Al-Qaida resurgent in Yemen
Resources grow as militants emulate Islamic State model
Brazen moves suggest terror group is following brutal example of Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.
WASHINGTON — A brazen territorial grab by al-Qaida militants in Yemen — together with a $1 million bank heist, a prison break and capture of a military base — has given the terrorist group fundraising and recruitment tools that suggest it is following the brutal path blazed by Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which was long forced into the shadows by U.S. drone strikes and commando raids, has taken advantage of the growing chaos in Yemen’s multi-sided war to carve out a potential safe haven that counterterrorism experts say could help them launch future terrorist attacks.
After seizing a regional airport and a coastal oil terminal this week, al-Qaida militants consolidated their gains Friday in Mukalla, an Arabian Sea port.
Fighters stormed a weapons depot, seizing armored vehicles and rockets, after apparently forging a truce with local tribes and forcing government troops to flee.
Many of the armories in Yemen hold weapons and ammunition that the U.S. had helped supply to support government counterterrorism operations against AQAP, as the alQaida franchise is known.
AQAP has repeatedly attempted to smuggle sophisticated bombs onto pas- senger jets and cargo planes headed for the United States.
U.S. intelligence considers it the terrorist network’s most active and most dangerous franchise, and says it has a global strategy.
But Islamic State’s dramatic claim to control a vast caliphate, its ability to raise huge sums of cash from oil exports and other schemes, its stunning early successes on the battlefield, and its Internet-driven appeals to zealots around the globe have eclipsed al-Qaida’s once-fierce image.
Islamic State has “changed the game” for terrorist groups, said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown Univer- sity.
It’s been said that publicity provides oxygen to terrorist groups. But now, Hoffman said, “territory and safe havens is oxygen to them.”
The result is AQAP has “a lot more elbow room” said Stephen Seche, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen from 2007 to 2010.
“If they can seize and hold territory,… if they can loot banks, they are seen as more viable and can recruit troops,” he said.
The fighting in Yemen has hobbled a long-established U.S. counterterrorism operation, forcing a special operations unit and intelligence officials to destroy equipment and aban- don the country last month.
At a Pentagon news conference Thursday, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said the U.S. has kept up the pressure despite the loss of its operations base.
“Our efforts have to change their character but remain steady in their intensity,” he said.
Yemen has been engulfed in conflict since last fall, when a Shiite Muslim minority group called the Houthis overran Sanaa, the capital, and took over much of the government.
The Houthis then pushed south and appeared on the verge of capturing Aden, the country’s economic hub, when Saudi-led warplanes launched a fierce counterattack March 26 that continues today. The rebel onslaught forced Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, to flee the country.
The Houthis have fought with AQAP, Sunni Muslims who they consider enemies. But the Saudi airstrikes have only targeted the Houthis — giving al-Qaida a relatively free hand.
They “are doing exactly what we expected them to do, which is take advantage of the chaos,” a U.S. counterterrorism official said Friday. The pressure on them has been “greatly reduced,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal assessments.
Thick plumes of smoke rose Friday over Sanaa as some of the heaviest bombings in weeks shook the capital, including residential areas. Major streets were deserted as hundreds of families fled for safety outside the city.
The United Nations reported that at least 150,000 people have been displaced by the conflict. It said more than 750 civilians have been killed since mid-March.
“Thousands … have now fled their homes,” Johannes van der Klaauw, the U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, said in a statement. “Ordinary families are struggling to access health care, water, food and fuel — basic requirements for their survival.”
President Barack Obama spoke by phone Friday with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.
The White House said the two agreed that the collective goal is “to achieve lasting stability” in Yemen through a negotiated political solution, and “discussed the importance” of the humanitarian crisis.
Aden now appears in ruins, pummeled by airstrikes and ravaged by close-quarters street fighting. Aid groups report overflowing morgues and growing shortages of everything from food to electricity. A few shipments of medical supplies have arrived, far outstripped by needs.