Jeremy Scahill: Washington’s War in Yemen Backfires | The Nation
The October drone strike that killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, a US citizen, and his teenage cousin shocked and enraged Yemenis of all political stripes. “I firmly believe that the [military] operations implemented by the US performed a great service for Al Qaeda, because those operations gave Al Qaeda unprecedented local sympathy,” says Jamal, the Yemeni journalist. The strikes “have recruited thousands.” Yemeni tribesmen, he says, share one common goal with Al Qaeda, “which is revenge against the Americans, because those who were killed are the sons of the tribesmen, and the tribesmen never, ever give up on revenge.” Even senior officials of the Saleh regime recognize the damage the strikes have caused. “People certainly resent these [US] interventions,” Qirbi, the foreign minister and a close Saleh ally, concedes.
Such resentments mingle easily with the political and religious message of Al Qaeda and with the growing radicalization of the religious landscape, particularly in impoverished areas neglected by the Yemeni government, like Abyan. “Of course, when people are in that kind of circumstance then they need to hold on to some kind of ideological banner, so they start talking about the Caliphate and all that stuff,” says Iryani. At large rallies held by opponents of Saleh’s regime in Sanaa, prominent conservative imams deliver stinging sermons denouncing the United States and Israel. The United States may see AQAP as a membership organization with a finite number of members who can be taken out through a drone- and Tomahawk missile–fueled war of attrition, but there are varying shades of support and involvement among broader segments of Yemeni society. While there are certainly some foreign operatives in AQAP, the majority of those described as “militants” are Yemenis who belong to powerful tribes. “In recent months, Ansar al Sharia appears to have attracted a number of new members,” says Johnsen, the Yemen scholar at Princeton. “The group has essentially attempted to flatten itself out in Yemen in order to appeal to as many people as possible, which means that it takes the popular parts of AQAP’s platform, while downplaying the more controversial sections.”
