Iran's Foothold in Yemen
The Wall Street Journal reports that Yemeni and Western officials are concerned about Iran’s growing influence in Yemen.
This comes of no surprise to my CBN News colleague Eric Stakelbeck, who has been reporting for at least four years about al Qaeda and Iranian involvement there.
In early 2009, Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policytold Stakelbeck, “The one area that has not received significant attention, ironically, is that Iran does have some type of relationship with members of al Qaeda."
Testifying before Congress this week, FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce revealed details of a foiled al Qaeda bomb plot targeting the New York Stock Exchange. Seems the plot originated in Yemen.
Joyce did not say if Iran had ties to the al Qaeda terrorist who planned the attack, but U.S. intelligence officials are believed to be gravely concerned about Iranian support of Shiite rebels and terrorists there.
That’s because not only do they use Yemen to train and plot attacks against the United States, but the Bab al Mandab strait—the narrow waterway separating Yemen from the Horn of Africa—is a crucial choke point for ships entering the Red Sea (and the Suez Canal) from the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Iran and its Yemeni allies could possibly close off that strategic shipping lane in response to an Israeli or American air strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.
Earlier this year, the Yemeni government confiscated illegal Iranian arms shipments being sent to Shiite rebels in southern Yemen. The shipment included 199 explosive packages used for IEDs, Katyusha rockets, and surface to air missiles (SAMs).
The narration is in Arabic, but you can view video of the confiscated weapons here:
Also, in October 2009, a leading Yemeni cleric warned about Iranian involvement in the Yemeni civil war. View the Al Jazeera story here:
So, as President Obama steps up military support for Sunni rebels fighting against the Iranian-backed Assad regime in Syria, it also may be time for America to act more aggressively to counteract Iran’s foothold in Yemen.