US Special Forces Evacuated From Yemen As Security Situation Deteriorates

[Purveyor]

Source: Telegraph UK

By Harriet Alexander

5:29PM GMT 21 Mar 2015

America withdrew its remaining 100 special forces troops from Yemen on Saturday, in a sign of the rapid unravelling of the country – which on Friday was hit by one of its worst ever terrorist attacks.

The US soldiers left their base near Al-Houta, after al-Qaeda seized the city.

The US commandos, including Green Berets and Navy Seals, have been training Yemeni military forces in counterterrorism operations, but the Americans have not been involved in direct ground combat maneuvers against militants.

Sources told NBC News that the US Special Operations Forces have been based in remote areas of Yemen and considered relatively secure from enemy threats. But one source said that with this week’s deadly surge in sectarian violence, evacuating American commandos makes sense.

“The threat is too high,” the source said. “Why take the risk?”

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/yemen/11487729/US-special-forces-evacuated-from-Yemen-as-security-situation-deteriorates.html

[Abouttime]

1. Thank you Bush and neocons

Another country falls to terrorists thanks to our ill advised adventure in Iraq.
Bush's failures will still be haunting this planet for decades to come.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Obama has been president for the last six years.

[840high]

3. shhh - doesn't matter it seems.

[MADem]

4. He didn't start two wars--he ended them. nt

[whereisjustice]

6. pretty sure non-stop bombing of Yemen with drones, mostly killing civillians, totally counts as war

you think?

[MADem]

7. Nope. nt

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. Okay, what do you call it? We are launching deadly attacks in another country.

A police action?

The Zippy the Drone Show?

[whereisjustice]

5. Who knew our drone policy would just piss people off even more?

[geek tragedy]

9. Not everything revolves around drones.

Shiites and Sunnis have been killing each other for over a thousand years.

[whereisjustice]

11. wow, a noise from the right wing echo chamber made it all the way to my lil post!

[geek tragedy]

12. Basic world history is not a rightwing talking point.

I suggest you read more.

[whereisjustice]

15. Idiotic drone policy is writing the latest history chapter. Denial is a right wing talking point.

[Comrade Grumpy]

13. I wonder if we overstate the Shia-Sunni divide.

It is clearly evident now, but it may be facile to just say they've "been killing each other for over a thousand years."

I'm no Middle East historian, but my understanding is that there have been long periods not marked by internecine strife.

And I suspect that most of the strife now is whipped up by Wahhabis. They really seem to like to blow up Shiites in their mosques, from Pakistan to Yemen.

And I wonder how much the sectarian strife is just a cover for nationalist rivalries.

[geek tragedy]

14. Or was it tamped down by imperial powers and autocrats?

UK, France, and the Ottomans imposed an authoritarian superstructure that kept a lid on things. And figures like Papa Assad, Saddam etc kept it in place.

Of course, a flaw in that scheme is that where you had minority Shiites ruling Sunnis (Syria) pr minority Sunnis ruling Shiites (Iraq) that tended to exacerbate tensions.

Certainly Wahhabism has been a horrible influence, but can't be blamed for clashes between Saddam's secular Sunni Iraqi state invading Iran.

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. I don't know enough to say.

How much of this minority rule is the result of national boundaries imposed by colonial powers?

Should those boundaries be redrawn? Along sectarian lines? That hardly seems a progressive approach.

I don't think Shia and Sunni are doomed to kill each other forever, any more than Protestants and Catholics were doomed to kill each other forever. Somebody has to whip that shit up.

I recall seeing a tweet or instagram or something of a mixed Iraqi family. They said they were "iraqi sushi" (Sunni and Shia).

[Nihil]

19. I don't know about "overstate" but you (collectively) have certainly been actively fuelling it.

Yes, partially through the connection to the alliance with the (Wahhabist) Saudi murderers
but also through the ever-present profit motive for the MIC.

It's just so much easier to blame "feuding Moslems" ...

[FrodosPet]

20. If Bush had not had access to that time machine

He would not have killed Hussein ibn Ali and all would be good today.

Damn you H.G. Wells and your infernal contraption!

[AngryAmish]

10. Yemen is the model for the battle against Daesh.

We are so fucked.

[davsand]

17. When you have to evac the special ops guys you have a problem.

All joking aside, am I the only one that sees that as an issue? Aren't they supposed to be the uber-trained / move like a ninja guys? They learn how to eat worms and stuff to survive in the wilderness, and THEY need an evac? I'd think they'd want a few of those guys there just for recon purposes...

Serves to highlight just how messed up things are over there. I hope they all get home safe.



Laura

[davidpdx]

18. Another Middle East country poised to become a disaster

Which one is next?