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The Al Qaeda conference call

This morning’s report of an intercepted conference call with participation of up to 20 Al Qaeda bosses and operatives goes some way to explaining the nonsensically broad travel warning and embassy closings of recent days.  The odd configuration of closings apparently was derived from the conference call.  This suggests what anyone who knows the American bureaucracy will have already guessed:  we don’t pay anyone to be careless, so the system is exceedingly risk averse (without however necessarily decreasing the risk).

Also of interest is this:  Washington responded to the intercept in part with drone strikes in Yemen.  Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula escalated the threat, causing the evacuation of Embassy Sanaa and disruption of American aid programs in a country desperately in need of them.  Now both Al Qaeda and its opponents seem to be massing in Sanaa for a showdown. A movie script along these lines would hardly be credible.

Evacuation of civilian Americans from Yemen has serious implications.  It is hard to picture how the flow of personnel from the Yemeni hinterland into Al Qaeda can be stemmed without solving some of Yemen’s problems with water, poverty and governance.  There is every reason to believe that the drone war increases Al Qaeda recruitment, however vital it may appear to the joint chiefs in the short term.

This is a frustrating situation:  a terrorist network conference call stymies the world’s last remaining super power.  Ayman al Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s chief executive, has to be reasonably pleased with the effect he is having at so far minimal cost (those few “militants” killed by drones in Yemen).  It might even be that the conference call was a setup, conducted entirely for the benefit of the National Security Agency’s Arabic speakers.  The subsequent leaks will have indicated to Al Qaeda a good deal about American intercept capabilities, though they likely already knew most of that.

President Obama was right to underline last night on Jay Leno that Americans are far more likely to be killed in automobile accidents than in terrorist attacks.  That was true even in 2001, when Al Qaeda killed close to 3000 Americans.  The numbers in most years are well under 30, few of them in the United States and not all by Islamic extremists.

But that won’t satisfy the Administration’s critics, who will emphasize that the conference call suggests Al Qaeda central has been reconstituted and is directing its franchisees once again.  Al Qaeda is certainly showing itself a resilient and resourceful opponent, one that manages to tie up gigantic American resources with minimum effort.

What should we be doing in this situation?  Protecting our people is certainly priority one.  But making sure they can conduct their diplomatic, consular, economic assistance, and other functions is also vital.  I know no one who thought we were doing enough on the civilian side in Yemen before the recent threat emerged.  Just restoring our people to their original effort will not be sufficient.

We need a much beefed up civilian effort in Yemen.  That isn’t going to happen so long as the terrorist threat is out there.  The terrorists know it.  They also know they don’t actually have to carry out an attack to block governance and development efforts.  They need only get us to evacuate our civilians.  Yemeni employees will carry on, at great risk, but they will not be fully effective beyond the humanitarian realm without Americans or third country nationals.

A terrorist attack now might underline the point and prevent us from returning them any time soon, but the threat has already had a serious impact.

PS: On the ingredients of what is needed, see for example Daniel Green’s piece.