Study Suggests Yemen Strikes Are Radicalizing Population
May 30, 2012, 2:05 pm ET by Azmat Khan
The escalating campaign of U.S. air strikes targeting suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen — where most of the organization’s significant, known terror plots in the last few years have originated – has brought ”a marked radicalization of the local population” and is “driving tribesmen to join a network linked to terrorist plots against the United States,” according to a new study reported in The Washington Post today. (View our interactive map of the strikes and plots in Yemen over the last decade.)
The study was based on more than 20 interviews with “tribal leaders, victims’ relatives, human rights activists and officials from four provinces in southern Yemen,” who said civilians had also died in the U.S. strikes.
In last night’s report, Al Qaeda in Yemen, correspondent Ghaith Abdul-Ahad went deep inside the country’s radical heartland to investigate Al Qaeda’s rapid rise in southern Yemen, and its efforts to win over the local population. In the clip above, he observes how in dangerous areas like the Shabwa region, surviving or being killed in a U.S. strike is seen as a badge of honor. In the city of Aden, Abdul-Ahad also saw how thousands of Yemenis have been displaced by army shelling, aerial bombardment, drones and Yemeni army fighter jets.
Critics are concerned that the ramped-up U.S. strikes in Yemen — which have killed top Al Qaeda targets including USS Cole suspect Fahd al-Quso and American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, but have also killed civilians — are in fact strengthening Al Qaeda.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/al-qaeda-in-yemen/study-suggests-yemen-strikes-are-radicalizing-population/
