AMU Homeland Security

Al-Qaeda Suspects Escape from Yemeni Prison

By William Tucker

In what has become something of a national pastime for al-Qaeda militants in Yemen, nearly 60 suspected members of the terrorist network have escaped from Mukalla prison in Hadramout. The escapees, many of whom had participated in dozens of attacks, was made possible by tunneling out of the facility. The current leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Nasser al-Wuhayshi, escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006 and helped reconstitute the al-Qaeda branch after its flight from neighboring Saudi Arabia. This recent escape will likely add to the groups capabilities as chaos reigns in Yemen – chaos that has given AQAP enough bandwidth to seize two towns in Southern Yemen.

In response to the political uncertainty, the U.S. has stepped up its construction of a new air base in the region from which unmanned aircraft can be launched more readily. The other side of the equation would be the inclusion of intelligence officers operating on the ground to aid in targeting. According to the Associated Press, the White House has increased the number of CIA officers assigned to Yemen for this and other intelligence related tasks. Of course, simply targeting militants from the air is hardly a sound policy in and of itself. If the U.S. means to tackle militancy in Yemen and the larger Arabian Peninsula region, it must help facilitate the end of the Saleh regime in the near term. Failure to do so will only add to the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in the country and make counterterrorism operations all the more difficult.

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