Al-Qaida Takes Lessons Learned To Yemen

Yemeni soldiers streamed into the streets of the capital this weekend after a deadly attack on intelligence services by alleged al-Qaida gunmen, underscoring the impact of what U.S. government officials and experts on terrorism say has become the world’s most active and dangerous offshoot of al-Qaida. With dozens of attacks this year on spy and security forces, including deadly raids into the very headquarters of Yemen’s mukhabarat, or intelligence branch, Yemen's newly invigorated al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is reshaping the mission, strategy and tactics of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida brand, experts say. And the Yemeni government is now stepping up its effort to confront this insurgency and doing so with pledges of more than $1 billion in military aid from the United States.

At this point, there is a "raging war taking place between al-Qaida in Yemen and the Yemeni government," said Fawaz Gerges, professor of Middle East politics at the London School of Economics, and a longtime scholar of al-Qaida. Diversifying from al-Qaida's core vision of mass-casualty attacks upon people of the distant, hated West, al-Qaida fighters in Yemen have redirected their aim squarely upon the weak, fumbling and corrupt government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Saleh this summer sided more than ever with the United States against the al-Qaida forces who have made their home in his country, proclaiming al-Qaida the greatest danger to his country.