The Washington Post reported on Tue, 24 Aug: “CIA analysts consider al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based offshoot — rather than the core group now based in Pakistan — as cause for an escalation of U.S. operations in the Arabian Peninsula.”
The CIA sees Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate as a seriousa threat to U.S.
Recognizing the CIA control on intelligence and activities that area may give the CIA a far larger role in what has until now been mainly a secret U.S. military campaign against militant targets in Yemen and across the Horn of Africa. It would likely follow the CIA’s covert drone campaign in Pakistan.
The U.S. military’s SOF and the CIA have been working surveillance equipment, drones and personnel in Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia to step up targeting of Al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP, and Somalia’s Al Shabaab.
Both Yemen and Somalia have become a recruiting and training ground for terrorist. Additionally, both countries have dispatched terrorist to the U.S.
Best defense is a good offense.
