“We’ve mishandled Yemen terribly,” former top Pentagon official David Sedney says. “Al Qaeda is stronger today in Yemen than it was a year ago.” The U.S. anti-terror policy of a “light footprint”—drones, special-ops units and training for local forces—isn’t working there, or in Libya, Somalia or the tribal areas of Pakistan, he says. - As Yemen’s Government Falls, So May a U.S. Strategy for Fighting Terror - TIME
As Yemen’s Government Falls, So May a U.S. Strategy for Fighting Terror by Mark Thompson Tuesday January 20 th , 2015 at 4:28 PM TIME 1 Share As the nation awaited President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday—and any new decision on how he plans to wage war on Islamic fundamentalism—one of his key approaches seems on the verge of collapse in Yemen. Shiite Houthi rebels attacked the home of Yemen’s president as they rushed into the presidential palace in Sana’a, the Yemeni capital. Government officials said a coup against President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi was underway. “The President has no control,” a Yemeni government spokesman told CNN. Hadi is a key U.S. ally in the war against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but his grip on power has been pounded by Houthi forces over the past four months. Fighting between Hadi’s Sunni government and the Shiite Houthis has created a vacuum that experts fear AQAP will exploit to expand its po