The evidence that Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen had a role in the failed Christmas Day bombing of an American passenger jet has led some to declare that Yemen is the new front in the war against the terrorist organisation. But the truth is, Yemen has been a front in that war since at least October 12, 2000, when Al Qaeda blew up the Navy destroyer Cole, killing 17 American sailors, in the port of Aden. The explosives for the bombing were bought in Yemen, and the attackers and their accomplices were predominantly Yemenis. Indeed, after the attack, terrorists in Qaeda camps in Afghanistan would march and chant, "We, the Yemenis, destroyed the Cole."
As the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) case agent for the Cole investigation from 2000 to 2005, I spent years with colleagues in Yemen hunting down those responsible, and we unravelled an entire Al Qaeda network in the country. Most of the people who executed the 1998 East African embassy bombings either traveled through Yemen or used fraudulent Yemeni passports. Almost two years after the Cole, Qaeda terrorists based in Yemen struck the Limburg, a French oil tanker, off the coast of Yemen. Qaeda terrorists in Yemen also helped facilitate the attacks of 9/11. Fahd al-Quso, a Yemeni Al Qaeda member who confessed to me his role in the USS Cole bombing, also admitted to ferrying money to a Qaeda operative known as Khallad who was part of an important 9/11 planning meeting in Malaysia.
As recently as this past August, an assassination attempt against Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's deputy minister of interior in charge of security, was plotted in Yemen. The explosive mixture that the suicide bomber used in that attack was the same one that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to ignite on the passenger jet over Detroit "” and in each case the terrorist hid the mixture in his underwear.
Yemen is a very appealing base for Qaeda for various reasons. From its position at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, the country has convenient access to Qaeda's main theatres of battle, including Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Its borders are unsecured, and tribal groups sympathetic to Al Qaeda control many regions, so terrorists can move freely into, out of and around the country. And guns and explosives are readily available from Yemen's arms market.
The country's tribal nature also makes it a relatively easy place for Qaeda to operate. Yemen has a weak government and powerful regional tribes, which in many ways operate as mini-governments free of central control. In addition, the government is struggling to contain both a secessionist movement in the south and a rebellion in the north.
When I was in Yemen, I found many extremely capable officials in law enforcement and intelligence who were dedicated to stopping Qaeda. With their help, our FBI team was able to arrest and prosecute in a Yemeni court people responsible for the Cole bombing and for planning other attacks. By the time we left Yemen, in 2005, those terrorists were in prison. Later, however, some of them "escaped"�, and others were given clemency. Jamal al-Badawi, for example, a Qaeda terrorist who confessed to me his role in the bombing of the USS Cole, was sentenced to death by a Yemeni judge in 2004. But in 2006, he "escaped"� from jail, only to turn himself the next year "” in a deal that released him from prison on a promise of good behaviour. Today, Quso, the confessed Cole bomber, is not only free, he's giving interviews and re-establishing himself as a terrorist operative. During the past year, in an ominous sign of Yemen's rising importance to Qaeda, the Saudi branch of the organisation merged with the Yemeni branch to form a single terrorist group for the entire peninsula. Known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, it is based in Yemen and headed by a Yemeni, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, who served as a close aide to Osama bin Laden.
Some Yemeni government officials highly value their relationship with the United States, which provides financial aid and military training. During our investigation of the Cole bombing, the Yemenis who were dedicated to justice were given free rein and those with extremist ties were sidelined. After the trials were over and the terrorists made it out of jail, Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the FBI, flew to Yemen to complain, but there was little further protest by the US. We dropped the ball.
Today, the terrorists behind the Cole are still free, and an attack connected to Yemen has been attempted. It is possible to defeat Qaeda in Yemen without sending American troops. Now that the Yemenis are once again acting against Qaeda by striking the terrorist group's bases and killing or apprehending many of its members, the US must show that it has learned to stay focused and hold Yemeni officials accountable.
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