This Week at War: Yemen's al Qaeda Scam

What the four-stars are reading -- a weekly column from Small Wars Journal.

JANUARY 8, 2010

Yemen learns to profit from al Qaeda

The nearly successful Christmas Day downing of a Detroit-bound airliner has suddenly shifted the U.S. national security community's focus to Yemen. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the alleged Nigerian-born "knicker bomber," reportedly confessed to being trained in Yemen by an al Qaeda group.

Yemen and its problems are suddenly on everyone's agenda. On Jan. 1, CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus announced a doubling in annual U.S. assistance to the country. On Jan. 28, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will host an international conference on Yemen, where he will no doubt call for increased international donations. It seems that whenever the international community discovers another al Qaeda franchise, a financial reward to the host seems to follow. Pakistan has perfected how to profit from this perverse incentive. Yemen is now showing itself to be an able student of the same technique.

Writing in Small Wars Journal, Lawrence Cline -- a career military intelligence officer, Middle East foreign area officer, and an instructor at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School -- provides a comprehensive summary of Yemen's political and economic challenges. According to Cline, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his government do not view al Qaeda's presence in Yemen as their most important problem. To Saleh and his government, the Houthi rebellion in the Shiite northwest and the separatist unrest centered around the southern city of Aden (due to unresolved issues from the 1990 unification of Yemen) are far more urgent. Yemen's problems do not stop there. The country is running out of both oil and water, hosts over 150,000 Somali refugees, and its trade suffers from the Horn of Africa's ongoing piracy problem. Yemen is a obviously very troubled place and Saleh in understandably seeking out as much foreign assistance as he can.

In this context, Al Qaeda in Yemen and the Saleh government may have settled into a mutually beneficial relationship. According to Cline, Yemen's government is not the focus of al Qaeda's terror campaign. Instead, al Qaeda likely values the sanctuary it finds in Yemen's remote areas and the access it enjoys to elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. Threatening the Yemeni government would risk these advantages.

From Saleh's perspective, he has likely learned from Pakistan how rewarding al Qaeda's presence -- largely benign to him -- can be. The impending deluge of U.S. aid, with Brown's conference to add to the bounty, illustrates the perverse incentives offered to leaders like Saleh.

Does this mean that the United States should not assist Saleh and his government? At this point it has little choice; it can only access al Qaeda by partnering with Saleh, Yemen's ministries, and its security forces. A decade after the bombing of USS Cole in the Aden harbor, the al Qaeda problem in Yemen seems as bad as ever. Over the past 10 years, the United States has provided funding and training to Yemen's security forces, a program frustrated by corruption and perceived Yemeni indifference to al Qaeda. This matches the frustrations the U.S. suffers with its security assistance program in Pakistan. Neither should be a surprise given the current incentives.

The solution is for the U.S. government to develop alternate paths to al Qaeda that bypass those local institutions that lack an incentive to confront al Qaeda. It seems as if the CIA officers recently killed at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan were attempting to create such an alternate path. Although that operation suffered a disastrous setback, such efforts are one of the few ways the U.S. can keep its reluctant partners honest.

AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/Getty Images

 SUBJECTS:
 

Robert Haddick is managing editor of Small Wars Journal.

SID

9:41 PM ET

January 8, 2010

Hit the Nail on the HEAD

Robert Haddick has hit the nail on the head. This is exactly was required to be exposed, as to how Western countries themselves are fueling Jihadies of future.
1. Pakistan has perfected the art of milking U.S & E.U for more & more aid and a long weapons list, while doing very little to go after the real bad (Al-Qaeda) guys.
2. Gen McCyrstall is pursuing similarly flawed policy in Afghanistan by a development strategy for Taliban affected Southern areas, while neglecting the existing peace partners in the North & West of Afghanistan.
3. Bleeding hearts like Oxfam keep providing food & medical aid to Somalis, Eritranians, Yemanies & all sundry Muslim countries, where there is NO population control scheme. All these guys will never grow up to love West. Most of them will be like this Nigerian bomber, they will get an education in London / New york and then bomb free world.

 

JIMMYBOBBY

1:36 PM ET

January 9, 2010

Do we ask why?

Both the CIA bombing in Afghanistan and the underpants "bombing" were carried out by people who were radicalized by Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. The outrage that is perpetrated in Gaza every day, with U.S. taxpayer money, will continue to fuel hatred and action against the West, and who can blame the perpetrators? Would we not do the same in their shoes?

 

NORBOOSE

10:27 PM ET

January 9, 2010

Way too Simple

Look, I am not here to defend Israel, but that sort of "blame" thinking in policy is just useless. Groups can blame things as long as there are bad things. One major problem with this sort of thought is that you inevitably start expecting more from certain groups of people than others. Also, do you really think that a country smaller than Conneticut being a jackass to a pseudo-country also smaller than Conneticut can really be the whole source of problems in the Muslim world? Next, youll think the Trojan war was actually about Helen. (Troy just happened to be on an unbelievably lucrative trade route.) I really doubht the Israeli conflicts have caused more deaths than all the other conflicts involving Muslim radicals. We can play the blame game all the way back to when Nameless Caveman A got jealous of Nameless Caveman B's pomegranate tree and killed him for it.

Also, history is full of oppression. People are just people. Look at it through objective terms. Group A is mean to Group B, Group B is closely tied to Group C, so some Group C guys kill a ton of Group D's, because Group D is friendly with Group A. According to you, Group C is toitally justified. This would all just feed a circle. I dont think you really considered your thoughts, because the day ethics work the way you say they do is a really bad day to be a human.

 

GERONIMO

6:09 PM ET

January 11, 2010

Maj. Gen. Flynn wants social scientists...

As an old-time foreign correspondent and editor, now retired, I've experienced my share of the merely academically-trained intelligentsi trying tits hand at reporting--eporting on abroad and from abroad, that is., Some of them write dexcent books and can produce memorandums that go on forever and take forever to write. I'd say a much faster, easier, and less costly way to keep the topside informed is to train people to report, or to hire experienced reporters, to cover a beat. Moreover, to covertly help finance indigenous news media and thus gain access to their reporting and analysis (plus, perhaps, entrees to local high-level informants). Backstop all this with people trained in editing , which is to say
scrutiny of copy and ability to analyze. But if it's tzo be environmentalists with PhDs, then be sure to issue them butterfly nets.

 

SHAKIR

6:26 PM ET

January 12, 2010

war scam against al qaeda

it apparently seems very itelligent effort, which normally can not be considered the brainchild of Military, but there is yet no guarantee that it would prove to be fruitful. the reason for that is that illiterate does not mean stupid, and Al quaida, as per available info, is not a bunch of illiterates, tabliban as well haveshown their adaptability and audacity,therefore any optimism in this case prove to be euphemism.

I think we are just playing to the public sentiments and to keep the job going otherwise i am sure we know that we have already lost both of the wars and can not win. Now all of this, to me at least, seems a preparation or pretext for exit strategy which is suppose to beging pretty soon.

 

MIKULASDOWN

5:45 AM ET

January 23, 2010

In this context, Al Qaeda in

In this context, Al Qaeda in Yemen and the Saleh government may have settled into a mutually beneficial relationship. According to Cline, Yemen's government is not the focus of al Qaeda's terror campaign. Instead, al Qaeda likely values the sanctuary it finds in Yemen's remote areas and the access it enjoys to elsewhere in the Middle East and beyond. Threatening the Yemeni government would risk these advantages. Mike the comforter sets sale dude.

I wonder what will all this mean to the World.