American special operators are back in Yemen, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to leave any time soon. A group of about a dozen U.S. commandos sent to the country in April are going to stick around, U.S. defense officials say, and will help troops from the United Arab Emirates hunt down fighters from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
That sounds like a priority shift for Emirati troops, who have been fighting Houthi rebels for the past year. But Yousef al-Otaiba, the U.A.E.’s ambassador in Washington, told the Washington Post that said his country’s fight against AQAP “will go on for a long period of time...the military priorities have shifted from fighting the Iranian-backed Houthis to being more focused on AQAP".
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