11:03PM
The Yemen campaign to date
Sunday, January 10, 2010 at 11:03PM THE FLIGHT 253 BOMB ATTEMPT: "U.S. Looks to Intensify Yemen Campaign," by Peter Spiegel, Jay Solomon and Margaret Coker, Wall Street Journal, 30 December 2009.
For the record:
- Oct 2000 AQ bombs USS Cole in Port of Aden
- Nov 2002 drone hit on former AQ head
- Feb 2006 prison breakout of 23 AQ
- Sept 2006 AQ-linked suicide bombers hit two oil installation
- July 2007 AQ-linked bomber attack Spanish tourists
- Sept 2008 AQ-linked attack on US embassy
- Aug 2009 AQ claims attempt on Saudi deputy interior minister (first underwear bomb)
- Dec 2009 Yemen gov-launched attacks on AQ strongholds, with US assistance
- Dec 2009 attempted attack on US-bound jetliner.
Back when I used to count up US military operations, I'm sure some of these would have registered and others not. But the underlying reality would be the same: periodic episodic ops are the norm inside this Gap country. Basic frontier policing. Nobody likes to do it and it's a complete pain.
But the U.S. military, in various forms, participates here and there, building local capacity wherever possible.
Every so often events conspired to push the country above the white-noise line--like Detroit, and then suddenly the public and media and politicians care most demonstrably.
But most of the time the subject remains rather esoteric--talked about across the community regularly but rarely brought up publicly.
That is the essence of the Gap's security environment and the U.S. military's role there these past two decades.
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