of the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, urged its followers to use small bombs “in airports in the western crusade countries that participated in the war against Muslims: or on their planes, or in their residential complexes or their subways.”
As you know, I’ve been following Yemen for the last few years (and traveled there last Spring) and if you’ve spent any time with me, I have talked a lot about its pivotal regional importance as well its downward spiraling trends of a failed state and I have drawn many comparisons to the tribal states of western Pakistan.
Can I just say, that I’ve been pitching these warnings and stressing the importance of Yemen to editors and why it matters to their readers for well over a year now, and find it very ironic and disheartening that it took a near disaster to get Yemen into the current news cycle. Does it have to go that far for editors to listen to others and me? Apparently it does.
Unfortunately, it took the Christmas Day bombing attempt of a Nigerian man with Al Qaeda links in Yemen to wake up the West and finally highlight the significance of the country and what it means for the World and us. Not to mention the radical American-born cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki and his links to Nidal Hasan, the American Army major who faces murder charges in the shooting deaths of 13 people at Fort Hood, last month.
At this moment, the US has opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen. Months ago, the Central Intelligence Agency sent several field operatives with counterterrorism experience into the country.
The Pentagon is spending more than $70 million over the next 18 months to equip Yemeni military.
Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Conn and chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, who visited the country in August, stated in an interview on Sunday that “Yemen now becomes one of the centers of the fight” with Iraq and Afghanistan.
In a relatively quiet trip a few months ago, Gen. David Petraeus, the American regional commander and John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, visited Yemen.
It seems that our intelligence, political and military authorities seem to get that Yemen’s security problems won’t just stay in Yemen. I just would have expected the journalism community to catch on much earlier.
Special thanks to David Anelman at the World Policy Journal and Forbes for listening to me early on!
December 29th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Micah, I just told Nikki about you’re comments Yemen. As the news was realing in I said, “Yep this is what Micah was talking about, this is the hot bed for terrorist, that no one is talking about.’
If the the Pentagon is spending more than $70 million over the next 18 months to equip Yemeni military does that imply hope and optimism in your opinion?
I’m reluctant to think of optimism. Have we robbed peter to pay paul and let one country gain a foothold while we fight in two other countries?