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Yemen, the Middle East, and the World Beyond
As the details of the undercover operation to infiltrate AQAP continue to be made public the picture of what happened is starting clear. As I wrote yesterday, it appears that the individual did indeed have a western passport - from the UK - and was initially recruited by British intelligence ...
Despite all the leaks that have come out over the latest underwear bomb plot there is still a great deal we don't know. For instance, did information from the undercover asset lead to the strike on Qusa? Sometimes even the same journalist doesn't know whether it did or did not lead to Qusa's ...
For more than three years AQAP and Muhammad bin Nayif have been involved in a high-stakes intelligence duel, which has largely been fought in the shadows of Yemen's tribal territories. Shortly after AQAP formed in January 2009 one of the group's top leaders, Muhammad al-Awfi a former Guantanamo ...
Yesterday afternoon the Associated Press broke a story about a bomb plot from Yemen, revealing relatively few but still tantalizing details about a plot we still know little about. (ABC news is now report that a double agent with the ranks of AQAP - likely working for Muhammad bin Nayif in Saudi ...
Last week I posted on the CIA's request to carry out "signature strikes" in Yemen. I made quite clear my opposition to the policy, not because I'm opposed to drones as some seem to believe. I actually think drones can be a powerful tool in the war against al-Qaeda, but like all tools they have to ...
For the past several years I have been arguing that the US has to do a better job of framing the war against al-Qaeda in Yemen. The war should never be portrayed as the US against al-Qaeda in Yemen - that is a war the US can't win. But unfortunately this is what is happening. Instead, I've ...
On Saturday Bruce Ackerman of Yale Law School published this op-ed in the Washington Post on the CIA's reported request to employ signature strikes in Yemen. The legal issues that Ackerman discusses are obviously beyond my training and expertise, but there are a couple of points where I think ...
At the end of 2009, Yemen's Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi estimated that there were around 200 - 300 members of AQAP in Yemen. Today, John Brennan suggested that group has more than 1,000 members. This, as I've pointed out before, begs a very simple question: why the increase? We know ...
Earlier today Will McCants, Jeremy Scahill, Clint Watts and I had a twitter discussion - or whatever the word is when one is limited to 140 characters - on Yemen and US policy. Will, Jeremy and Clint all write and speak with a great deal of eloquence and expertise on many different things. I do ...
Yesterday I teased an upcoming post about the US approach to disrupting and defeating AQAP. Shortly after that Greg Miller - a smart and well connected journalist at the Washington Post - released this piece on the CIA seeking to use "signature strikes" in Yemen. There are several things to say ...
Things have been going pretty good for AQAP of late. The group appears to be gaining recruits both from inside Yemen and abroad and it is taking and holding more territory than ever before, and while there have certainly been setbacks my scorecard for 2012 has AQAP well ahead of the US and Yemen ...
The closest thing the US has to a "Yemen Czar" is John Brennan, President Obama's Deputy National Security Adviser, and so when he speaks on Yemen - as he did recently - it is a good idea to pay attention. On Monday, the eve of Yemen's one-man elections, Brennan was in Sanaa, and during his time ...
Earlier today I answered five questions for PBS' NewsHour on the elections in Yemen and what it means going forward. Since I covered a lot of ground in the Q-and-A with P.J. Tobia, and since I would inevitably repeat myself in any blog post, I will link to it here and let it serve as my post on ...
Several months ago, I wrote a brief post about Yemen's then acting president Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi. Tomorrow, as you all know, he is set to remove the "acting" from his title, and take over as president thanks to a one-man election sponsored by the US and Saudi Arabia. Hadi emerged as the ...
Tomorrow, February 21, will mark the last day of President Ali Abdullah Salih's nearly 34 years in power, at least officially. In his place, Yemenis will head to the polls tomorrow to elect his long-serving vice president, Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi, in a curious one-man election. Hadi's is the only ...