Yemen: Another Failed U.S. Military Intervention
‘In addition to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, yet another U.S. military intervention is in shambles: the U.S. drone war against al Qaeda’s most potent regional affiliate — al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Heretofore, despite the rise of the perhaps even more brutal Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), mainly a threat to the Middle East region, the U.S. government has continued to regard AQAP in Yemen as the most severe terrorist threat to the United States. Although the group hasn’t been very active recently, it was involved in the Paris attacks a while back and in foiled bomb plots against U.S.-bound aircraft, including the underwear bombing, even further back.
After the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush expanded his “War on Terror” from the Afghanistan/Pakistan region and started attacking Islamist militants in Yemen from the air. In 2006, AQAP was born after 23 militants escaped from prison in Yemen. Journalists, both locally in Yemen and from the West, have documented that the U.S. drone war under Bush and now Obama has actually increased the numbers of AQAP fighters.’
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