Profile: Ansar al-Sharia in Yemen
A BBC Arabic analyst in a short article, that starts with:
Quote:
An offshoot of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has issued a statement threatening the lives of 73 Yemeni soldiers it says it captured last week.
Then adds:
Quote:
Ansar al-Sharia, whose name means "Partisans of Islamic law" in Arabic, was formed by AQAP in response to the growing youth movement in Yemen..
Ends with:
Quote:
Many of those involved in Ansar al-Sharia are jihadists who have experienced living in an "Islamic state", either in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, or among jihadists in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003.
Ansar al-Sharia's ability to launch attacks, as well as build local support, indicates that the Yemeni authorities' struggle with Islamist militants may soon become bloodier and more protracted.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17402856
Where is this Abyan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yemen-Abyan.png
Possible spilt between hard-liners and even more hardliners...
...Islah to be sidelined? Doubtful but developments are interesting...
First Yemeni Salafi Party announced
via the ever informative Yemen Times. Hat tip there to the wonderful Nadia As-Saqqaf, one of the few journalists in Yemen of integrity [her staff included].
The President: a safe lightweight?
An on the ground report:
Quote:
Swept into office by a controversial one-candidate vote last month, President Abd Rabu Monsour Hadi faces the difficult task of steering the country toward multi-party elections in 2014. It's a job that would require huge political skill and authority even under the best of conditions. Yet Hadi is a political lightweight, an unlikely leader chosen primarily for his inoffensiveness. In Yemen, which endured decades of civil war in the twentieth century, Hadi is the safe pair of hands, the one political leader around whom warring factions were willing to rally.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...shoes?page=0,0
The President: a safe lightweight balances changes
In a surprising move the President has shuffled senior civil and military posts:
Quote:
Yemen's president removed a half brother of former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday as head of the air force, replacing nearly 20 top officers but leaving Mr Saleh's son, nephew and other allies in place as heads of important military units.
Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-commands.html
A small hiccup:
Quote:
Yemen's main airport has re-opened after a protest by air force troops against the sacking of their commander.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-17649525
Yemen: Always on the Brink?
Yemen: Always on the Brink?
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Short-term gains -v- long term gains?
A FP Blog article I missed the other day, which concludes:
Quote:
It is time for the U.S. to stop undermining democratic values and long-term stability in Yemen in exchange for short term counter-terrorism gains and a half-hearted continuation of the status quo. If Washington continues on this path, it will end up at best with another Somalia; at worse, another Afghanistan.
Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...oice?page=full
Interesting take on the views of Yemen's richer neighbour.
1 Attachment(s)
ICSR Insight - Al Qaeda's Most Dangerous Franchise?
A sombre assessment by Kings College London-based ICSR is on the attachment; these 'Insights' are emailed out and take a few days to appear on the ICSR website. It did appear on WSJ, but only a summary is provided without registration etc.
I was particularly taken by:
Quote:
At its core are 100 veteran jihadists, who escaped local prisons in 2006 and 2011. The group also counts on 11 former Guantanamo detainees, who returned to terrorism after undergoing "rehabilitation" programs in Saudi Arabia. Their combined experience is greater than that of all other al Qaeda affiliates taken together.
Then:
Quote:
Unlike al Qaeda in Iraq, which alienated entire tribes with barbaric and indiscriminate violence, AQAP's policies have allowed it to cultivate local sympathies.... Immersed in the population and protected by the tribes, AQAP is free to raise money and train fighters. CIA drone strikes against its operatives, in turn, are more likely to kill civilians.
My query is if AQAP gains more within the Yemen, extending it's control not cultivating or immersion, there would be an advantage to portray its actions as a local struggle and so curtail attacks on the 'far enemy'. Now whether the USA would curtail it's drone attacks is clearly unlikely. IMO doing more than drones becomes more problematic and with declining local acceptance.
Talks about Talks – Does Yemen Need More Time?
Talks about Talks – Does Yemen Need More Time?
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Some light cast on the puzzle that is the Yemen
Yemen seems to have receded from the foreground, although the suicide bomber attack on a Central Security Forces (CSF) parade, which killed one hundred did get a mention - missing that the commander of the CSF is a Saleh family member.
The Lowy Institute draws attention to a week-old Frontline report, which has several key sections and ends in a town which has rejected AQ - after they killed a tribal chief - and only the locals fight off AQ's attacks, the army isn't interested. One wonders if this replicates the rejection of AQ in Irag?
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJtbhFimI8c
Hat tip to Leah Farrell's reactivated blogsite:http://allthingscounterterrorism.com/
The film is highly commended by a US academic expert, Gregory Johnsen, of Waq al-Waq, on the Yemen and I have linked the Q&A after the film was broadcast and this passage struck me:
Quote:
Over the past two-and-a-half years the US has managed to kill several mid-level commanders within AQAP, but at the same time it has also killed several civilians. In December 2009, AQAP had roughly 200-300 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 US 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.
Link:http://bigthink.com/ideas/frontline-...yemen?page=all
The Australian analyst, Sarah Phillips, provides some context and touches upon the very murky aspects:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...y-to-fail.aspx
There's also a short interview with her:http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/...wo-videos.aspx
Want more to read, there's a pointer to this US journalist's blogsite:http://armiesofliberation.com/
Some light cast on the puzzle that is the Yemen Part 2
In Part 1 in The Frontline video report there was a short clip of Yemeni town that was defending itself from AQAP, IIRC it was Lawdar.
Al-Jazeera has a good summary piece 'Making sense of Yemen's feuding factions' and refers to such self-defence activity:
Quote:
Local Popular Resistance Committees, made up of tribal militia fighters from various southern regions, are also fighting al-Qaeda in the current offensive. They have been attributed with successes against the group, using their local knowledge and warfare tactics. Not much is known about these groups, as most announcements on the war are made by Yemeni authorites. Some of the groups may be made up of southern seccessionist fighters, who, although seeking independence from the northern government, are also opposed to al-Qaeda.
In such a complicated environment I am not surprised that such groups are not supported by the divided Yemeni state. Should others engage with them? Yemen is not Afghanistan nor Iraq, if these groups multiply, we would be mistaken not to have links with them - a "bottom up", people-based approach COIN advocates wish for.
A year later - time for a review
CWOT and his colleague have returned to this issue, which is within the wider, global debate over the use of drones and the US strategy to pursue terrorism.
SWC has a long running thread on drones 'Using drones: principles, tactics and results': http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=7385
Quote:
Building on their past work on Yemen and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Watts and Cilluffo revisit the use of drones in Yemen, offering context to ongoing debates about U.S. counterterrorism strategy as well as recommendations regarding the way forward. The authors review what drones and Special Operations Forces (SOF) have accomplished over the past year, explore why AQAP has continued to thrive, and explain what critics of drones misunderstand about operations in Yemen. Watts and Cilluffo go on to urge continued improvement of intelligence to better the accuracy of drone strikes, and argue in favor of greater transparency and accountability in drone operations. The authors recognize that "drones alone cannot entirely defeat AQAP," and call for the development of "a larger, long-run strategy...for pursuing U.S. counterterrorism objectives in Yemen."
Link:http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/policy/iss...208_Drones.cfm
Info Ops in Yemen: how effective in Yemen?
Hat tip to Jihadica for a perplexing story on US information operations (IO) in the Yemen, which is almost an IO itself.
Quote:
Several months ago, President Obama signed an executive order establishing an interagency center to coordinate the US government’s public messages against terrorist organizations. A major component of this Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC) was in the news lately for its clever campaign against AQAP on Yemeni tribal forums.
Link:http://www.jihadica.com/state-depts-...da-propaganda/
It sounds on-target at first:
Quote:
...the State Department has for a year and a half now tried to counter Al Qaeda's affiliate in the Arabian Peninsula by rhetorically shooting down the group's propaganda when it pops up on Yemeni tribal forum websites....Within 48 hours, our team plastered the same sites with altered versions of the ads that showed the toll Al Qaeda attacks have taken on the Yemeni people,
Except that:
Quote:
...in many places in Yemen there is no Internet or even electricity
The linked story is:http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign...-war-is-fierce
On the broader aspects back to Jihadica:
Quote:
More broadly, people are unaware of the complexities of government messaging against terrorist organizations. To shed light on these subjects, the first coordinator of the CSCC, Ambassador Richard LeBaron (now retired), has given me permission to post his recent remarks on what he learned during his tenure. It’s very instructive for anyone interested in counter-propaganda and how the US government is coping with the new information environment.
Link to the remarks is embedded and is in docx format - so unread by moi,