Recent combined air and ground assaults against al Qaeda in Yemen last month were American-led

combined air and ground assaults

Recent combined air and ground assaults against al Qaeda in Yemen last month were American-led, according to a U.S. special operations expert who trains Yemeni forces.”It was cruise missile strikes in combination with military units on the ground,” Sebastian Gorka, an instructor at the U.S. Special Operation’s Command’s Joint Special Operations University, told CBS News Correspondent Kimberly Dozier.”It was a very distinct signal from the Obama administration that they are serious in assisting Yemen to remove these al Qaeda facilities from its soil.”That was very much something executed by the United States, but with heavy support by the Yemeni government,” Gorka told Dozier.The target was al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden’s group with a popular following in Yemen. AQAP, as it’s known in the counterterrorist world, claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of Flight 253, which resulted in the arrest of Nigerian Umar Farouk AbdulmutallabU.S. counterterrorist teams have been tracking al Qaeda in Yemen since the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000. And the Defense Department has been training Yemeni counterterrorist forces since 1990. Training has been conducted by a range of troops. U.S. Marines did much of the training when President George W. Bush was in office. More recently, the Pentagon has dispatched units from the Army’s Special Forces/Green Berets, who specialize in what’s called “foreign internal defense.”

The top American commander in the region, Central Command’s Gen. David Petraeus, visited Yemen’s capital Sanaa Saturday. It was his last stop in a tour of the region. Earlier, when he stopped in Baghdad, he praised the joint strikes in Yemen in December.

“In one case, forestalling an attack of four suicide bombers were moving into Sana’a,” Petraeus told reporters. “Two training camps targeted and some senior leaders believed to have been killed or seriously injured as well. Certainly there were activities going on there, one of which resulted in the failed attack on the airliner.” But Petraeus was careful to emphasize that the Yemeni government was the decision maker in choosing the targets. He called it “so very important indeed that Yemen has taken the actions that it has and indeed, not just the United States, but countries in the region.” Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Britain have all had a role in providing training and other strategic assistance.

While U.S. military officials say the Yemeni counterterrorist forces aren’t yet ready to go it alone, Petraeus says their intelligence sources are proving so good that “sharing of intelligence and information” has become what he called a “two-way street,” such that “the operations that were carried out in December were very significant.” Yemeni local media report that three strikes on Dec. 17, 2009, hit Abyan, Arhab and San’a, and killed several al Qaeda targets, including one former Guantanamo detainee Hani Abdu Musalih Al-Shalan. He’d been repatriated to Yemen in June 2006 and returned into al Qaeda’s fold. More strikes on Christmas Eve targeted American-born al Qaeda cleric Anwar al Awlaki. They struck in Rafd, a mountain valley in Yemen’s Shabwa province, but intelligence officials believe Awlaki survived the attack. He was initially thought to be a more inspirational figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but multiple intelligence officials tell CBS News they now believe he is taking an active role in planning operations, including the attempted December airliner bombing. U.S. officials had kept fairly quiet about the extent of American involvement in the recent Yemeni strikes. But with so many Americans asking what their government is doing to keep them safe after the Christmas Day bombing attempt, many more officials seem eager to describe how they’re striking back. They also say to stand by for more joint U.S.-Yemeni action.(CBS)

SAN'A,Yemen claims 30 killed in raid on Qaida hide-outs

U.S. intelligence

SAN’A, Yemen  Backed by U.S. intelligence, Yemeni forces struck a series of suspected al-Qaida hideouts Thursday, killing more than 30 militants in its stepped-up campaign against the terror network, the government said.Yemen’s Supreme Security Committee said airstrikes in the eastern Shabwa province targeted an al-Qaida leadership meeting that was organizing attacks. It said top al-Qaida officials were at the meeting, though it was unclear whether they were harmed.The Pentagon recently confirmed it is has poured nearly $70 million in military aid to Yemen this year, a massive financial infusion aimed at eliminating the expanding al-Qaida safe havens in that country.A secretive U.S. air strike last week was part of the fast-growing campaign to better equip and fund Yemeni forces. The increased spending compares with no spending in 2008.Yemen’s deputy defense minister, Rashad al-Alaimy, confirmed that U.S. and Saudi assistance had been key to the latest strikes against al-Qaida.”Yemeni security forces carried out the operations using intelligence aid from Saudi Arabia and the United States of America in our fight against terrorism,” he told Parliament on Wednesday.Much like the effort with Pakistan’s Frontier Corps, the U.S. military has boosted its counterterrorism training for Yemeni forces, and is providing more intelligence, which probably includes surveillance by unmanned drones, according to U.S. officials and analysts.

The Yemeni Interior Ministry said 25 suspected al-Qaida members were arrested Wednesday in San’a and it has set up checkpoints in the capital to control traffic flow as part of a campaign to clamp down on terrorism.On Dec. 17, warplanes and security forces on the ground attacked what authorities said was an al-Qaida training camp in the area of Mahsad in the southern province of Abyan. Saleh el-Shamsy, a provincial security official, said at least 30 suspected militants were killed. Witnesses, however, put the number killed at over 60 in the heaviest strike and said the dead were mostly civilians.

The United States has repeatedly called on Yemen to take stronger action against al-Qaida, whose fighters have taken advantage of the central government’s weakness and increasingly found refuge here in the past year. Worries over the growing presence are compounded by fears that Yemen could collapse into turmoil from its multiple conflicts and increasing poverty and become another Afghanistan, giving the militants even freer reign.

The country was scene of one of al-Qaida’s most dramatic pre-9/11 attacks, the 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the Aden coast that killed 17 American sailors. The government allied itself with Washington in the war on terror, but U.S officials have complained that it often strikes deals with militants.

Yemen raids al-Qaida hide-outs kills at least 34 people

Yemeni security

SAN’A, Yemen  Yemeni security forces struck several al-Qaida hide-outs and training sites Thursday, killing at least 34 suspected militants, including four would-be suicide bombers who planned attacks at home and abroad, officials said. At least 17 suspected militants were arrested.It was an unusually direct assault against al-Qaida by Yemen, which is under U.S. pressure to act more vigorously against the terrorist network on its territory.An impoverished nation on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has struggled to deal with al-Qaida’s growing presence in its mountains and deserts as well as its homegrown Islamic extremism.

Al-Qaida militants, including fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, have established sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly ones in three provinces bordering Saudi Arabia known as the “triangle of evil” because of the heavy militant presence, according to Yemeni authorities.

Thursday’s operations were aimed at al-Qaida in an area not far from the capital, San’a, and in the southern province of Abyan.In the south, airstrikes followed by a ground operation targeted a training camp and killed 30 suspected militants, said Saleh el-Shamsy, a security official for Abyan province.

Other local security officials and several witnesses said civilians were also caught up in the government offensive in the southern province. The security officials said the number of dead had reached 52, of which only seven were known in their communities to be al-Qaida operatives.Their claims could not be independently verified.

Airstrikes destroyed several civilian homes and troops stormed others, mistaking them for al-Qaida hide-outs, they said. The bodies of seven women and children were recovered from the rubble, said one witness, Mohammed Saleh al-Kathimi.

The other witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals for speaking about civilian casualties. The security officials demanded anonymity because they were not authorized spokesmen.Two hospitals in the area reported receiving 26 injured civilians, most of them women and children.The streets of some towns in the area were empty except for armed gunmen.

In the fighting northeast of the capital, in a district called Arhab, government forces killed four would-be suicide bombers and arrested 17 suspected militants, the Interior Ministry said.”These individuals (suicide bombers) planned to strike at schools as well as interests at home and abroad,” the ministry said, without elaborating.

Yemen has a weak central government with little control over the nation’s mountains and deserts. With many areas virtually lawless, easy access to firearms and rampant poverty, Yemen has become a haven of choice for al-Qaida operatives.
The government has for years closely cooperated with the U.S. in the fight against al-Qaida, although its effort has often been hampered by complex political and tribal considerations.

Yemen is also in a strategic location. It is next door to some of the world’s most important oil producing nations, like Saudi Arabia, and just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said al-Qaida militants have been increasing their activity.Yemen was also the scene of one of al-Qaida’s most dramatic pre-9/11 attacks, the 2000 suicide bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the Aden coast that killed 17 American sailors.