Yemen cable gives al-Qaida new 'recruiting' tool
Envoy's report released by WikiLeaks indicates Yemeni leaders 'lied' about air strikes to cover up U.S. involvement
Nov. 30, 2010 (NBC News) -- The U.S. media paid scant attention in June when Amnesty International released a report charging that U.S. cruise missiles carrying cluster bombs had struck the village of al Majalah in southern Yemen on Dec. 17, 2009, killing 41 civilians, including 14 women and 21 children.
Pentagon officials declined to discuss the matter at the time. But accusations of direct U.S. participation in that bombing and others in Yemen that reportedly caused civilian casualties quickly became a principal theme of al-Qaida propaganda.
That theme is now likely to get even more traction as a result of the disclosure by WikiLeaks of an unusually revealing State Department cable in which Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and his top ministers appear to agree to cover up the extent of the U.S. military role in disputed air strikes in Yemen.
“President Saleh's comments will be translated and used over and over again by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) as a recruiting and propaganda tool,” Gregory Johnsen, a leading U.S. expert on the terror organization’s Yemeni affiliate, told NBC on Monday. “His statements and those of his top ministers of deceiving and lying to the Yemeni public and parliament … fit seamlessly into a narrative that AQAP has been peddling in Yemen for years. This is something AQAP will take immediate and lasting advantage of.”
