Yemen expelled 16,000 al Qaeda suspects?

Mon, 06/16/2008 - 11:32am

On Sunday, Yemen's defense minister told reporters that his country has expelled some 16,000 suspected al Qaeda members since 2005. If true, that's an astounding and disturbing figure.

What are we to make of his claim? I see a couple possibilities:

  1. Yemen is/was crawling with potential terrorists.
  2. Yemen's definition of who constitutes al Qaeda member is extremely broad.
  3. Struggling to handle an influx of refugees from Somalia, Yemen finds it convenient to classify people as potential terrorists in order to deport them.
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One, Two-hoo

by RufusJSquirrel on Mon, 06/16/2008 - 11:33pm

Three.

Migrants, they meant

by JaneNovak on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 6:00am

The Yemeni government retracted the statement one day after it was made.

Jane Novak
http://armiesofliberation.com
http://janenovak.wordpress.com

Thanks, Jane

by Blake Hounshell on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 7:03am

It figures.

FYI, on the subject of

by JaneNovak on Tue, 06/17/2008 - 7:37am

FYI, on the subject of Yemen, later today three USS Cole families are going to issue a statement demanding Yemen re-imprison the convicted killers of their sons (al-Badawi and al-Quso) and release the imprisoned Yemeni journalist Abdulkarim al-Khaiwani.

Its really an impressive gesture that they included al-Khaiwani's freedom in their statement. As his friend I appreciate it, but it says something beyond him and Yemen and the al-Qaeda attack on the USS Cole.

Jane Novak
http://armiesofliberation.com
http://janenovak.wordpress.com