Yemen: 'Major Staging Base' for Al Qaeda
Q and A With Former CIA Official and Al Qaeda Expert Bruce Riedel
By KRISTINA WONG
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5, 2010—
Former CIA official and al Qaeda expert Bruce Riedel shared his expertise on the al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula, with ABC News. He served in the CIA from 1977
to 1991 and has served as a senior adviser to three U.S. presidents on
Middle East issues. He has traveled
to Yemen extensively throughout the years. He is a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy.
Q: Is Yemen a safe haven for terrorists? What kinds of terrorists? Why Yemen?
A: Yemen
has been a safe haven and stronghold of al Qaeda since the late 1990s.
Yemen is where Osama Bin Laden's family originates from, in the
southwestern part of the country.
It has a very attractive arena for al Qaeda, because it is one of the most lawless, ungoverned spaces in the entire world.
No government in the history of Yemen
has really been able to enforce its writ throughout the entire country.
And it is precisely these types of ungoverned spaces in Afghanistan and
Somalia and in Yemen and in Pakistan that al Qaeda has always thrived.
I don't know that there are significant other terrorist groups
based in Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is the merger of the
al Qaeda cells in Yemen and the al Qaeda cells in Saudi Arabia. That
merger happened about a year ago because the Saudis had been so
effective in repressing al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia that its
infrastructure in the Kingdom itself was largely destroyed. And they
had to go to Yemen to find sanctuary where they can operate.
Q: Did the Bush Administration pay adequate attention to Yemen as a threat in terms of terrorism?
A: The Bush Administration tried to deal with this problem,
particularly in the aftermath of the attack on the USS Cole that
occurred in the last months of the Clinton Administration. But they
found it very difficult to. The Yemeni government has many other
priorities on its plate. It has an insurgency in the northern part of
the country, which has been getting worse in the last year. It has a
secessionist movement in the southern part of the country, which used
to be South Yemen before 1990, which was trying very hard to break away
from the country.
The economy is largely dependent on oil exports but Yemen's oil
reserves are literally drying out. So it comes less and less. So there
are many other priorities the Yemenis have, and ever since 1990, when
Yemen sided with Iraq in the first Gulf War, relations between the
United States and Yemen have been very scratchy. The Cole investigation
made them even more scratchy because both sides felt that the other was
not fully cooperating, probably correctly.
So trying to get the Yemenis to focus on al Qaeda has been a
very difficult and frustrating task for the Clinton Administration, the
Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration.
Q: Has the Obama administration paid adequate attention to Yemen as a threat? Did either administration underestimate the threat?
A: I think the Obama Administration has seen this as a very significant problem from day one. The president's counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan,
early on focused on this as one of the key priorities in dealing with
al Qaeda. But the same problems that bedeviled Clinton and Bush before
them still bedevil Obama, which is the Saleh government is weak, it has
other problems and much of the security services have been heavily
infiltrated by Jihadist sympathizers over the year.
So, for example, there have been repeated jailbreaks of senior
al Qaeda operatives out of prisons in Yemen, including the current head
of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was in a Yemeni jail and broke
out in 2006. And many of these jailbreaks have all the earmarks of
inside jobs.
Individual incidents aside, I give the Obama administration
credit for seeing this problem early on and for recognizing that it was
getting worse over the course of time. But there are no easy solutions
and no magic answers to these problems.
Q: How big is the U.S. intelligence presence in Yemen?
A: For operational sources and methods and reasons, I'm going to pass on that question.
A Major Staging Base for Al Qaeda
Q: Has the government of Yemen done enough to combat the threat of terrorism?
A: I think the government of Yemen is still struggling to find
the resources and the resolve to take on al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula while it manages all these other security threats, which are
much more direct and more immediate for the Yemeni government. They
also need help, and I think the Obama Administration is wise to double
military assistance to Yemen and to step up intelligence cooperation.
But we're in this for the long haul, there's no "made-in-America"
solution to this problem. Drones can take out senior al Qaeda
officials, and some have, but even the drones depend in the end on
Yemenis to provide us the information on where the targets are. And to
fill the ungoverned spaces in Yemen requires Yemenis, not Americans. I
think after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the notion of putting
American boots on the ground in any significant numbers in another
country in the Middle East is not one Americans are very eager to think
about.
Q: How big is the threat now in Yemen in terms of terrorists
and al Qaeda? How big is the threat there, versus Afghanistan and
Pakistan?
A: I would say the Yemen, in the last year, and in particular in
the last few months, has emerged as a major staging base for al Qaeda
to reach beyond Yemen, and attacking American targets in Yemen, but now
to attack inside the United States itself.
The Fort Hood massacre was not launched by al Qaeda in the Arabian
Peninsula, but it's pretty clear that Maj. Hasan was in touch with
parts of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and that they were
encouraging him to do this. And, of course, we now have Christmas Day.
All that said, al Qaeda in Yemen is a subsidiary of the al Qaeda core
in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The head of the snake is in Afghanistan
and Pakistan, and it's the al Qaeda core that provides strategic
direction to cells like the one in Yemen or North Africa or Indonesia.
Q: Indonesia was not listed as a country of interest for new TSA rules
that require special screening for citizens of that country entering
the U.S. Are we paying enough attention to al Qaeda in Indonesia?
A: Well, the al Qaeda cell in Indonesia has been under severe attack
from the government for the last several years, and they may feel the
government of Indonesia's security procedures are good enough, I don't
know. That's a case-by-case and you really have to know what are the
procedures of each airport. So I really can't comment on how good those
procedures are.
Q: What are your recommendations for dealing with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen going forward?
A: Recommendations for dealing with this problem is that we have to try
to push the Yemeni authorities to see this as not just a threat to us
but, in very real terms, a threat to them as well. And that means
having intense engagement with the Saleh government at all levels;
political, intelligence, military. And being willing to provide
concrete support to help them.
The last thing I would say about recommendations is that I
think the administration needs to recognize that this is not just a
counterterrorism problem, but a larger problem of the U.S. relationship
with the Islamic world. The president made an excellent start by
addressing those larger issues in Cairo, but talking the talk is not
enough. He needs to continue to push forward on issues like
Arab-Israeli peace, the Kashmir conflict, and other issues which serve
as the recruiting forces for al Qaeda, not just in Yemen, but on the
global stage.
Al Qaeda today is the world's first truly global terrorist
organization, and we can only defeat it if we see it in those terms, as
a group that has created cells from Mauritania to Indonesia, and in the
Muslim diasporas in Europe, and, now, increasingly among a small
minority of disaffected Muslims in the United States of America. And to
counter that threat requires not just the counterterrorism and military
measures, but it also means countering the ideology that attracts this
minority.
Q: Where else should we be looking that we're currently not?
A: I think the most worrisome indications are that groups that
are affiliated with al Qaeda, like Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that
attacked Mumbai a year ago November, are becoming increasingly parts of
the al Qaeda global network. And groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba have
global supporters in Pakistani diaspora communities in the United
States, in Canada, throughout Western Europe.
We have the case of the Pakistani-American David Headley, who
was part of the casing of Mumbai for the Lashkar-e-Taiba attack and who
was in contact with a very, very senior al Qaeda operative, Ilyas
Kashmiri, which is why the FBI finally closed in on him, and arrested
him last October.
And groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which are on the radar screen
of the intelligence community, are less on the radar screen of
governments more broadly, but could become even more pressing threats
in the future.
Click here to read Bruce Riedel's full biography, or to find his articles on al Qaeda in Yemen.
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