Alarming reality in Yemen

Because
of the government’s inability to control its own territory, the local
al-Qaeda affiliate—al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—has found
in Yemen the space it craves to plot and plan attacks.

Indeed,
as I testified last week before the House Homeland Security Committee,
AQAP is now the greatest single terrorist threat to the United States.

Just
look at the evidence of the last few years. AQAP has repeatedly
attempted to strike American targets. This is the organization behind
the attempted Christmas Day 2009 attack and last October’s cargo bomb
plot. The Christmas Day attack marked the first time al-Qaeda
successfully engaged a domestic American target and the plot did not
originate in South Asia. It came out of Yemen. Ten months later the
organization struck again in what could have been a catastrophic
attack. The simple—and alarming—reality is that the majority of the
recent alleged terrorist plots in the United States have a connection
to Yemen, AQAP, or Anwar Awlaqi.

While
the al-Qaeda senior leadership, believed to be somewhere in Afghanistan
or Pakistan, may still have the ambition to launch spectacular attacks
against the United States, AQAP has emerged as the organization most
likely to kill American nationals and to attack U.S. interests. Whereas
core al-Qaeda is under sustained pressure, AQAP is exploiting the
undergoverned spaces in Yemen to plan and mount operations.

What makes AQAP such a potent threat to the American homeland is a combination of factors.

AQAP
has rapidly evolved into an increasingly lethal and agile organization,
with a proven track record of mounting operations within Yemen,
regionally, and internationally. It has a very fast learning curve,
rapidly learns from its mistakes, and cycles this knowledge back into
its operational planning. 

More
worrisome, when initial operations have been unsuccessful, AQAP has
re-attacked the same target, such as the U.S. Embassy in Sana’a
(attacked twice in 2009), Saudi Prince Muhammad bin Nayef (who has
survived four reported assassination attempts by AQAP), and British
diplomatic targets in Sana’a (attacked twice in 2010). This should
serve as a very dire warning when we consider AQAP’s two attempted
attacks so far against U.S. aviation targets.

Beyond
a determination to mount persistent low-level attacks against American
interests, AQAP is made even more dangerous by its highly sophisticated
messaging operation. This is, after all, a terrorist organization that
has taken a novel approach to recruiting and radicalizing Muslims in
the West.

Yemeni-American
cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi regularly posts sermons online inciting
English-speaking foreigners to engage in violence and militancy. He
recently stated that attacks against Americans no longer need further
authorization—previously issued fatwas justify all attacks

Through
its glossy English-language magazine Inspire, now in its fourth
edition, AQAP is able to broadcast its calls for attacks against the
U.S. to a far broader audience of would-be radicals.

As
recently as last summer, AQAP operated its own channel on YouTube
featuring many of the group’s videos subtitled into English. While the
channel is no longer available, the material remains online, reposted
by other users.

In other words, AQAP has dramatically expanded its potential audience in a way that most other terrorist organizations have not.

No
longer does one need Arabic or particular know-how to navigate jihadi
web forums. Non-Arabic speakers can now access this material using
Google and YouTube.

All
this brings us back to the situation on the ground in Yemen, AQAP’s
home base. Chronically unstable, it is a near-perfect breeding ground
for terrorism.

Over
the years, Yemen has expanded far beyond the role it once played as a
place to train and prepare for jihad or to rest between campaigns. It
is now a place from which potential extremists located overseas are
being instructed in the pages of Inspire that they can do greater
damage at home, without even needing to travel abroad.

Very clearly Yemen’s problems are not staying in Yemen and AQAP poses a grave and growing threat to American domestic security.

Christopher Boucek is an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-editor of the book, Yemen on the Brink.