“Yemen” on The Daily Caller

What Mexico is to the United States’ narcotic black market, Iran is quickly becoming to its neighbors, suggest State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks. American diplomats in both Kuwait and Azerbaijan are looking at Iran as the next large exporter of narcotics to Saudi Arabia, Russia, and other counties in the region. (more)

U.S. Transportation Security Agency (TSA) screeners literally have their hands full these days groping the flying public. Travelers who refuse screening by newly installed full-body “naked” scanners are subjected to invasive pat-downs that include touching children’s and adults’ genitals and women’s breasts. Is all this really necessary, or are there better ways to keep terrorists from blowing up airplanes? (more)

Hunted by U.S. drones and Yemeni authorities, one of the world’s most wanted Islamic terrorist leaders on Monday issued a new video message calling on extremists to ignore the anti-terrorism edicts of Muslim religious authorities and continue their holy war against America and Israel. (more)

When the new Congress convenes in January, all eyes will be fixed on the economy.  There is, however, another policy crisis: nine years have passed since September 11, 2001 and fourteen years since Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S., yet the threat from the al Qaeda network continues to grow.  Meanwhile, the U.S. response remains ad hoc, lacking an overarching strategy and a clear procedural approach to al Qaeda and its affiliated groups.  Congress must help correct this deficit. (more)

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — In a rare public admission, Yemen’s Foreign Minister told CNN that U.S. drones are aiding his country in its campaign against al Qaeda. (more)

The woman stepped off Hadda Street into a pair of courier offices in Yemen’s capital. In FedEx and UPS storefronts tucked along shopping centers and travel agencies in San’a, she mailed two Hewlett-Packard printers to the United States. (more)

SAN’A, Yemen (AP) — A Yemeni judge ordered police Saturday to find a radical U.S.-born cleric “dead or alive” after the al-Qaida-linked preacher failed to appear at his trial for his role in the killing of foreigners. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Western officials are crediting a Saudi intelligence tip they received in early October, nearly three weeks before terrorists in Yemen managed to smuggle mail bombs onto airplanes, with heading off what could have been a series of catastrophic explosions aboard jetliners. (more)

The next two years do not bode well for the United States in relation to the rest of the world. (more)

Billions of pounds of packages bound for the U.S. each year are delivered on passenger flights in which cargo is checked with an electronic system that does not screen for bombs, lawmakers and security experts said Monday. (more)

The midterm elections are about many, many things. The elections have been nationalized by supporters of the Tea Party movement. Establishment Republicans have largely survived primary challenges, only to realize the electorate isn’t embracing them as reasonable voices. Voters are sending a different message entirely: the Democratic establishment — led by President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — is perceived as overreaching, grasping and power-obsessed. It’s a familiar meme; Republicans worth their political salt found this out in both the 2006 and the 2008 elections. (more)

US intelligence officials feared that al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen were plotting to attack the United States and actually intercepted what they now believe were “dry run” shipments to Chicago in mid-September, according to several people briefed on the plot and a senior US official. (more)

Last week’s terror plot to send two explosive-laden packages from Yemen to synagogues in Chicago was far from an isolated incident.  The plot, in fact, likely represents the fifth attempt by the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to strike Western targets in the past ten months.  An AQAP operative attempted to detonate a commercial airliner in the skies over Michigan last Christmas, and the group has unsuccessfully attacked three British diplomatic targets in Yemen this year, including a failed suicide assassination attempt on the British ambassador.  The Christmas Day attack alerted Americans and policymakers to the threat posed by AQAP, and last August the CIA assessed that the Yemen-based franchise eclipsed al Qaeda’s core in Pakistan — frequently referred to as “al Qaeda Prime” — as the most dangerous al Qaeda branch in the world.  Unfortunately, however, the U.S. has failed to develop an effective strategy to combat the terror threat emanating from Yemen. (more)

SAN’A, Yemen (AP) — A leading al-Qaida militant in Yemen who surrendered to Saudi Arabia last month provided the tip that led to the thwarting of the mail bomb plot, Yemeni security officials said Monday. (more)

Al Qaeda bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who is thought to be in Yemen, is linked to two explosive packages found on airplanes Friday, a federal official told CNN Sunday. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser has called Yemen’s leader to make clear that the U.S. is ready help the Yemeni government in the fight against al-Qaida. (more)

Just four days before midterm elections, President Obama went before the nation to address fears of suspicious packages that led to an investigation on three continents. He called the packages a “credible threat” that “apparently” contained explosive material. (more)

WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING ROOM, THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.
4:23 P.M. EDT, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2010  (more)

President Obama was alerted late Thursday night of a possible terrorist threat that has grounded three aircraft in the U.S., according to a statement from White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. (more)

Is America fighting a permanent war, or at least a war that will span generations? From the First Gulf War to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, to the military operations to enforce sanctions on Iraq, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and all our covert military operations in response to terrorist attacks on us in between, we’ve been at war for 20 years, and there is no end in sight. Is this our new reality? (more)