The top counterterrorism official for the White House admitted Thursday that the overthrow of the Yemeni government by Islamic extremists had taken U.S. intelligence services by surprise.
National Counterterrorism Center Director Nick Rasmussen told the Senate Intelligence Committee the Yemeni army’s response to the advancing rebels was similar to Iraqi forces who simply laid down arms before ISIS last summer.
“As the Houthi advances toward Sanaa [Yemen’s capital] took place,” Rasmussen said, “they weren’t opposed in many places. … The situation deteriorated far more rapidly than we expected.”
The terrorists overran the government last September, deposing the U.S. backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
The terrorists are providing a safe haven in Yemen for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who carried out the terrorist attacks in Paris on magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher market.
The U.S., Britain and France have closed their embassies in the country and Britain & France have told their citizens to immediately leave Yemen.
Al Qaeda killed at least 33 people on Monday during an attack on a city in central Yemen.
The terrorists seized a central Yemeni city as they’ve launched an offensive against the Shi’ite Muslim Houthis that are in control of the Yemeni capital. The country is considered a prize for the terrorist group because it shares a border with Saudi Arabia.
Al Qaeda marched into al-Odayn, a city of 200,000, and raised their flag over the city’s local government offices. Witnesses say the invasion took only a few minutes and that local officials gave no resistance to the terrorist group.
“They came in at midday, invaded the town, chanting Allahu Akbar (God is Greater) and seized the government compound unopposed,” the witness said.
The Houthi forces have used the capital as a base to spread out across the nation in an attempt to drive the terrorists out of the city.
A woman died two weeks after suffering burns all over her body in an act of sabotage by Islamists in her village.
A woman named Nazeera went into her kitchen to cook breakfast when the room suddenly burst into flames. Her four children watched as she burned alive on the floor of their home until her husband Saeed was able to put out the flames and rush her to a hospital.
Nazeera suffered third degree burns all over her body. Doctors provided treatment to minimize her pain but she suffered for two weeks before she died.
When Saeed returned home from his wife’s bedside, a relative told him his wife’s death was no accident.
The family’s Muslim neighbors, who were furious the family has accepted Christs a few years ago, had been looking for a way to kill the family in a way that appeared to be an accident. The neighbors bragged to the Islamic relative of the family that they replaced the family’s cooking oil with a form of gasoline so it would explode when she tried to cook.
Saeed and his children are now in another country under new names. They had obtained papers to leave the country two days before the explosion.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did something almost unheard of for a terrorist organization: they apologized for an attack.
The group attacked the Yemeni Ministry of Defense on December 5th but one of their members apparently decided to attack a nearby hospital as part of the assault. The bombing and shooting in Sanaa left dozens of people dead.
The leader of AQAP released a video Sunday saying that the hospital assault was the mistake of one lone fighter and that he had orders not to attack the hospital or a nearby mosque.
“We confess to this mistake and fault. We offer our apologies and condolences to the families of the victims,” leader Qassim Al-Raimi said in the video. “We did not want your lost ones; we did not target them on purpose. This is not of our religion or our morals.”
Raimi went on to say the terrorist organization would financially compensate those killed in the hospital attack.
The Israeli Counter Terrorism Bureau has released a report showing that al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists groups are planning a major focus on Israeli and Jewish targets over the next few weeks.
The report listed dozens of nations where the CTB was “concrete” proof of a terrorist threat. Israeli citizens were urged to immediately leave nations Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon among others. A travel restriction was put in place to other nations such as Libya, Tunisia and Sudan. Continue reading →
Ibrahim al-Asiri, the master bomb maker for Al-Qaeda who is a major target for international intelligence groups, has possibly been wounded in one of last week’s U.S. drone strikes in Yemen.
NBC reported that American officials are feverishly trying to confirm reports that al-Asiri was inside a car targeted for carrying four members of the terrorist network. Two of the terrorists were killed and another wounded along with al-Asiri. Continue reading →
A drone strike in Yemen Thursday has killed six al-Qaeda terrorists in one of the organization’s former strongholds according to a Yemeni military official.
The drone strike is the 6th in the last 10 days as actions have been taken by the U.S. and Yemeni military in light of reports al-Qaeda was planning a massive terrorist attack against infrastructure and oil pipelines. Continue reading →
A pair of U.S. drone strikes killed al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen overnight as officials urged all Americans to immediately leave the country.
The four terrorists killed in the air strike were not on Yemen’s 25 Most Wanted list that was released on Monday. Continue reading →
Al-Qaeda has released a statement that the group’s #2 leader in Yemen has been killed in a U.S. drone strike.
Saeed al-Shihri had survived multiple drone strikes including one last year that the Yemeni government said had killed him. The new report is the first time at Al-Qaeda has confirmed the death of al-Shihri. Continue reading →
The head of al-Qaeda in Yemen has released a recording threatening Americans and saying the kind of bombs used in Boston were within “everyone’s reach.”
Qassin al-Rimi claims the attack in Boston shows the U.S.’s weakness in security and urged Muslims to “defend their religion”. Continue reading →
