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No, the war on al-Qaeda isn’t over! Handing power to his VP establishes a status-quo. Yemen is a failed state and has a large influx of refugees from Somalia across the Gulf of Aden. Both nations suffer from piracy on the high seas. The US will be hated forever by the majority of Yemenis and in particular the Houthi family belonging to the Shia Zaydi sect.
(CFR) – President Barack Obama has described AQAP as “al-Qaeda’s most active operational affiliate,” echoing an acknowledgment from U.S. counterterrorism officials that the threat from AQAP has supplanted that of the al-Qaeda core (NYT).
Months of political unrest in Yemen, including a popular effort to unseat longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh, have strained U.S.-Yemeni counterterrorism cooperation and called into question U.S. policy toward the fragile Gulf state. In May 2011, Washington called for Saleh to step down, but the Obama administration is loath to get drawn into a conflict that includes, in the words of one U.S. official, a “veritable stew” of warring tribal forces and rival military factions (WashPost). Meanwhile, the United States continues to expand its controversial campaign of targeted killings, and is constructing a secret network of drone bases (WashPost) in the region to kill top AQAP suspects in Yemen.
Yemen has long had “powerful Islamist and jihadist movements” (CNN), notes Fawaz A. Gerges, a professor at London University. “There’s a reason why Yemenis in Guantanamo make up the largest core contingent; there’s a reason why so many Yemenis have gone to Iraq,” adds Barak Barfi, a research fellow with the New America Foundation.
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In late 2008, a successful crackdown by the Saudi government led remnants of the local al-Qaeda franchise to flee across the border and unite with a resurgent jihad in Yemen. By 2009, the two branches formally merged under the banner of AQAP (BBC).
- History of Yemen clans and relationship to Saudi Arabia
- Houthis and Al Qaeda mixed cards between Washington and Yemen
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
