Thread: Anyone for Yemen?

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. and Yemen are now looking at fresh targets in Yemen for a potential retaliation strike, two senior U.S. officials told CNN Tuesday, in the aftermath of the botched Christmas Day attack on an airliner that al Qaeda in Yemen claims it organized.

The officials asked not to be not be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. They both stressed the effort is aimed at being ready with options for the White House if President Obama orders a retaliatory strike. The effort is to see whether targets can be specifically linked to the airliner incident and its planning.

U.S. special operations forces and intelligence agencies, and their Yemeni counterparts, are working to identify potential al Qaeda targets in Yemen, one of the officials said. This is part of a new classified agreement with the Yemeni government that the two countries will work together and that the U.S. will remain publicly silent on its role in providing intelligence and weapons to conduct strikes.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/...ets/index.html

It looks like the US will be taking the War on Terror a step further sometime soon. How big an effort do you think this will be? Is it likely to be a precursor to attacks in other countries known to host Al Quaida training camps?

Brilliant. Can't wait till we finish up in Afghanistan and Iraq, so we can kick arrse in Yemen, Somalia, Iran and North Korea, then then go back to the mess for tea and medals.

Maybe we could take five minutes for tea and medals before going back to war. You know, take the time to prepare properly rather than jumping in at the deep end cos the Septics said so.

It's getting like a Centenary tour to celebrate past Imperial conflicts. On that basis the Sudan is a must - what are the Zulus up to nowadays?



(Edited once to right a terrible wrong)

Double post - damn yellow box.....

Originally Posted by FORMER_FYRDMAN

It's getting like a Centenary tour to celebrate past Imperial conflicts. On that basis the Sudan is a must - what are the Zulus up to nowadays?

President of South Africa for one!

The botched airline bombing was a retaliation to the US activities in Yemen, including US led raids on terror cells. It is likely to remain like this rather than a full scale Op. Although the septics should tread carefully to avoid another 'black hawk down' situation or to inflame the Arab world as it may be seen as unreasonable Western aggression if they pour in ground troops.

Once again we dont learn from history, we got kicked out of South Yemen( Aden) in 1967, didn't we?

Originally Posted by Gym-Princess

The botched airline bombing was a retaliation to the US activities in Yemen, including US led raids on terror cells. It is likely to remain like this rather than a full scale Op. Although the septics should tread carefully to avoid another 'black hawk down' situation or to inflame the Arab world as it may be seen as unreasonable Western aggression if they pour in ground troops.

Tit for tat retaliation has been going on for a while,

Remember the airline downed in iran, Lockerbie was the opposite effect :(

Only the likes of the US, Russians & Asia have the HR capability to even think of tackling yemen & Somalia unless someone can correct me, the UK always seems to get drawn in to these situations due to our "so called" special relationship with the septics

Originally Posted by Gym-Princess

The botched airline bombing was a retaliation to the US activities in Yemen, including US led raids on terror cells. It is likely to remain like this rather than a full scale Op. Although the septics should tread carefully to avoid another 'black hawk down' situation or to inflame the Arab world as it may be seen as unreasonable Western aggression if they pour in ground troops.

But would it be seen like that Yemen is asking for the help. Mind you giving AK's to newborn kids isnt excalty a bright idea either. It did make me laugh when they were asking for helo's saying that the UK could help were has he been getting his info from I suppose there's a whole fleet parked up ready to be handed over

history is a great thing. we either learn from it or repeat it.

and for some bizarre reason we seem obsessed with repeating it.

either

a, give the country resources to fight the problem
b, go in properly with an aim and kick several flavours out of it
c, pull back to your own borders and keep your own house tidy

thanks to Bliar and his 5 minutes of fame we now have several years of people trying to kill us (who sadly are willing to die for their cause)

Another 'ADEN' bar to their GSM anyone?

In reality therehas been a low-intensity conflict going on since the 1990s
and the US has been actively engaged for the last few years.
It has similar characteristics to the FATA of the the NWFP to harbour unfriendlies,
and would similarly swallow any ground forces that attempt pacification.

Like the Af/Pak border it has the potential of destabilising both neighbouring countries' central governments' authority.
Similarly, Sana'a's control could be equated to Kabul's - beyond the capital's environs it's pretty much negligible.

The US chickenhawks & neocons who are calling for immediate military intervention, who have little military military experience among them,
don't appear to realise how depleted their capacity is after 8 years of war, to take on another large scale military enterprise.
It's more about political point scoring at home than creating security abroad.

Originally Posted by brettarider

But would it be seen like that Yemen is asking for the help. Mind you giving AK's to newborn kids isnt excalty a bright idea either. It did make me laugh when they were asking for helo's saying that the UK could help were has he been getting his info from I suppose there's a whole fleet parked up ready to be handed over

Yemen are more than willing to have US help, but the Al Qaeda won't roll over and accept it. Just like Afghanistan, and the same as Iraq, this can be so easily turned into a 'holy war' as they phrase it, drawing support from fanatics from all over the Arab world.

It's doubtful that anything will really come of this, it's the usual storm in a teacup thing that gets blown way out of proportion. Unless the UN sanctions action against the insurgency and allows Military action in the form of large scale deployments of ground troops then this will continue as it is and be forgotten by the press and the general public by no time at all.

Originally Posted by RhodieBKK

Another 'ADEN' bar to their GSM anyone?

It would be on the OSM now though wouldn't it? The GSM is no longer distrubuted.

Is it me, the journos reporting or is the world (particlularly poor areas) rising up in some sort of riot? Are the various terrorist organisations really getting a foot hold?

Originally Posted by chocolate_frog

Is it me, the journos reporting or is the world (particlularly poor areas) rising up in some sort of riot? Are the various terrorist organisations really getting a foot hold?

A pertinent question imo.
I believe it's the manner in which the political leadership responds.
In the past they were more resilient and less emotive when reacting,
rather than the knee-jerck fear-mongers that have been in charge recently.

Journos with the demands of rolling 24hr news & the bloggo-sphere also tend to ramp everything up.

Post WWII we've been involved in what were called "brush fire" actions as the empire dissolved,
were they to have had the focus of 24hr TV then it would have appeared much grimmer than it was.

The one factor that has changed in the UK, is the relatively large muslim indigenous population
which has the potential of producing 'fifth columnists' who present a different
& more serious form of 'gaining a foot-hold'.