15 May 2014
Essay published: “Is Yemen’s Government Complicit with Al-Qaeda?”
On Lawfare, Sama’a Al-Hamdani posted an essay entitled The Foreign Policy Essay: Is Yemen’s Government Complicit with Al-Qaeda?, which discusses whether the Yemeni government is doing its best to combat terrorism. The essay poses various reasons for why the Yemeni government is not doing its best to combat terrorism, but rather may be complicit with terrorist groups. For example, Al-Hamdani discusses the frequency in which prison breaks occur, allowing detained terrorists to escape, and how these breakouts usually result with the help of prison guards either directly or indirectly. Moreover, Al-Hamdani suggests that some members of the security sector collaborate with terrorists and even some terrorists are able to infiltrate the Yemeni military and security services to carry out attacks. Al-Hamdani argues various reasons for this complicity, for example, that Yemeni military and security forces are simply scared to die at the hands of the terrorists and would rather cooperate to prevent such death, or that some military and security forces are bribed by terrorists to assist or look the other way while the terrorists operate. Furthermore, the Yemeni government’s lack of accountability and concern for these issues within its military leads to the conclusion that Yemen is complicit with terrorism.
Source: Lawfare | The Foreign Policy Essay: Is Yemen’s Government Complicit with Al-Qaeda?