US Forces Evacuate Yemen After Al Qaeda Takes Over City

http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/dgreenfield/us-forces-evacuate-yemen-after-al-qaeda-takes-over-city/

March 21, 2015 by Daniel Greenfield 89 Comments

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Al Qaeda is on the run. Obama said so and we know he never lies. At least not between 2 and 3 AM on the 31st of February.

First Shiite fighters aligned with Iran took over Yemen’s capital forcing its government to flee. Then Yemeni fighters aligned with ISIS carried out massive mosque suicide bombings killing hundreds. Al Qaeda, which is not currently getting along with its former ISIS affiliate, stepped up the game by taking over a Yemeni city leading to the evacuation of a US drone base.

About 100 U.S. Special Operations Forces have been ordered to evacuate Yemen because of a dramatic increase in sectarian violence, sources told NBC News on Saturday.
The U.S. commandos, including Green Berets and Navy Seals, have been training Yemeni military forces in counterterrorism operations, but the Americans have not been involved in direct ground combat maneuvers against militants.
The American forces in Yemen have also been gathering intelligence to target al Qaeda-linked terrorists and other militants for U.S. airstrikes in the region.
In a further sign of the country’s chaos, al Qaeda’s branch of the country took control of the southern city of al-Houta on Friday, Yemeni security officials said. Al Qaeda militants driving pickup trucks and flying black flags swept through the city, which is the capital of Lahj province. They took over the main security barracks, the governor’s office, and the intelligence headquarters, which houses prisons with al Qaeda detainees, the officials said.

This is a problem for Obama’s preferred mode of fighting using drones.

The al-Annad base is where American and European military advisers help Yemen battle the country’s local al-Qaida branch through drone strikes and logistical support… It’s unclear what the pullout will mean for the drone program.

Don’t worry. Obama Inc. has got this covered… by denying everything.

In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the U.S. had seen no indications of an operational link between ISIS and Friday’s attacks. He said the U.S. was investigating to see whether the ISIS branch in Yemen has the command-and-control structure in place to substantiate its claim of responsibility.
Earnest said it was plausible that ISIS was falsely claiming responsibility. “It does appear that these kinds of claims are often made for a perception that it benefits their propaganda efforts,” Earnest said.

Sure.

Except that the attack looks exactly like the ones Al Qaeda in Iraq/ISIS used to carry out in Iraq. And anyone with the operational capability to cause this much damage would probably be taking credit for it.

So Earnest just ends up sounding like Baghdad Bob.

In other things not to worry about, $500 million worth of weapons and equipment has gone missing in Yemen.

The Pentagon is unable to account for more than $500 million in U.S. military aid given to Yemen, amid fears that the weaponry, aircraft and equipment is at risk of being seized by Iranian-backed rebels or al-Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.
“We have to assume it’s completely compromised and gone,” said a legislative aide on Capitol Hill who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Smart power.

The Yemeni government, some part of it anyway, is claiming that they took back the town. The Shiite rebels claim they’re fighting government “extremists”. The government, the one not in control of the capital, wants to go the UN because that’s usually helps.

The cause of all this goes back to the Obama-backed Arab Spring which has really done wonders for the region where terrorists now fight terrorists for control of entire countries.

Filed Under: The Point

About Daniel Greenfield

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.