Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield

47. The Tsunami of Change

AUSTRIA AND YEMEN, 2011—In mid-2011, Yemen was caught up in the revolution that was sweeping the Arab world. The popular revolt against oppressive regimes in the region had begun on December 17, 2010, when Mohamed Bouazizi, a twenty-six-year-old street vendor in Tunisia, took the ultimate stand. The young fruit-and-vegetable seller struggled every day in the poor rural city of Sidi Bouzid to make ends meet, facing constant harassment from local police and municipal employees who demanded bribes from him. On this particular day, Tunisian officials stripped him of his only source of income—when they confiscated his cart and goods because he did not have the proper permit. Bouazizi, enraged, ran to the governor’s offices, but the governor refused to meet him. Then, desperate and furious, he went to a nearby gas station, filled a jug with gasoline and stood in the middle of traffic. It was 11:30 in the morning. “How do you expect me to make a living?” he shouted before dousing himself in gasoline. He lit a match and his body erupted in flames.

Within months, massive protests against the US-backed regimes of the Arab world had broken out in Middle Eastern and North African capitals, an uprising that became known as the Arab Spring. Several dictators fell, one after another: Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia was the first to go. On January 25, a rebellion began against Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak that would ultimately bring an end to his regime. Yemenis watched as their Arab brothers and sisters in other countries faced down the dictators that had ruled their lives for as long as they could remember.

Less than two weeks later, tens of thousands poured into a square in central Sana’a and renamed it Change Square. They announced that they would not leave until President Saleh and his family were removed from power. A new issue of Inspire was released just as the protests were spreading in Yemen. Its cover story on the Arab uprisings, “The Tsunami of Change,” was penned by Anwar Awlaki. “The first and probably most important change that this monumental event brought is a mental one. It brought a change to the collective mind of the ummah. The revolution broke the barriers of fear in the hearts and minds that the tyrants couldn’t be removed,” Awlaki wrote. “We do not know yet what the outcome would be, and we do not have to. The outcome doesn’t have to be an Islamic government for us to consider what is occurring to be a step in the right direction.” Awlaki embraced the protests against the US-backed regime in Yemen, writing, “Any weakness in the central government would undoubtedly bring with it more strength for the mujahidin in this blessed land.”

On March 18, 2011, more than 100,000 Yemeni protesters gathered for Friday prayers in the streets near Sana’a University. As the prayers ended and people began dispersing, government security forces and pro-Saleh militiamen opened fire on the crowd, killing more than fifty people. Some of them were shot in the head by snipers. Three days later, a severe blow was dealt to the Saleh regime when the most powerful figure in Yemen’s military, General Ali Mohsin al Ahmar, commander of the 1st Armored Division, threw his support behind the protests and vowed to defend Yemen’s “peaceful youth revolution.” Other senior military figures soon followed suit. Senior civilian officials, including scores of ambassadors and diplomats, announced their resignations. Important tribal leaders, long the most crucial element of Saleh’s grip on power, swung to the opposition.

As Yemen’s revolution was heating up, the United States was beginning a bombing campaign to support armed rebels in Libya that would ultimately bring down the regime of Colonel Muammar el Qaddafi. But in Yemen, the US government was playing a very different game. The prospect of losing Ali Abdullah Saleh made Washington very nervous. After all, AQAP in Yemen had been declared the most significant external threat facing the US homeland. Those running the US military and intelligence operations agreed with Awlaki’s assessment that instability in Yemen would benefit AQAP. In Egypt, longtime US-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak had been overthrown, as had leaders of other Washington client regimes. Inspire published an ad in its Arab Spring issue that featured a picture of Ali Abdullah Saleh holding his finger up to his mouth in a “shhhh” motion. “Hey Ali, Mubarak just fell,” the ad read. “Guess who’s joining the party next?”

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other US officials condemned the violence in Yemen, they stopped far short of calling for an end to the regime or for international military action to confront the brutality of the Yemeni security forces. Instead, the US position was to call for a “political solution.” A few days after the massacre in Sana’a, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a visit to Moscow, was asked if the United States still backed Saleh. “I don’t think it’s my place to talk about internal affairs in Yemen,” Gates replied. What he said next spoke volumes about US priorities: “We are obviously concerned about the instability in Yemen. We consider Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is largely located in Yemen, to be perhaps the most dangerous of all the franchises of Al Qaeda right now. And so instability and diversion of attention from dealing with AQAP is certainly my primary concern about the situation.” At the time, the Obama administration was in the midst of ramping up its training and equipping of Yemen’s military and security forces, including some of the very forces that were now repressing peaceful antigovernment protests.

“The feckless US response is highlighting how shortsighted our policy is there,” Joshua Foust, the former DIA Yemen analyst, told me at the time. “We meekly consent to Saleh’s brutality out of a misguided fear that our counterterror programs will be cut off, apparently not realizing that, in doing so, we are practically guaranteeing the next government will threaten those very programs.” Gregory Johnsen told me that he shared some of Washington’s concerns but said the myopic obsession with terrorism was counterproductive. Saleh’s fall “could certainly have a negative impact on US CT operations in Yemen,” he said, adding, “I’m particularly worried that AQAP is gaining weapons and money in some parts of the country as the military begins to break down in outlying areas.” Yemen “has a number of more pressing problems that will, if left unchecked, all help AQAP gain strength in the coming years,” Johnsen cautioned. “In Yemen, there is no magic missile solution to the problem of AQAP. The US simply can’t bomb them out of existence.”

Judging from its policies, the Obama administration apparently thought otherwise.

ANWAR AWLAKI’S YOUNGEST BROTHER, Ammar, was nothing like him. While Anwar embraced a radical interpretation of Islam and was preaching for jihad against the United States, Ammar was pursuing a career working for an oil company in Yemen. Ammar was Canadian-educated and politically well connected. He dressed in blue jeans, wore hip Armani eyeglasses and sported a goatee. His hair was slicked back and he had the latest iPhone. The last time he had seen Anwar was in 2004. In February 2011, Ammar was in Vienna, Austria, on a business trip. He had just returned to his hotel after sampling some local cuisine with an Austrian colleague when the phone rang in his room. “Hello, Ammar?” said a man with an American accent. “My wife knows your wife and I have a gift for her.” Ammar went down to the lobby and saw a tall, thin white man in a crisp, blue suit. They shook hands. “Can we talk a bit?” the man asked, and the two men sat down in the lobby. “I don’t actually have a gift for your wife. I came from the States and I need to talk to you about your brother.”

“I’m guessing you’re either FBI or CIA,” Ammar said. The man smiled. Ammar asked him for identification. “Come on, we’re not FBI, we don’t have badges to identify us,” the man said. “The best I can do is I can show you my diplomatic passport.”

“Call me Chris,” the American said.

“Was that your name yesterday?” Ammar replied.

Chris made it clear he worked for the CIA and told Ammar that the United States had a task force dedicated to “killing or capturing your brother.” He told Ammar that the United States wanted to bring Anwar in alive, but that time was running out. “He’s going to be killed,” Chris told him, “so why don’t you help in saving his life by helping us capture him?” He added, “You know, there’s a $5 million bounty on your brother’s head. You won’t be helping us for free.”

When Ammar told Chris he didn’t want the money, the American replied, “That $5 million would help raise [Anwar’s] kids. America is very frank, and I’ll just say it to you. There’s a $5-million-dollar bounty, and it’s up for grabs. And instead of someone else getting it, why don’t you get it, and help Anwar’s kids get raised decently?”

“I don’t think there’s any need for me to meet you [again],” Ammar told Chris, reiterating that he had no idea where Anwar was. Still, Chris told Ammar to think it over. Discuss it with his family. “We can meet when you go to Dubai in two weeks.” Ammar was stunned. His tickets for that trip had not even been purchased and the details were still being worked out. Chris gave Ammar an e-mail address—a Hotmail account—and said he’d be in touch.

Ammar returned to Yemen. “I talked to my mom and my brother [not Anwar] about it. And they said, ‘You stop it. Don’t even reply to them, don’t contact them again. Just stop.’” Ammar ignored the rest of the e-mails from Chris.