Katherine Zimmerman is a counterterrorism analyst and researcher specializing in al Qaeda and affiliated groups across the Middle East and Africa. She is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and has been associated with the Critical Threats Project. She contributed analysis to The Weekly Standard on jihadist movements and U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Yemen, Somalia, and Nigeria.
In an address Wednesday night to the nation, President Obama held up America’s strategy in Yemen as a model for the counterterrorism strategy he intends to pursue in Iraq and Syria. By doing so, he committed to a strategy of targeting terrorists from the air and supporting local security forces in…
The radical Islamist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), was killed in north Yemen today. Awlaki served as a key conduit for foreign fighters into Yemen and is believed to have directed several recent attacks against the United States. The death of the…
There’s a report of a U.S. airstrike in Yemen’s restive southern governorate of Abyan that seems to have targeted Fahd al Quso, a Yemeni al Qaeda operative on the FBI’s most wanted list. In any case, Quso survived the strike. He was traveling along a coastal road between Shaqra and Zinjibar,…
Earlier this week, Nigeria witnessed its first suicide bombing. Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group based in northern Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the attack. The target was inspector general of the police Hafiz Ringim, whose motorcade entered the headquarters in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja,…
Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh survived a rocket attack on the presidential palace in Sana’a today, and he is reportedly planning to address the country sometime soon. This latest episode is more evidence that the country where the most active al Qaeda franchise has found sanctuary is sliding…