Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops killed at least five people on Friday in a raid on suspected members of what Washington calls an Iranian-backed terrorist group

BASRA, Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops killed at least five people on Friday in a raid on suspected members of what Washington calls an Iranian-backed terrorist group, the U.S. military said. While overall violence in Iraq has fallen over the last two years, attacks and fighting remain common as Iraq gears up for a March 7 election and U.S. troops prepare to stop combat operations ahead of a withdrawal by the end of 2011.

The firefight with suspected members of Kata’ib Hizballah, a group that the U.S. State Department says has ties to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, occurred 265 km (165 miles) southeast of Baghdad in a village near the Iranian border. Twelve people were arrested.”The joint security team was fired upon by individuals dispersed in multiple residential buildings … members of the security team returned fire, killing individuals assessed to be enemy combatants,” the U.S. military said in a statement.”While the number of casualties has not yet been confirmed, initial reports indicate five individuals were killed,” it said without specifying who was killed in the raid.

Maitham Laftah, a member of the provincial council of Maysan province, said 10 people were killed, including two women, and five people wounded in the village 75 km (46 miles) north of the city of Amara. Eleven people were arrested, he said.Hospital sources in Amara put the death toll at eight killed, including a woman, and three wounded.A Reuters photographer who arrived after the firefight saw bloodstains on the ground and bullet holes in the walls.The U.S. military said that Iraqi and U.S. intelligence sources have spotted a recent increase in weapons smuggling by Iranian-backed militia like Kata’ib Hizballah. It gave no further information.(Reuters)

Barack Obama's national security team singled out one man from its list of most-wanted terrorists, Baitullah Mehsud,leader of the Pakistani Taliban

WASHINGTON In the early months of his presidency, President Barack Obama’s national security team singled out one man from its list of most-wanted terrorists, Baitullah Mehsud, the ruthless leader of the Pakistani Taliban. He was to be eliminated.Mehsud was Pakistan’s public enemy No. 1 and its most feared militant, responsible for a string of bombings and assassination attempts. But while Mehsud carried out strikes against U.S. forces overseas and had a $5 million bounty on his head, he had never been the top priority for U.S. airstrikes, something that at times rankled Pakistan.”The decision was made to find him, to get him and to kill him,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said, recalling weeks and months of “very tedious, painstaking focus” before an unmanned CIA aircraft killed Mehsud in August at his father-in-law’s house near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

It was not the first airstrike on Obama’s watch, but it marked the first major victory in his war on terrorism, a campaign the administration believes can be waged even more aggressively than its predecessor’s. Long before he went on the defensive in Washington for his handling of the failed Christmas Day airline bombing, Obama had widened the list of U.S. targets abroad and stepped up the pace of airstrikes.Advances in spy plane technology have made that easier, as has an ever-improving spy network that helped locate Mehsud and other terrorists. These would have been available to any new president. But Obama’s counterterrorism campaign also relies on two sharp reversals from his predecessor, both of which were political gambles at home.Obama’s national security team believed that the president’s campaign promise to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq would have a side benefit: freeing up manpower and resources to hunt terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Intelligence officials, lawmakers and analysts say that approach is showing signs of success.

Obama also has sought to reach out to Islamic allies and tone down U.S. rhetoric, a language shift that critics have argued revealed a weakness, in an effort to win more cooperation from countries like Yemen and Pakistan.For example, though Pakistan officially objects to U.S. airstrikes within its border, following the Mehsud strike, the U.S. has seen an increase in information sharing from Pakistani officials, which has helped lead to other strikes, according to the senior law enforcement official. He and other current and former officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive security matters.Pakistan’s cooperation is key to U.S. counterterrorism efforts because much of the best intelligence still comes from Pakistan’s intelligence agency. Ensuring that cooperation has been a struggle for years, in part because Pakistan wants greater control over the drone strikes and its own fleet of aircraft, two things the U.S. has not allowed.

“The efforts overseas are bearing fruit,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a strident critic of Obama’s domestic counterterrorism policies who said Obama has at times shown himself even more aggressive than Bush in his use of force overseas. “I give them generally high marks for their efforts to capture and kill terrorists in Pakistan, and they’re pushing the envelope in Yemen.”CIA drones, the remote-controlled spy planes that can hunt terrorists from miles overhead, are responsible for many of the deaths. Drone strikes began increasing in the final months of the Bush administration, thanks in part to expanded use of the Reaper, a newer generation aircraft with better targeting systems and greater, more accurate firepower.

Obama has increased their use even further. A month after Mehsud’s death, drone strikes in Pakistan killed Najmiddin Jalolov, whose Islamic Jihad Union claimed responsibility for bombings in 2004 at U.S. and Israeli embassies in Uzbekistan. Senior al-Qaida operatives Saleh al-Somali and Abdallah Sa’id were killed in airstrikes in December. And Mehsud’s successor at the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, died following an attack last month.Intelligence officials and analysts say the drawdown of troops in an increasingly stable Iraq is part of the reason for the increase in drone strikes. The military once relied on drones for around-the-clock surveillance to flush out insurgents, support troops in battle and help avoid roadside bombs.

With fewer of those missions required, the U.S. has moved many of those planes to Afghanistan, roughly doubling the size of the military and CIA fleet that can patrol the lawless border with Pakistan, officials said.”These tools were not Obama creations, but he’s increased their use and he has shifted the U.S. attention full front to Afghanistan,” said Thomas Sanderson, a defense analyst and national security fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.The Obama administration has also benefited from stepped-up cooperation with officials in Osama bin Laden’s ancestral homeland of Yemen. Authorities there killed 30 suspected militants in airstrikes in December closely coordinated with U.S. intelligence agencies.

Yemen has had a sometimes rocky relationship with the U.S. and was perceived to have an on-again-off-again approach to fighting terrorism, but officials in Washington are cautiously optimistic about a newly strengthened relationship.Abdullah al-Saidi, Yemen’s ambassador to the United Nations, said his country has always been committed to fighting terrorism. But in a fragmented country beset by a growing al-Qaida presence, a rebellion in the north and a secessionist movement in the south, it wasn’t always easy for the government to openly align with the United States.Washington is trying to make it easier with the promise of more money. But perhaps more important, al-Saidi said, were overtures such as Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo, where he sought a “new beginning” with the Muslim world.

Obama has also abandoned terms like “radical Islam” and “Islamo-fascism,” rhetoric that was seen as anti-Muslim by many in the Arab world and which al-Saidi said made it harder for governments to openly cooperate with Washington.”Just the notion of not equating Islam with terrorism, there is a lot of good will toward him,” al-Saidi said. “For the public, it’s easier to say, ‘Well, it’s no longer a hostile power as it used to be.'”Such international successes have largely been drowned out by the controversy that followed the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas. When the FBI read suspected bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his rights and charged him in federal court, Republicans accused Obama of not understanding the country is at war.

“They’re trying to be tougher than Bush overseas but different from Bush at home,” Graham said. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense. They really got the right model for Pakistan and Yemen, but they’re really tone deaf at home.”After Obama missed his own deadline to close the prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and backtracked on a plan to prosecute 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York courthouse, Republicans saw the Detroit case as an opportunity to renew questions about Obama’s national security credentials, Republican strategist Kevin Madden said.Madden said that Obama’s stepped-up strategy overseas doesn’t resonate with voters, and Republicans gain little in an election year by acknowledging where they agree with the White House strategy.

“National security politics is driven by events more than it’s driven by long-term trends,” he said.Or, as Graham put it: “What resonates with people is what happens in Detroit, more than what happens on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.”The White House says it see no conflict between broadening the attacks overseas and sticking with the U.S. judicial system at home, where hundreds of people have been convicted on terrorism charges since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”The president believes that we need to use all elements of American power to defeat al-Qaida, including the strength of our military, intelligence, diplomacy and American justice,” White House spokesman Ben Rhodes said. “We only weaken ourselves when we fail to use our full arsenal.”(AP)

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano concedes airline security system failed

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab

WASHINGTON Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano conceded Monday that the aviation security system failed when a young man on a watchlist with a U.S. visa in his pocket and a powerful explosive hidden on his body was allowed to board a fight from Amsterdam to Detroit.The Obama administration has ordered investigations into the two areas of aviation security – how travelers are placed on watch lists and how passengers are screened – as critics questioned how the 23-year-old Nigerian man charged in the airliner attack was allowed to board the Dec. 25 flight.A day after saying the system worked, Napolitano backtracked, saying her words had been taken out of context.”Our system did not work in this instance,” she said on NBC’s “Today” show. “No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way.”The White House press office, traveling with President Barack Obama in Hawaii, said early Monday that the president would make a statement from the Kaneoho Marine Base in the morning. White House spokesman Bill Burton did not elaborate.Billions of dollars have been spent on aviation security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when commercial airliners were hijacked and used as weapons. Much of that money has gone toward training and equipment that some security experts say could have detected the explosive device that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of hiding on his body on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.On Sunday, Napolitano said, “One thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked.” On Monday, she said she was referring to the system of notifying other flights as well as law enforcement on the ground about the incident soon after it happened.

The top Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee took issue with Napolitano’s initial assessment.Airport security “failed in every respect,” Rep. Peter King of New York said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s not reassuring when the secretary of Homeland Security says the system worked.”Investigators are piecing together Abdulmutallab’s brazen attempt to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Dec. 25. Law enforcement officials say he tucked below his waist a small bag holding his potentially deadly concoction of liquid and powder explosive material.

Harold Demuren, the head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, says Abdulmutallab’s ticket came from a KLM office in Accra, Ghana. Demuren said Monday that Abdulmutallab bought the $2,831 round-trip ticket from Lagos, Nigeria, to Detroit via Amsterdam on Dec. 16.

Demuren declined to comment about Abdulmutallab’s travels in the days before he boarded his Dec. 24 flight from Lagos to Detroit via Amsterdam, saying FBI agents and Nigerian officials view the information as “sensitive.” He says Abdulmutallab checked into his flight with only a small carryon bag.Abdulmutallab had been placed in a U.S. database of people suspected of terrorist ties in November, but there was not enough information about his activity that would place him on a watch list that could have kept him from flying.

However, British officials placed Abdulmutallab’s name on a U.K. watch list after he was refused a student visa in May.Home Secretary Alan Johnson added that police and security services are looking at whether Abdulmutallab was radicalized in Britain.

Abdulmutallab received a degree in engineering and business finance from University College London last year and later applied to re-enter Britain to study at another institution. Johnson said Monday he was refused entry because officials suspected the school was not genuine and they then put his name on the list.

Johnson says that people on the list can transit through the U.K. but cannot enter the country.Officials said he came to the attention of U.S. intelligence last month when his father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, a prominent Nigerian banker, reported to the American Embassy in Nigeria about his son’s increasingly extremist religious views. In a statement released Monday morning, Abdulmutallab’s family in Nigeria said that after his “disappearance and stoppage of communications while schooling abroad,” his father reached out to Nigerian security agencies two months ago. The statement says the father then approached foreign security agencies for “their assistance to find and return him home.”

The family says: “It was while we were waiting for the outcome of their investigation that we arose to the shocking news of that day.”

The statement did not offer any specifics on where Abdulmutallab had been.

Abdulmutallab’s success in smuggling and partially igniting the material on Friday’s flight prompted the Obama administration to promise a sweeping review of aviation security, even as the Homeland Security secretary defended the current system.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the government will investigate its systems for placing suspicious travelers on watch lists and for detecting explosives before passengers board flights.

Both lines of defense were breached in an improbable series of events Christmas Day that spanned three continents and culminated in a struggle and fire aboard a Northwest jet shortly before its safe landing in Detroit. Law enforcement officials believed the suspect tried to ignite a two-part concoction of the high explosive PETN and possibly a glycol-based liquid explosive, setting off popping, smoke and some fire but no deadly detonation.

An apparent malfunction in a device designed to detonate the PETN may have been all that saved the 278 passengers and the crew aboard Northwest Flight 253. No undercover air marshal was on board and passengers and crew subdued the suspect when he tried to set off the explosion. He succeeded only in starting a fire on himself.

Security experts said airport “puffer” machines that blow air on a passenger to collect and analyze residues would probably have detected the powder, as would bomb-sniffing dogs or a hands-on search using a swab. Most passengers in airports only go through magnetometers, which detect metal rather than explosives.

Abdulmutallab was treated for burns and was released Sunday to a prison 50 miles outside of Detroit.

Stiffer boarding measures have met passengers at gates since Friday and authorities warned travelers to expect extra delays returning home from holidays.

Adding to the airborne jitters, authorities detained a man, also from Nigeria, who locked himself in the bathroom on Sunday’s Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam as it was about to land in Detroit. Investigators concluded he posed no threat. Despite the government’s decision after the attempted Friday attack to mobilize more air marshals, none was on the Sunday flight from Amsterdam.

Airliner plot raises fears about al-Qaida in Yemen "terror"

Detroit Metropolitan Airport

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia A Nigerian man’s claim that his attempt to blow up a U.S. plane originated with al-Qaida’s network inside Yemen deepened concerns that instability in the Middle Eastern country is providing the terror group with a base to train and recruit militants for operations against the West and the U.S.Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas day in a botched attempt to detonate explosives. The 23-year-old claimed to have received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, a U.S. law enforcement official said on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still ongoing.If confirmed, it would be the second known case recently by the relatively new group, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, of exporting terrorism out of Yemen – a country with a weak central government, many lawless areas and plentiful supplies of weapons. But Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, has long been an al-Qaida stomping ground.In August, Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula tried to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, in a suicide bombing in an attack that bore similarities to the airliner plot. The explosive device Abdulmutallab used was attached to his body, just below his torso. The Saudi attacker is believed to have attached the explosives to his groin or inserted them inside his body.

According to U.S. court documents, a preliminary analysis of the device used by Abdulmutallab showed it contained PETN, a high explosive also known as pentaerythritol. The same material is believed to have been used in the August attack in Saudi Arabia by Abdullah Hassan Tali al-Asiri, who had traveled to Yemen to connect with the al-Qaida franchise there. PETN was also what convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001.

The botched attack on the U.S. plane came a day after Yemeni forces, with the help of U.S. intelligence, launched the second of two major air and ground assaults on major al-Qaida hideouts in Yemen. At least 64 militants were killed in the two operations.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula said in a statement, dated from last week and posted online Sunday, that the first airstrike was conducted by American jets. The group urged followers to attack U.S. military bases, embassies and naval forces in the region.The mass shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas Army post on Nov. 5 added to the concerns about al-Qaida threats from Yemen. U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who allegedly killed 13 people, had exchanged dozens of e-mails with radical U.S. cleric Anwar al-Awlaki who was hiding in Yemen. Last week’s attack on al-Qaida hideouts targeted a meeting of Yemeni and foreign al-Qaida operatives, believed to include al-Awlaki.

A video posted online four days before the bombing attempt featured an al-Qaida operative in Yemen threatening the United States and saying “we are carrying a bomb.” Though it was not immediately clear whether the speaker was anticipating Friday’s bombing attempt, it has attracted scrutiny because of reports that the bombing plot may have originated in Yemen.

Yemen’s weak central government, whose authority does not extend far outside the capital San’a, is battling two rebellions – a secessionist movement in the south and a war with Shiite rebels in the north – as well as al-Qaida militants. Al-Qaida’s presence is particularly worrying because the lawlessness of the country allows it to roam freely.

Some analysts say increased activity by al-Qaida in Yemen suggests the group has strengthened and taken root in a country whose proximity to the world’s top oil producer, Saudi Arabia, and vital maritime routes make it strategically more important than Afghanistan.Anwar Eshki, the head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies based in Jiddah, said al-Qaida in Yemen “is stronger than it was a year ago and is turning Yemen into its base for operations against the West.” Eshki’s center closely follows al-Qaida in Yemen.

“Yemen is al-Qaida’s last resort,” Eshki said. “There’s no doubt that al-Qaida’s presence in Yemen is more dangerous than its presence in Afghanistan.”Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator for the New York-based NEFA Foundation, which researches Islamic militants, suggested rivalry among al-Qaida’s branches may be a factor behind the focus on the U.S. He said al-Qaida central in Afghanistan and Pakistan is still the main source of attempts to attack the United States.

“There’s now a competition in the world of al-Qaida between various al-Qaida factions, with each trying to prove themselves and prove their worth,” he said.

“The ultimate achievement for these folks is being able to replicate something that previously only al-Qaida central could achieve,” he added. “If you can be sophisticated enough to hit a target in the continental United States, that’s a tremendous achievement for these folks.”Yemen has not confirmed Abdulmutallab’s claims that he was aided by al-Qaida operatives in the country and officials told The Associated Press investigations are ongoing. Significantly, the government has not denied his claims.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s government appears to be mounting a serious and aggressive campaign against al-Qaida after years of treading carefully with the militants. The intensified battle coincides with increased Yemeni-U.S. cooperation.Last week’s attack targeted a meeting of Yemeni and foreign al-Qaida operatives believed to include the top leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Naser Abdel-Karim al-Wahishi, and his deputy Said al-Shihri. There were reports, later denied by family and friends, that al-Awlaki, the radical cleric linked to the Fort Hood shooter, was killed in the bombings.

Shihri was one of 11 former Guantanamo detainees that Saudi Arabia said went through a rehabilitation program but later joined al-Qaida. He emerged as a leader of Yemen’s branch of al-Qaida after being released from the Saudi program last year.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi discussed Yemen’s campaign against al-Qaida with Arab diplomats on Sunday, but it was not clear whether Abdulmutallab’s case came up.In a statement, al-Qirbi said his country had long planned the operations against al-Qaida elements and the decision to execute them was expedited because al-Qaida has increasingly threatened the country’s stability.

“Al-Qaida elements went far by carrying out attacks against security officers, and threatened the country’s stability and economic interests which made the decision impossible to postpone,” he said.The United States and Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s powerful northern neighbor, have expressed concern over al-Qaida’s growing presence in Yemen. The Pentagon has spent about $70 million this year on assisting Yemen against the militants as U.S. officials pressed that country to take tougher action.Yemen, at the tip of the Arabian peninsula, straddles a strategic maritime crossroads at the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the access point to the Suez Canal. Across the Gulf is Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said al-Qaida militants have been increasing their activity.

The hard-to-control border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia means private money from the rich kingdom can easily be smuggled to al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. Yemen’s proximity to the Arab world and the Horn of Africa makes it easier for the group to recruit young Muslims, an effort fed by rampant poverty.Yemen was 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.

But the difference now is that rather than just carrying out attacks in Yemen, the new generation of al-Qaida militants appears to be trying to establish a long-term presence here, uniting Yemenis returning from fighting in Iraq and other areas and Saudis fleeing the kingdom’s crackdown on al-Qaida. A year ago, the terror network’s Yemeni and Saudi branches merged into Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, another factor that may have strengthened the group.

Christmas Day terrorist had been in one of the U.S."explosives hidden in his shoes"

WASHINGTON  The alleged Christmas Day terrorist had been in one of the U.S. government’s many terror databases since November, which is when his father brought him to the attention of embassy officials in Nigeria.However, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab came to the attention of intelligence officials months before that, according to a U.S. government official involved in the investigation. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because it is ongoing.

Still, none of the information the government had on Abdulmutallab rose to the level of putting him on the official terror watch list or no-fly list. On Christmas Eve, the 23-year-old Nigerian – who later claimed to law enforcement that he was operating on orders from al-Qaida – was able to carry a concealed explosive device onto a U.S.-bound airplane.

Officials warn it is still early in the investigation. But lawmakers are already calling for hearings, and the government may order a review. As President Barack Obama received regular updates on the investigation from his staff, his national security and policy aides have been asking whether the policies the U.S. has in place are working. These internal discussions marked the informal start to what will likely become a formal executive branch inquiry into an attack that failed because the bomb did not go off as planned and not because the intelligence community stopped it.

Passenger accounts and law enforcement officials describe the events around the Christmas Day attack this way:On December 24, Abdulmutallab traveled from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit with an explosive device attached to his body.

Part of the device contained PETN, or pentaerythritol, and was hidden in a condom or condom-like bag just below Abdulmutallab’s torso. PETN is the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes. Abdulmutallab also had a syringe filled with liquid.

As the plane approached Detroit, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for 20 minutes. When he returned to his seat, he complained of an upset stomach and covered himself with a blanket.Passengers heard a popping noise, similar to a firecracker. They smelled an odor, and some passengers saw Abdulmutallab’s pant leg and the wall of the airplane on fire. Passengers and the flight crew used blankets and fire extinguishers to quell the flames. They restrained Abdulmutallab, who later told a flight attendant he had an “explosive device” in his pocket. He was seen holding a partially melted syringe.

The airplane landed in Detroit shortly after the incident.On Saturday, federal officials charged the young man with trying to destroy the airplane. A conviction on the charge could bring Abdulmutallab up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

U.S. District Judge Paul Borman read Abdulmutallab the charges in a conference room at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the former London university student is undergoing burn treatment. Abdulmutallab smiled as he was wheeled into the room, his left thumb and right wrist bandaged and part of the skin on the thumb was burned off.Abdulmutallab claimed to have received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen, law enforcement officials said. He is also believed to have had Internet contact with militant Islamic radicals.

While intelligence officials said Saturday that they are taking seriously Abdulmutallab’s claims that the plot originated with al-Qaida’s network inside Yemen, several added that they had to yet to see independent confirmation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is incomplete.Four weeks ago, Abdulmutallab’s father told the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, that he was concerned about his son’s religious beliefs. This information was passed on to U.S. intelligence officials.

Abdulmutallab received a valid U.S. visa in June 2008 that is good through 2010.His is one of about 550,000 names in the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, known as TIDE, which is maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center and was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Intelligence officials said they lacked enough information to place him in the 400,000-person terror watch list or on the no-fly list of fewer than 4,000 people who should be blocked from air travel.

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.