realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo
Easily forgotten amid the near-daily headlines about the conquests and crimes committed by the Islamic State group is the fact that al-Qaeda -- once the most notorious and fearsome of international terrorist organizations -- is still quite active across much of the Middle East. Its Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, has been heavily involved in that country's civil war, while also engaging in more traditional terrorist activities such as hostage taking and bartering.
Then there is al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, commonly referred to as AQAP. Often regarded as one of the global jihadi organization's most powerful branches, its activities in war-torn Yemen have been overshadowed in recent months by the Saudi-led military campaign to oust Iranian-backed rebels from the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and to restore to power the country's embattled president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Lost however in the fog of Yemen's eight-month-long civil war has been the ability to properly monitor and target AQAP operatives in the country. Determining that the security situation there had become too volatile, the United States withdrew its counterterrorism personnel earlier this year, contributing to a resurgence of sorts for al-Qaeda. Now, it appears that AQAP is on the move, and filling the void in an increasingly lawless, stateless country. The Wall Street Journal has the story:
"Al Qaeda fighters have made fresh gains in southern Yemen in recent days, as the militant group takes advantage of the country's eight-month civil war and breakdown of central government authority in a bid to seize territory and extend its influence.
"Dozens of militants belonging to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, manned checkpoints outside Zinjibar and nearby Ja'ar on Thursday after storming the two cities the previous day, residents and local officials said.
[...]
"Control of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province, has been contested since Arab Spring protests against longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh spread across Yemen in early 2011. After changing hands several times between Yemeni government forces and AQAP fighters in 2011 and 2012 then falling under the sway of Houthi rebels earlier this year, the city was seized in August by local militias allied to Mr. Hadi.
"In the latest fighting, AQAP drove out the militias, known as Popular Committees, and killed their deputy commander Ali al-Sayed when they took over Zinjibar, residents said. The defeated fighters fled to Aden, the southern port city where Mr. Hadi's government is currently based."
AQAP's gains in Yemen have come in fits and starts, and some reports indicate that it has already withdrawn from the southern Yemeni town of Jaar. As Bill Roggio and Thomas Joscelyn of the Long War Journal note, it remains unclear if the al-Qaeda affiliate's assault on Jaar was intended to be a takeover or simply a targeted campaign against leaders of rival forces.
Regardless, the absence of central authority in Yemen has created opportunity for AQAP and its tribal allies, and ISIS's more recent activity in the country suggests that Yemen may turn into another front in those two organizations' war for the hearts and minds of the Middle East's Sunni Arab communities.
Al-Qaeda's Hadramawt Emirate -- Brookings Institution
Yemen War Pushes Sunnis Toward ISIS, AQAP -- The Guardian
Why Yemen Suffers -- RealClearWorld
Around the Region
The Berlin-Riyadh rift. The German government was put on the back foot this week, finding itself in the awkward position Thursday of having to distance itself from its own intelligence agency, the BND, for its unexpected public scolding of Saudi policy in the Middle East. Alison Smale of the New York Times has more:
"The German government issued an unusual public rebuke to its own foreign intelligence service on Thursday over a blunt memo saying that Saudi Arabia was playing an increasingly destabilizing role in the Middle East.
"The intelligence agency's memo risked playing havoc with Berlin's efforts to show solidarity with France in its military campaign against the Islamic State and to push forward the tentative talks on how to end the Syrian civil war. The Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, is due to vote on Friday on whether to send reconnaissance planes, midair fueling capacity and a frigate to the Middle East to support the French.
"The memo was sent to selected German journalists on Wednesday. In it, the foreign intelligence agency, known as the BND, offered an unusually frank assessment of recent Saudi policy.
"‘The cautious diplomatic stance of the older leading members of the royal family is being replaced by an impulsive policy of intervention,' said the memo."
The German Bundestag voted on Friday to join the anti-ISIS mission in Syria.
A U.S.-ISIS axis? The Washington Post's Liz Sly reports on an odd conspiracy theory spreading around much of Iraq, especially among its Shiite fighters:
"On the front lines of the battle against the Islamic State, suspicion of the United States runs deep. Iraqi fighters say they have all seen the videos purportedly showing U.S. helicopters airdropping weapons to the militants, and many claim they have friends and relatives who have witnessed similar instances of collusion.
"Ordinary people also have seen the videos, heard the stories and reached the same conclusion -- one that might seem absurd to Americans but is widely believed among Iraqis -- that the United States is supporting the Islamic State for a variety of pernicious reasons that have to do with asserting U.S. control over Iraq, the wider Middle East and, perhaps, its oil."
This particular, and highly doubtful, theory really speaks to a couple of things: just how great the level of distrust of the United States remains across predominantly Shiite Iraq, and the notable influence of Iranian propaganda in the country.
As we reported earlier this week, there is a political battle being waged in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad between forces aligned with Shiite Iran and those with close ties to Washington. A whisper campaign to smear U.S. intentions may just be an organic rumor, but stinks of Iranian gamesmanship.
Israel's Putin problem. Finally, Al-Monitor's Ben Caspit examines Israel-Russia relations, and how Moscow's increased presence in Syria may affect future Israeli decision-making:
"In various talks between the parties, including the conversation between Putin and Netanyahu, Israel made it perfectly clear that if any arms that could disrupt the delicate balance of power (tiebreaking weapons) are transferred from East to West -- i.e., from Iran via Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to Hezbollah -- it would consider that to be a casus belli. So far, whenever Israel identified such a transfer of arms, it attacked, claim foreign news sources, usually on the Syrian side, since the ability to act defensively there tends to zero. Then suddenly, the Russian bear entered the equation. It knows how to defend itself, and to attack as well. The big question is what will happen the next time that Israeli aircraft, manned or not, fly over one of those arms convoys and are picked up on radar by the Russian anti-aircraft batteries. All the parties hope that things will work out, but reality has rules of its own. Sometimes events on the ground dictate how the political level responds, and not the other way around."
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