Yemen

Supporters argue the legislation should be viewed as a strong signal to Saudi leaders regardless of whether it passes.

Support for a war powers resolution has increased among both parties since March.

His position seems to cover any bill (or person) imaginable.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

Child marriage is alive and well among the Yemeni-Americans in Dearborn, but education may finally erode that social norm.

A volcanic island in South Korea has become a hotbed of the migration crisis.

Iran has boosted its investments in militant and terrorist groups across the Middle East since the enactment of the 2015 nuclear deal, the nation’s top general who oversees U.S. Central Command said Tuesday.

About 28 million people live in Texas. Imagine a population the size of Austin has cholera, and one the size of Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso, Arlington, and Corpus Christi faces the imminent threat of famine. Add Plano, Laredo, and each of the 167 cities down the line…

It’s become a joke around Washington that every week is “infrastructure week” at the White House, a policy focus derailed usually within the first few hours of Monday by news developments (or President Trump’s tweets).

The New York Times reports that:

Zaid Al-Alayaa and Nabih Bulos of the Los Angeles Times reports that:

Last week, the Obama administration urged Saudi Arabia to halt its air campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who have wrested control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa. The White House’s professed concern was that Riyadh’s Operation Decisive Storm was killing too many civilians.…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior editor Lee Smith on the situation with Yemen and how it plays into the pending nuclear deal with Iran.

Meghann Myers of Navy Times reports that:

The Obama administration once pointed to Yemen as the proof that the application of what it calls “smart power” works.  Today, from John Zarocostas, writing for McClatchy, we learn that:

Kuwait City

The situation in Yemen grows more dangerous, with the latest escalation coming from Iran which, as the Jerusalem Post reports:

As Craig Whitlock of the Washington Post is reporting, after a hasty departure from Yemen:

The Hill is reporting that:

House Homeland Security Committee chair Mike McCaul said on CBS that he expects to "see more and more" of the Paris style attacks take place around the world:

President Obama issued this statement after the death of photojournalist Luke Somers, who was held hostage in Yemen by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and was killed in a rescue attempt.

There is no one war and the struggle does not respect borders.  The AP is reporting that:

Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, writing about the Yemen and Somalia models for destroying ISIS:

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…

In talking about defeating ISIS, President Obama will cite the examples of Yemen and Somalia as models of success.

A video of a large al Qaeda gathering in Yemen has raised eyebrows in the press. Nasir al Wuhayshi, the head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as well as general manager of al Qaeda’s global network, can be heard saying to a crowd of more than 100: "We must eliminate the cross. ... The…

On Friday, the State Department announced that 21 diplomatic facilities (now updated to 22), from North Africa through the Middle East and into South Asia, are to be closed this weekend in response to an al Qaeda threat. The State Department’s travel alert warned of “terrorist attacks…possibly…

Earlier this week, the State Department designated the al Nusrah Front in Syria as an “alias” for al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The head of AQI, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi al Husseini al Qurshi (a.k.a. Abu Du'a), “is in control of both AQI and al Nusrah.” The designation says a lot about our knowledge, or lack…

Last night, President Obama defiantly declared that "al Qaeda is on its heels." The president made this claim at a fundraiser at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California.

On and around September 11, 2012, al Qaeda attacked multiple American assets around the world. The attack that has received the most attention is the deadly attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. But the U.S.…

Bloomberg reports:

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has released a martyrdom statement for Anwar al Awlaki, the al Qaeda cleric who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last month. AQAP claims – like many critics of the strike – that slaying Awlaki violated American law because the U.S. government “did not prove…

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,…

"U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes"

Bloomberg reports that "Yemeni protesters fought to take advantage of their government’s sudden flight abroad, with hundreds of thousands cheering the departure of wounded President Ali Abdullah Saleh even as government spokesmen said he would soon return."

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…

Katherine Zimmerman, of the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats program, offers an update of what's going on in Yemen. "Heavy fighting between government forces and tribesmen outside of Yemen’s capital has broadened the conflict," Zimmerman finds. "Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has…

AEI's Critical Threats team will be hosting an important conference on Yemen tomorrow, titled, "Crisis in Yemen, the Rise of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and US National Security." Here are the event details:

CNN reports: 

We may never know whether the conjecture of the historian Fouad Ajami is correct: that President Barack Obama sought the approval of the Arab League for the air war against Muammar Qaddafi because he thought the league—an organization that has always shown greater sympathy for the region’s rulers…

Fred Kagan and the rest of his Critical Threats team at AEI will begin to focus more directly on coming up with a U.S. strategy for Yemen. It will be called the Yemen Strategic Planning Exercise, and here's how Kagan describes the project: 

"Libya’s rebel military struggled Saturday to explain an apparent rift within its highest ranks while acknowledging its soldiers’ role in a mistaken NATO bombing of rebel columns the night before."

If Guantanamo were really one of al Qaeda’s principal recruiting tools, as President Obama and members of his administration have repeatedly claimed, then the facility would probably be referenced regularly in the terror group’s propaganda. It is not. Instead, other themes dominate Osama bin…

The Wall Street Journal reports that "President Ali Abdullah Saleh has backed away from a deal struck over the weekend that would have him step down from power immediately but keep his relatives in charge of the country's elite counter-terrorism forces."

It’s not war but a “time-limited, scope-limited military action.” The United States has been in the lead, but will be stepping back, ASAP, in favor of command (supposedly) by a squabbling coalition of the not-so-willing. The objective of the “kinetic military action”—which is going to last days,…

Nowhere has the Obama administration been more reluctant to embrace the revolutions sweeping through the Middle East than in Yemen. This is, in part, understandable.

Another leader of an Arab nation seems to be on his way out. This time, it looks like it will be Yemen's leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh is currently trying to negotiate his departure with opposition forces. The New York Times reports:

Wisconsin Fleebaggers give up

The Obama administration supports the establishment of a jihad rehabilitation program in Yemen, according to remarks Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made during a town hall in the region. Clinton said the efforts would be modeled after jihad rehabilitation programs in Saudi Arabia supported by…

Via Sam Stein at the Huffington Post (“Obama Administration Pushes Back On Report That Gitmo Recidivism Has ‘Soared’”), an anonymous Obama administration official has offered a reply (of sorts) to my piece on the DNI’s latest assessment of Guantanamo recidivism. It is odd that anyone in the Obama…

“Don’t consult with anyone in fighting the Americans; fighting the devil doesn’t require consultation or prayers or seeking divine guidance.”

In the past couple of days we’ve learned more about the intelligence that allowed Western authorities to neutralize the threat posed by two bombs shipped from Yemen via cargo plane. (Other bombs may still be in play, according to press accounts, but that is not a certainty.)

We are still learning the details of the terrorist plot to send explosives into the U.S. from Yemen via cargo plane, so it is too early to make a definitive assessment. However, we have enough information to make some preliminary observations and ask some fundamental questions.

Legal activist groups filed an extraordinary lawsuit yesterday to prevent the U.S. military and CIA from undertaking the "targeted killing" of persons suspected of posing a terrorist threat to the U.S. The filers are asking the court to block not merely the targeted killing of U.S. citizens…

President Obama’s Gitmo problem (that is, his inability to shut the facility down, even though he wanted to do so in just one year) is in many ways a Yemen problem. The Yemeni detainees accounted for roughly 40 percent of the Gitmo population when Obama took office. But his administration has…