General David Petraeus: interview with The Times Online UK
Yemen
How worried are you that it could become the next Afghanistan in terms of providing a safe haven for al-Qaeda to launch global attacks.A number of us have been focused on Yemen for well over two years.
From the time when we were examining how foreign fighters were being trained and then how foreign fighter facilitators were operating who enabled foreign fighters to come into Iraq through Syria and many different roads lead to what was then termed al-Qaeda in Yemen and this past year was franchised by the al-Qaeda senior leadership as al-Qaeda in the Arabia Peninsular.In 2006 there was a very important prison break in which the current leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular and some 20 to 25 other important al-Qaeda members were able to escape from prison in Yemen. We knew even further back that al-Qaeda had a presence in Yemen. It tried to sink the Cole, did do considerable damage to it and have carried out various attacks over the years on various Western targets and Yemeni governmental targets again in various locations in Yemen.
And we saw again links to al-Qaeda in Yemen that included foreign fighter facilitators, the establishment of training camps and a variety of different communications all traced back to Yemen that helped facilitate the flow of foreign fighters from various countries in the greater region into Damascus and then on into Iraq where a number of them were blowing themselves up or providing expertise in explosives or other tactics, techniques and procedures being practiced by al-Qaeda in Iraq.
At that time we were focused on it in 2007 there were over 120 foreign fighters per month entering Iraq. That flow has now been reduced to under 10 a month by the actions that we and our Iraqi partners and some tremendous UK Special Operations forces took together inside Iraq and then by actions that regional partners took to make it much more difficult for military-aged males to fly from their countries to Damascus on a one-way plane ticket, for example.
And then also a number of different operations that were carried out through co-ordinated intelligence and other activities as a result of the focus that we were all taking collectively on the effort to reduce that flow of fighters into Iraq. So coming into this job in late October 2008 I announced right away that we were going to focus more attention and resources on Yemen. Made an initial trip to Yemen shortly after taking command. We developed in concert with the embassy in Yemen and with intelligence organisations and with the State Department a military campaign plan for Yemen that I approved in late April of 2009.
Made another trip to Yemen in July that has now been acknowledged. That was a very, very positive trip and we launched the efforts to expand our assistance to certain Yemeni forces, expand our intelligence sharing, and development efforts and all of that led to the ability to enable the actions that have been taken against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula over the course of the past couple of months. The most well known of which were various strikes on December 17, December 24 and a variety of other actions that have taken place in which cumulatively two training camps have been destroyed, three suicide bombers were killed, the fourth one who was with them was wounded and captured with his suicide vest still on by the Yemeni Sensitive Site Exploitation Team, one quite senior al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular leader was killed, others have been wounded or very nearly missed and a degree of disruption has been inflicted on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular. But certainly activities continue, threat streams continue and efforts to plan attacks in Yemen and elsewhere in the world continue.
You want to double the military assistance given to Yemen. In what form will this be? Training? Drones?
The large ticket items that were in programmes that are part of the defence budget that were proved by congress and signed by the President are for items of equipment, such as helicopters, some coast guard vessels and then a variety of other less expensive items of military equipment and then some training, education.
What about airstrikes and drone attacks. Will that have to happen given the threat?
Well the Yemeni forces in fact carried out an air strike most recently two or three days ago. It is possible that those Yemeni activities could continue.
Can you envisage any further US involvement in terms of troops there, any deployment?
Obviously it depends on what the Yemeni leadership wants. They have very clearly ruled out the possibility of US forces being involved in ground combat operations and have done so publicly and that is not in the realm of the possible. But again a variety of different training and assistance activities based on a schedule that we agreed mutually is certainly in the realm of the possible and indeed the kind of activities that we carry on with the majority of the countries in the central command area of responsibility.
