The Secret War - Yemen

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Saudi Arabia has joined the United States in prosecuting an undeclared aerial war against Al-Qaeda in Yemen the Times have learnt

The disclosure that US drone strikes in Yemen have been bolstered by Saudi Fighter jets will raise fresh questions about the legality of America expanding programme of targeted killings.

Covert airstrikes against Yemeni targets outnumbered those in Pakistan for the first time last year, as the White House discarded its ‘kill ir capture’ strategy and the region became a template for the systematic use of deadly force against terrorism suspects worldwide. The Times has learnt that up to 228 people were killed last year by covert attacks in Yemen, including Saudi air strikes.

‘Some of the so called drone missions are actually Saudi Air Force missions’. A US intelligence official said.

At least three suspected al Qaeda militants were killed yesterday by the fifth drone strike in southern Yemen in ten days. The missile destroyed a car in an area southeast of the capital, Sanaa, where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has established the worlds most active terrorist network.

The clandestine aerial war in Yemen overseen personally by President Obama, is viewed in Washington as a new model for US intervention abroad, as the unpopular war in Afghanistan is wound down.

Legal issues arising from the arrest of enemy combatants intended for trial in the US, detention at Guantanamo Bay or local prosecution have become so onerous that the Pentagon has recast its orders.

‘There is no kill or capture any more, its kill or kill’, a US official said.

Although officially denied the US has rapidly escalated its use of drone strikes under Mr Obama. President Mansour Hadi of Yemen has co-operated with the US and officially claims responsibly for every drone strike against targets within his country’s borders. He has made no such public deceleration on airstrikes launched against his citizens by a neighbouring air force.

An attempt by the American Civil Liberties Union to force the publication of secret White House memos on the legality of the drone strikes was thwarted by a court in New York this week. A federal judge upheld the White House right to secrecy but admitted that she had been caught in a

‘veritable Catch-22’.

‘I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our constitution and laws’ Judge Colleen McMahon said.

Source: The Times (UK)

 

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An update

‘We outsource this to the Saudis. It is their problem’

The country has become a template for undeclared US wars, while covert strikes are backed up by Saudi Arabian Firepower, Iona Craig reports from Sanaa.


For the residents of Jaar in Southwest Yemen, the first airstrike seemed to come out of nowhere. With as many as 26 people killed, the attack in May last year constituted the single largest loss of civilian life in the war against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula since December 17, 2009, when 41 people, including 14 women and 21 children, died in a US sea to land missile strike in the village of al-Majalah.

There was one crucial difference this time the attacking aircraft was a fighter bomber suspected of belonging to Saudi Arabia, not a US drone.

An investigation by the Times has revealed that Saudi Arabian fighter jets have joined Americas secret war in Yemen, as drone strikes more than trebled in the Arabian peninsula last year.

For the first time, covert US strikes in Yemen, home of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) surpassed the number carried out in Pakistan.

Attacks in Yemen surged from 8 strikes in 2011 to 53 in 2012, while in Pakistan the number feel from 72 to 46, according to strike monitoring groups. Increasingly, American drones are just part of an on-going air assault targeting Islamic militants in Yemen.

‘Some of the so called drone missions are actually Saudi air force missions’ A US intelligence source told the Times

Viewed as template for future undeclared US wars, as the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan gathers pace, Yemen has faced an unprecedented bombardment as the West tries to crush AQAP, regarded by the United States as the most dangerous offshoot of Al-Qaeda. The group has been responsible for three failed attacks on America in the past four years.

‘There’s a part of our policy that goes back to Saudi Arabia’ said Bruce Riedel and ex CIA officer and expert on US security ‘We outsource this problem (of AQAP) to the Saudis make it their problem. It is their problem’.

On September 2 last year an airstrike on a Toyota Land Cruiser, near the town of Radaa, southeast of the capital Sanaa, left 12 people dead, including three children. The first missile hit the vehicle, flipping it over. A second was aimed at the survivors as they scrambled from the wreckage. One witness told how the aircraft looked

‘like an arrow’ as he drew the silhouette of a fighter jet.

Similarly, witnesses to the jar airstrike said a fighter jet rather than a drone carried out the attack.

‘It wasn’t Yemeni, it was a black plane. It was Saudi’ said one resident. The Royal Saudi Air Force is largely made up of F15 Eagle and Tornado fighter jets. The latter were bought from Britain as part of BAE systems’ Al Yamamah arms deal with the Kingdom.

The US has its own F15s based only 120 miles off Yemen’s coastline at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, also home to a fleet of US Predator and reaper drones. US drones are believed to operate from bases in Saudi Arabia.

Yemen’s President, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Al-Hadi, elected unopposed in a transition deal last February after the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down, has endorsed the US drone programme. During a visit to Washington last September he said:

‘They pinpoint the target and have zero margin of error, if you know exactly what target your aiming at.’

The escalation in airstrikes comes as US policy on militants has hardened. Capturing Al-Qaeda militants is no longer an option.

‘There’s no kill or capture anymore’ admitted one US official ‘its kill or kill’.

The day after Barak Obama was re-elected, Adnan al-Qadhi, a Yemeni army officer, was killed by a night strike on his car near Beit al-Ahmar nine miles from Sanaa. Mr Qadhi had previously been arrested and sentenced in connection with an attack on the US Embassy in Sanaa in 2008 that left 19 dead but was later released.

After the death of his brother, Himyar al-Qadhi posed the question many in Sanaa are still asking. Why was he killed rather than captured?

‘If Adnan was guilty of any crime, then arrest him and put him on trial’ Mr Qadhi said.

Instead his brother was murdered by a US drone.

‘We have a problem,’ said Mr Riedel. ‘What are we going to do with a captured enemy combatant? Where are we going to put him? We cannot turn them over to the Yemenis for the same reason we cant turn the Guantanamo prisoners over to the Yemenis.’

There are 88 Yemeni nationals held in Guantanamo Bay, according to Yemeni records, making up more than half the prisons population. Although 24 were earmarked for transfer in 2010, none have been released amid fears they may return and join AQAP. Two of the three founders of the terrorist network, including Said Al-Shehri, its deputy leader, are ex Guantanamo detainees.

Detaining suspects in Yemeni prisons is also problematic. In February 2006, 23 inmates escaped from Sanaas maximum security Political Security prison by digging their way out to a nearby mosque. Nasir al-Wuhayshi the current head of AQAP, was one who escaped.

In June 2011, 60 escaped from a prison in al-Mukalla after it was attacked by gunmen – 57 of the fugitives were known al Qaeda militants. Three of the escapers are believed to be among ten people killed in a series of drone strikes two weeks ago.

The scale of the problem can be seen in a security chiefs office in eastern Sanaa. A sprawling poster of wanted militants contains scores of twined headshots. Each pair shows the blank expression of a bearded man alongside the same face in prison overalls. All are former inmates.

‘This is a nightmare,’ Mr Riedel said. ‘If you’re really serious about the counter terrorism priority No 1 is to capture people who you can properly and legally interrogate to lean how the enemy works. That’s where 99% of the information of how the enemy works will come from.’

Source:The Times (UK)

 

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Another update

The Wizard with the Kill List

John Brennan, described as the 'wizard behind the curtain', is the central figure behind US strategy in Yemen, (Iona Craig writes). Although he is top of the shortlist for the directorship of the CIA after the recent fall from grace of General David Petraeus, it can be argued he already has more power as Director of the National Counterterrorism Centre.

After 30 years in US intelligence, and an additional four as Mr Obamas counter-terrorism chief, he has found Yemen to be his testing ground. In 2009, after the attempt of the underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a US bound passenger het, Mr Brennan publicly confessed that he had underestimated al-Qaedas Yemeni offshoot (AQAP) saying 'I told the President I let him down'.

His ablity to get Saudi Arabia involved in the war against the network and its offspring Ansar al-Sharia is borne of a relationship formed with the Saudi ruling family during his time as CIA station chief in Riyadh during the late 1990s.

Crucial Saudi intelligence has foiled two of the last three attempts by AQAP to blow up US bound jets. Details of tracking numbers scuppered the 2010 cargo bomb plot.

Mr Brennan leads the team responsible for drawing up the 'kill list' of Al-Qaeda militants. Yemens his list has expanded from 'targeted killings' of known al-Qaeda members to 'signature strikes' against those who are strongly suspected of terrorist activities. He has boasted about strategy in Yemen as being 'a true model of what I think US counterterrorism community should be doing'.

Source: The Times (UK)

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update

There will be blood in this cockpit of regional instability

By Richard Beeston

Saudi Arabia's military intervention in Yemen was only a matter of time. Ever since the creation of the kingdom its poorer, rugged and more militant southern neighbour has been a constant source of instability for the whole region. The Saudis have repeatedly been dragged into Yemen s chaotic internal affairs.

The country has weak central government, fiercly independent and heavily armed tribal groups and is the headquarters of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The long mountainous joint border is largely unprotected. Yemen is also home to some of the most feared al-Qaeda operatives and is the homeland of Osama bin Ladens family.

AQAP is by far the most active branch of the terrorist network. Al-Qaedas once dominant leadership in Pakistan's tribal territories has been badly depleted by frequent by US drone strikes. The al-Shabaab group in Somalia has been driven from power. Yemen has now become the organisations most active area of operations.

This is partly due to the agitation of Nasir al-Wuhayshi, a former assistant to Bin Laden in Afghanistan, who was imprisoned in Yemen in 2003 but escaped three years later to lead the group.

Since then AQAP has launched a series of attacks on Saudi Arabia, including a suicide bombing which nearly killed Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi security chief, in 2009.

The group also attempted a number of airline bombings against the West as well as waging a terrorist campaign against the Yemeni authorities and Western targets in Sanaa.

It began in the New Year with a seasonal offer to its followers - 3kg gold to anyone who assassinated the US Ambassador to Sanaa, Gerald Feierstein.

There is every indication that the escalation of violence of 2012 will be more than matched this year.

Source: The Times (UK)

 

[سيف الله]

Salaam

Another update


CIA using Saudi base for drone assassinations in Yemen

Disclosure comes as architect of programme, John Brennan, prepares for Senate confirmation hearing to become CIA director


The CIA is secretly using an airbase in Saudi Arabia to conduct its controversial drone assassination campaign in neighbouring Yemen, according to reports in the US media.

Neither the Saudi government nor the country's media have responded to the reports revealing that the drones that killed the US-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in September 2011 and Said al-Shehri, a senior al-Qaida commander who died from his injuries last month, were launched from the unnamed base.

Iranian state media highlighted the story, which is also likely to be seized upon by jihadi groups. Saudi Arabia has previously publicly denied co-operating with the US to target al-Qaida in Yemen. Evidence of Saudi involvement risks complicating its relationship with the government in Sana'a and with Yemeni tribal leaders who control large parts of the country.

Disclosure of the Saudi co-operation comes the day before the architect of the drone programme, John Brennan, appears before the US Senate for a confirmation hearing to become the CIA director.

The drone issue is sensitive in Saudi Arabia because of the unpopularity of US military bases, which were thought to have been largely removed after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is home to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the continued presence of US troops after the 1991 Gulf war was one of the stated motivations behind al-Qaida's 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Khobar Towers bombing five years earlier.

The date of the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania was eight years to the day after US troops were first sent to the kingdom. Osama bin Laden interpreted the prophet Muhammad as banning the "permanent presence of infidels in Arabia".

The last significant US military presence was at the King Sultan airbase in Khobar in the eastern province. The forces there were relocated to Qatar.

The revelation is unlikely to make significant waves inside the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has no independent media but there is no sympathy for the jihadis of al-Qaida targeted in Yemen. Saudi Arabia conducted its own successful campaign against al-Qaida, in effect destroying it by 2004. Its remnants moved to Yemen and formed al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), perhaps the most active of the group's "franchises".

rest here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/06/cia-using-saudi-base-drone-yemen

 

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Short update, not surprising given US mainstream media's past record.

U.S. Media Agreed to Cover Up Location of Saudi Drone Base

U.S. news outlets are facing criticism after it was revealed they complied with an Obama administration request to hide the location of a U.S. drone base in Saudi Arabia. The base was first used in 2011 to kill Muslim cleric and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki. The New York Times disclosed its location for the first time this week, reportedly because the base’s architect, John Brennan, a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, is now nominated to head the CIA. The Washington Post admitted they were also part of "an informal arrangement among several news organizations that had been aware of the location for more than a year." Critics are questioning the papers’ silence particularly because other outlets noted the location of the base months ago. The Times of London mentioned it in July 2011, while Fox News noted the location in an online article before broadening the language to say "Arabian Peninsula" instead of "Saudi Arabia." Adrian Chen of the media website Gawker wrote: "In cooperating with the blackout, news organizations weren’t protecting a state secret: They were making the CIA’s life easier by suppressing a story that was already out there."

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/2/8/headlines#284