 AP Photo If the tribal uprising against al-Qaeda sounds familiar, then you are hearing echoes of Iraq. Aysh Awas, director of Security and Strategic Studies at Sheba, a think tank in Sana’a, told TIME that Ansar al-Shari’a — the political front of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) — is doing in Yemen what Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) did following the U.S. invasion in 2003: wage suicide bomb-led jihad to derail the country’s nascent Washington-supported democracy and replace it with an Islamic state based on shari’a law. And just as anti-Qaeda, U.S.-backed tribal sheikhs in Iraq banned together to secure their territory from AQI, Popular Committees are popping up across Yemen to combat the local franchise of the movement founded by the late Osama bin Laden. “In light of the... TAGGED: Iraq, Yemen, al-QaedaRECOMMENDED ARTICLES| In the months that followed this previously unimaginable wave of change, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen have set out on paths to electoral democracy that, though not uniformly and not without setbacks, show significant promise.... more ›› |
| It’s easy to be distracted by an uptick in violence in Iraq and ignore the larger political crisis in which al Qaeda, however diminished in its capabilities, can operate with apparent impunity. Despite last week’s events,... more ›› |
| Al Qaeda has a new stronghold in Africa in northern Mali, its largest since the fall of Afghanistan in 2001. It has successfully gained the support of a local jihadist group, Ansar Dine, much as it partnered with the Taliban in... more ›› |
| Destroying Timbuktu in Mali, exploiting the turmoil in Syria, successfully attacking in the Sinai - at the operational level, al Qaeda is stronger than it's ever been. more ›› |
| After 9/11, there was great concern that al Qaeda or an allied group would launch a terrorist attack involving chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) weapons. But in the past decade, there is no evidence that... more ›› |
| |
