SERIES: Fugitives Of The Peninsula – (Chapter 39 – Signature Strikes)

Written by Nolan R Beasley

Segment X – Chaos Sans Conclusion (Chapter 39 – Signature Strikes)

As we delve further into 2012, the saga of the al-Dhahab family merges with the chaos of southern Yemen and the ongoing AQAP paramilitary assaults. AQAP conducts familiar, simple, yet effective operations against foreign interests. Simultaneously, American authorities prepare to expand their airstrikes to reach even more combatants in a method similar to the signature strikes of parallel theatres.

Weakening Regime

The Saleh regime had essentially been toppled, but the southern insurgency had only a very small effect on the matter.  Tribal alliances, defecting ministers and generals (even as high up as General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar [1]), protests, and public revolts led to the shift in power; and AQAP could claim no real part in the change of governance.  They also could not claim that the regime change led to a nation of Shariah law as the jihadists desired.  Therefore, they transferred their ire for the Saleh government over to the new Hadi government.  From the time of the Awlaki assassination forward, attacks and assassinations continued onward.  There were a multitude of bombings and ambushes against the Yemeni security forces [2].  As for assassinations, air force Colonel Amin al-Shami was killed in Lahaj province (Oct 11), head of anti-terrorism police Ali al-Haji was killed in a car bombing in Abyan (Oct 28), Lt. Colonel Khalid Saleh al-Wasmani, head of military police investigations in Shabwa was killed in an ambush (Dec 5), and Colonel Sadan Mohamed al-Sufi, a commander of the 201st Armored Brigade (rumored to have killed Nasir al-Wuhaishi in battle in August) was killed in an ambush in Lahaj [2].  This rounded out the year, but other attacks also ran rampant.  The New Year began with the assassinations of Saleh al-Jabri, the warden of a Political Prison in Sanaa outside of a Dhammar hospital, and Mubarak Burafah, a ranking police official in Hadramout [2].  Militants had also attacked an Aden hotel due to its serving of alcohol [2].  The spread of religious radical ideology was going unchecked in the south. 

The Yemenis had responded poorly in terms of arrests thus far, yet they did apprehend AQAP militant Mosaed al-Barbari on December 13, 2011 with five of his men in Jawf province [2,3].  Barbari and his men were sitting on a huge weapons cache and were not just planning internal attacks but had visions of perpetrating strikes on Western targets [2,3].  They were also funneling supplies, arms, and men to the fighting in the south [2].  Barbari was a member of Ali Abdullah Naji al-Harithi’s cell which had been sent back to Yemen from Iraq by Zarqawi in order to carry out his orders [4].  Barbari, like Harithi was acquitted and freed by the Yemenis [4,5].    

By February 25, 2012, Abdulrahab Mansur Hadi was preparing to take the oath of office and become Yemen’s first President other than Saleh since 1978 [6].  In Mukallah, Hadhramout, AQAP was also in preparation.  They were poised to send a message to the Americans and the new Yemeni government.  Abu Muhjin al-Sayari, an AQAP suicide bomber, drove his bomb laden pick-up truck into the front entrance of the Presidential Palace in Hadhramout, killing 26 elite Republican Guard troops and severely distracting from the new President’s swearing in [2,6,7].  AQAP subsequentlyannounced responsibility for Sayari and his attack [7]. 

Familial Strife

Meanwhile tribal negotiations had accomplished what the the threat of further Yemeni military action could not, and forced Tariq al-Dhahab and his men to retreat from Radaa, Baydah province, just a few days after they procured the city for themselves [8].  One of the primary men dispatched to assist in the negotiations was a Yemeni military officer who was also an al-Qaida sympathizer [9].  Adnan al-Qadhi was a religious radical with al-Qaida’s black flag displayed proudly on his house [9].  However, he had refused thus far to partake in the bitter southern fighting.  In the end, he even seemingly accomplished some positive results by convincing Dhahab and his men to back away from violence in Radaa [9].  That being said, his reasoning for removing Dhahab from Radaa was a fear that the Americans would gain more and more control over Yemen’s faltering government [9].  Dhahab and his men had initially demanded the release of 400 jihadist prisoners from Yemeni prisons in the negotiations [10].  Eventually Ansar al-Shariah withdrew from Radaa and the Yemeni government released 15 radical detainees [11,12].  But one can easily see the flaw of an AQAP sympathizer negotiating with the AQAP political wing for the retaking of the municipality.  Ansar al-Shariah then released a statement explaining their rationale for the retreat, stating that negotiations had led to the implementation of Shariah law in the city, and that Dhahab and his men could also operate freely within [13].  In fact, the militants had merely withdrawn to the outskirts of the city and still had influence and control within [11].  The last of the demands was the release of the 15 prisoners, the first of which Nasir Abdulrab al-Dhafari, was presented by the government to show that they were serious with the compromise [13].  Of the other 14 released prisoners, one was Tariq’s own brother Nabil al-Dhahab [11,12].  Nabil had literally been schooled in radicalism during his youth in Yemen, and thus had made the decision to devote himself to jihad [11].  Yet Nabil was captured in Syria while attempting to cross the border into Iraq in 2006.  His extradition by Syria to Yemen resulted in his imprisonment until the negotiations for Radaa had freed him [11,12].  All in all, men like Tariq al-Dhahab and Adnan al-Qadhi had played games with law and justice, managing to free dangerous militants, and maintain the AQAP stranglehold on Radaa.  For Tariq’s family patriarch, his brother Hizam, the embarrassment this caused the family name was overwhelming and he was left brooding over his next move [11]. 

The situation in Baydah province thus took a dramatic turn.  On February 16, 2012, Hizam al-Dhahab traveled to the outskirts of Radaa, specifically the Dhahabs’ ancestral home of Manasseh [11,14].  Upon arrival, he entered a mosque with three of his men, as this was where his brother Tariq and his followers were now entrenched and living [11,14].  Upon entrance, Hizam argued with, then shot his younger brother, purportedly for ignoring warnings to cease allying himself with religious radicals, submitted to him by his family [11,12,14].  Furthermore, Tariq’s men had just killed two election officials and four of their bodyguards, thus driving Hizam to the point of murder [15].  Tariq and five of his bodyguards perished in the mosque, while Hizam escaped to his own compound [11,12,14].  Despite the withdrawal and the implementation of Shariah law, Tariq himself had remained near Radaa, continuing to dominate the community, and thus became a target for his brother’s wrath.  AQAP explained that Yemeni intelligence was to blame, insinuating that they had exploited the internal conflict in the Dhahab family and recruited Hizam for the mission [16].  While Hizam was a supporter of the government [11], the likely answer is simply that he did not want the family being led in such a militant direction [15].  With his brother’s death, Hizam ventured to quickly escape and to consolidate control over the rest of the family and Radaa [11,12,15,16].  This was a short lived effort however, as the next day Tariq’s Ansar al-Shariah followers descended upon Radaa and fought Hizam and his men at his compound [11,12,15,16].   Tariq’s brother Qaed is believed to have led the assault which also included a car bomb used against the compound [60-11].  Eventually 16 were killed, including Hizam, his son Ali, and nephew Ahmed Ali [15,16].  Ahmed al-Dhahab, yet another brother who had sided with Tariq was also killed in the clash [11,15].  This left Qaed and Nabil al-Dhahab to consolidate control over the radical portions of the family and the Ansar al-Shariah group in Baydah province [11,12,15].  Within a day, Qaed was already gaining control over and support from the militants, with his brother Nabil being a mental mess after years of captivity and torture [11,15].  With Hizam dead, the overall leadership of the Dhahab family, fell to another brother:  Abdulrauf [11].  A dilemma ensued in which Abdulrauf would have to choose between leaning the family toward the militancy of Tariq, or a path more consistent with the government. 

As February ended and Qaed al-Dhahab inherited command of the jihadist presence in Baydah province, the Yemenis were ushering in a new era of governance [17].  As they did this, the Americans reaffirmed their relationship with the Yemeni government in terms of counterterrorism [18].  The new President Hadi was to be a major partner in the efforts against jihadists [18].  As such, AQAP and the militants escalated their war on the fledgeling administration while US forces continued their own campaign in response.  On March 1 in Aden, an armored vehicle carrying US intelligence officers was ambushed by fierce gun fire [19].  In the aftermath, both Ansar al-Shariah and AQAP released statements claiming they had managed to assassinate a CIA officer, both in return for the strikes against their own leadership, and as a message to the US [19,20].  The group predicted that the CIA and US military were in a preparatory mode for a massive military action in the nation [20].  This was an attempt at rallying the common Yemeni against the Americans.  The Americans themselves reported no casualties in the incident [19].

Spreading Plague

It is important to note again that despite the fierce fighting of 2011, AQAP still held large swathes of land in Abyan province, to include several towns and large portions of the city of Zinjibar [21,22,23].  The Yemenis’ claims of victory over the militants were premature; a not terribly surprising revelation.  AQAP continued to govern their occupied territory via sharia law, while at the same time offering reinforced infrastructure for the local populace [23].  This allowed them to make some gains with their subjects, as they provided food, water, and supplies, but only on conditions that the people in return provide support to AQAP [23].  Wuhaishi came to champion the idea of implementing sharia law via a long term process so as not to completely upend the tribal societies they were ruling, yet by the early months of 2012, sharia law had been force fed to the locals, breeding tension throughout [23].  Meanwhile, the Yemeni military having made some gains in order to free the 25th Mechanized Brigade in Zinjibar the year before, had yet to completely wipe away AQAP military forces and influence from the bleeding Abyan province [22,24].  The 25th Mechanized Brigade was still subject to daily attacks and harassment from the AQAP forces controlling large sections of the city, even though their besieged state had been lifted the previous September [24].  AQAP was described as highly organized and the pressure they applied to the Yemeni military was intense.  One soldier described it as akin to being on an island, surrounded by a sea of al-Qaida [24].  The catalyst for action against AQAP seemed to be protection of the vital port city of Aden [25].  As such, Yemeni military units set up in locations outside of Zinjibar in what could be seen as an effort to contain the spread of the jihadist plague [25,26].  Towns such as Dawfas and al-Koud on the outskirts of Zinjibar thus became bastions of strength for the Yemeni military as they encroached on militant holdings [26].  The 119th Infantry Brigade still held true in the area, as well as the 201st Mechanized and 31st Armored Brigades [26].  The 115th Infantry and 39th Armored Brigades were relatively new additions to the region to assist in the persistent battle, with the 39th headquartered out of Aden, but supplying Artillery batallions to Dawfas for support [25,26].  The military was in decent position to dislodge the militants from their strongholds.  Or so it seemed, until AQAP proved that the complacency of these forces left them ripe for assaulting.

By mid-March, AQAP had conducted a series of extravagant attacks and then claimed responsibility for them [2].  The increasing sophistication of some of the operations proved that AQAP, under the flag of their political unit, Ansar al-Sharia, was in possession of the ability not just to govern but to defend and take the offensive to the Yemenis as well. On March 3, they launched a suicide attack with two bombers on a Republican Guard base in Baydah province, killing one soldier [27].  This was followed the next day by the destruction of a Yemeni airforce plane at Dailami Air Force Base [2,28].  But it was upon the forces surrounding Zinjibar that AQAP deployed its worst brutality. Happening also on March 3, the militants conducted a massive assault on military stationed around al-Koud, Abyan province [2,28,29,30].  This town had previously fallen under their control, and their target this day was a base, controlled by the 39th Armored Brigade, and containing an artillery battalion that was to be used to support the nearby 111th and 119th Infantry Brigades [21,26].  Multiple vehicle borne suicide bombers struck various gates and the soldiers within were caught unawares [2].  The combatants created a diversionary move towards one portion of the base before fully striking from another [29].  Having penetrated the fortifications, the militants pillaged the facility and were able to commandeer the Yemeni military weapons, vehicles, and supplies for themselves, using many of their new found arms against the soldiers within [29,30].  The occupants had been mostly asleep, and with the attack coming from multiple directions, including from behind their own lines as militants were able to breach the base perimeter in order to launch their ambush, a slaughter ensued [30].  The irascible cadre helming AQAP had responded in kind to a pledge by the new President Hadi to pursue the terrorist outfit [30].  In the end, 73 soldiers were captured and 187 were butchered in the chaos [28,31].  In the AQAP release on the incident they claimed only two of their men had died, while they had killed over 50 soldiers; deficiently reporting the actual Yemeni toll while focusing on the confiscated military equipment gained [32].  Other reports confirm the above Yemeni casualties but also state that AQAP lost 32 of their men in the battle [30]. The group also demanded the release of their cohorts from prison in exchange for those captured [33].  This included an additional soldier captured bringing their total to 74 [31].  But these did not represent the entirety of the jihadist bargaining assets.  During that same month, as AQAP honed their skill of ransoming, they abducted and held a female Swiss hostage from the port city of Hudaidi, while offering ridiculous conditions for her release, to include the repatriation of Osama bin Laden’s captured wives to the terror organization [2].  Roughly a year later, in February 2013, the hostage, Sylvia Abrahat, was released after extensive mediation by the Swiss and Qatari governments [34].  Back in March 2012 the Yemeni soldiers were in a much more precarious ordeal.  Air raids increased on the militants in response to the onslaught, with reports declaring 42 jihadists killed in the immediacy after the battle, but AQAP held to their land and their prisoners [29]. The AQAP leader responsible for leading paramilitary forces in Abyan was Jalal al-Balaidi al-Marqishi, better known as Abu Hamza al-Zinjibari [22,35].  In a video after the brutal battles in early March he can be seen taunting over 50 of the captured soldiers and asking them if they want to live, providing a both crass and lurid detailing of the inenviable position of Yemeni military stranded in conflict [31].  Since January, Marqishi had become a known figure releasing statements and providing interviews, and in photographs from this period, attempted to strike a rakish and determined pose, in order to give a face to the Ansar al-Shariah movement that had overran Abyan [36,37].  AQAP followed this assault with another suicide car bombing on a checkpoing in Baydah, killing one soldier and critically wounding four [31].

The Teacher and the Consul

On March 18, the organization reverted to its unscrupulous ways of targeting Westerners and commited the murder of American Joel Shrum, an English teacher, in Taiz [38].  In a statement released on March 22, AQAP claimed that Shrum was targeted and killed due to his supposed efforts to spread Christianity [39].  The teacher was shot by men on a motorcycle as he drove to his work at the International Training and Development Center [40]. The claim of Shrum being in Yemen to proselytize did not hold up to scrutiny.  He was murdered for merely being American.  The abductions and killings would only continue.

Just days after Yemeni intelligence officer Farraj Said al-Odsani had his throat slit after being abducted on March 21 in Mukallah, Hadhramout, the Saudi Consulate in Aden became an AQAP target [2,41].  Abdullah al-Khalidi was the deputy counsel in the Saudi Consulate located in Yemen, and AQAP militants selected him for abduction on March 28 [41,42].  As he entered his vehicle he was accosted by a group of armed individuals [41]. The kidnapping occurred near the man’s home in Aden and he became the first major Saudi diplomat to be captured by AQAP and used for potential ransom gain [41,42].  He was whisked away to an undisclosed AQAP stronghold in Yemen, and soon his captors phoned the Saudi authorities with a list of demands [42]. His AQAP handler was Mishal Mohamed Rashid al-Shadokhi (E-77), the former Guantanamo detainee, and he was the caller who relayed the ultimatum directly to the Saudi Ambassador to Yemen [42,43].  Shadokhi wanted all jihadist prisoners linked to the network released from prison, including the women, and also asked for a monetary ransom [42,43].  Threats included future embassy bombings and the assassination of a Saudi Prince if demands were ignored [42].  The former Guantanamo detainee invited the Saudis to mediate in AQAP controlled Jaar and further confirmed that Wuhaishi, Said al-Shehri, and Qasim al-Rimi were in firm control of AQAP operations [43].  Shadokhi had thus far been a quiet AQAP combatant, although his history showed him to be a former Brigade 55 member in Afghanistan [44].  He had survived the Qala I Jangi prison revolt in Mizar I Sharif after his capture by the Northern Alliance [44].  The survivors were a relatively small group of 86, and most of them ended up in Guantanamo [45].  Now, Shadokhi, free from both US and Saudi custody was apparently exacting a sort of revenge. 

Vengeance would take on many forms including the continuation by AQAP members and other rebels of assassination attempts, suicide bombings, and ambushes on Yemeni soldiers through April [2].  However, they had to contend with an ever increasing aerial campaign against them staged by the Yemenis but heavily supported by the Americans.  Many of the strikes could be directly attributed to the US.  During this time period, studies asserted that the Yemeni air forces were too decrepid to be of proper usage [46].  Thus airstrikes, training, and equipment needed to suppress the AQAP menace had to come from American funds and air superiority [46].  For instance on March 9, US drones and aircraft tracked a group of AQAP militants to a remote hideout in Baydah province and struck them with substantial JSOC firepower [47,48].  The US claimed to have killed around 23 militants, most of them young locals training for jihad and insurrection [47].  Local tribesman however, stated that many innocent civilians were killed in the strike, prompting surviving AQAP fighters to provide services for the families and gain allies within the tribes thusly [49].  AQAP was taking advantage of the people being killed because of them, and was managing to turn public sentiment in some areas in their favor [49].  The destruction conducted on March 9 was all in order to neutralize a lower level AQAP official identified only as Abdulwahab al-Homiqani, who was initially declared as one of the militants killed [47,48].  Nothing was further publicly known of Homiqani at the time, indicating that he was not plotting against American interests, but was rather an influential ground leader in the AQAP/Ansar al-Shariah’s campaign against the Yemeni government.  Tales of his death, and of his insignificance would prove false in the future.  The US drone strikes continued to increase and expand, especially as a result of the Yemeni defeat at al-Koud.  The Los Angeles Times reported that a period of reduced air support in the months prior had been mainly due to President Saleh’s obstinance concerning his ceding of power, with the US not wanting to appear to support an oppressive leader [47].  This means that the lull was not necessarily due to the controversies over the killings of American citizens.  With new leadership in Yemen, the US was going forward with the strikes, with a better partner in President Hadi, even at the risk of being seen as embroiled in a foreign nation’s civil war [47].  The US stated that they would not participate in another country’s internal struggles, yet officials were clearly disturbed by the AQAP territorial acquisitions and efficiency against the Yemeni military [47].  While claiming to target AQAP elements plotting against US foreign interests and the homeland, the US military and CIA was clearly engaging AQAP and its allies in an effort to reverse their sudden power surge [47].    Regardless, with many sides of the conflict satisfied that Saleh was out of power, the US could move forward now with relative ease. 

Throughout March, US aircraft were reported to have assisted the Yemenis in striking several targets, including an intense volley against militant positions and arms depots in the besieged Jaar and Zinjibar [48,50].  The US Navy was even reported to have fired on positions in those two cities during March [51,52].  Dozens of militants were reported killed in the bombardments, including some lower and middle ranked leaders [48,50]. One target included a weapons cache within a Jaar based factory on the strategically important Jabal Khanfar hill, previously overrun by militants [53]. The airstrikes also took place outside of Abyan and as such the first jihadist freed by Tariq al-Dhahab’s Radaa takeover, Nasir al-Dhafiri, was reported as killed after a strike (or perhaps a gunfight) in Baydah on March 13 [54].  Further Naval bombardment was alleged on March 22, after a barrage of artillery fire against AQAP positions around Zinjibar left 29 militants dead, yet the US military refuted responsibility for the day long operation [55,56].  Yet even with this success against militant placements, there were still civilians suffering the doleful consequences.  For instance, several civilians were wounded on March 30 during a drone strike on mid-level AQAP leaders in Azzan, Shabwa [57].  In early April, death rained from above on militants in Abyan and Lahaj provinces, supposedly from both Yemeni and American air power, leaving at least 38 deceased [58].  Yet AQAP still maintained a stranglehold on their “emirate.” 

Signature Strikes and Foreign Elements

The US did not disregard the upper echelon of AQAP, although it definitely seemed to be a rarer occurrence to target them with so many obvious prospective targets abounding in the rebellious south.  Qasim al-Rimi avoided death in rural Shabwa when a US drone missed his vehicle as he journeyed to Marib on April 7, 2012 and allowed him to escape [59].  Thus through April, Lahaj, Baydah, and Shabwa provinces remained under bombardment as well as Abyan, although the latter province was the primary target [17].  The restless Lawdar district of Abyan was selectively hit as well, taking out numerous militants, among a larger effort by the Yemeni military to dislodge the radicals within [17].  By the end of April the CIA requested and had been given the authority to strike at larger gatherings of unknown armed men who were probably, though not solidly identified as, AQAP fighters [60,61].  These types of targets were called Signature Strikes, as they represented the mass majority of drone strikes elsewhere, and contrasted with Personality Strikes, which officially just targeted one known individual per incident [60,61,62].  The congregations of armed men could now be attacked in the Yemen incarnation of Signature Strikes, just as long as person of import was believed to be in the destruction radius at the time, thus providing evidence that the group posed a direct threat to US interests [61].  The new methodology was cynically termed “Signature Lite,” in that the CIA was not given entire freedom in striking unvalidated groupings of armed individuals, such as was allowed in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan in the fight against Al-Qaida [61].  In light of this development, the amount of US drone and military strikes was on the verge of an explosion of expansion.  The Yemenis however, maintained that Signature Strikes would not be allowed, but it was obvious that a modified version of the drone operations was about to be implemented and that more and more targets were being selected [17].  This was compounded by the fact that JSOC already held a more robust ability to smite rebel positions, gatherings and personnel (even though they too still requested for additional authority)) [60,61]. 

Through April the combined strikes were able to terminate a number of low level members and some foreign elements of slightly more interest, including an Egyptian named Abu Musab al-Masri (killed in Shabwa on April 16) [63,64], and one of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s nephews, Abu Hammam al-Zarqawi (killed in Zinjibar) [65]. The Egyptian, a religious chanter whose real name was Ahmed Said Ibrahim Said, was said to have participated in jihad in his homeland before joining AQAP in their battle for Zinjibar, after being inspired by the 9/11 attacks [63,64].  He was later eulogized in the 15th issue of “Martyrs of the Peninsula [64].”  The younger Zarqawi meanwhile, who was born as Mohamed Fazi al-Harasheh and was also known as the Lion of Zinjibar, had joined AQAP in 2011 after a long career of jihad in Iraq with his uncle, which resulted in prison terms and recruiting in his native Jordan [65].  Abu Hammam’s car was reportedly destroyed by a drone strike on April 30 [65].  AQAP eulogized this commander as someone who could not be killed in ground combat, thus a drone was the only way for his enemies to finally end him [65].  Abu Hammam represented the trend of former AQI veterans blending into other jihadist arenas such as Yemen, Somali, Afghanistan, and Syria.

Veterans of the fighting in Afghanistan also traversed the jihadist world to Yemen, as was the case with Bara’a Mohamed Salim al-Sudani, better known as Khallad al-Farisi [66].  While not perishing in a drone strike, Farisi did fall during the extensive fighting in Lawdar on April 11 [66].  Farisi had been a vital contributor to militant commander Abu Laith al-Libi’s insurgent unit in Afghanistan and Pakistan during the early years of Operation Enduring Freedom [67].  It was while battling in the FATA against Pakistani forces that he was apprehended and extradited home to Sudan.  It was only after multiple imprisonments that he found himself operating for AQAP in Lawdar, as his biological brother Suhaib Salim al-Sudani did for al-Shabaab in Somalia.  Both of these brothers died within months of each other in their respective theatres, meeting their ends without fanfare amongst the chaos [66]. 

It was possibile that the struggle for Zinjibar could actually result in liberation for the embattled city. Prior to discussing the 2012 outcome of the seemingly perpetual conflict in Abyan, we must diverge in order to ascertain the status of numerous Saudis in conflicts abroad, waging jihad in the Khorasan and beyond, and belonging to both Lists E and F. In doing so, we examine both the far reach of the militants into various theatres, and the wide net cast by the Saudi regime with which to corral them.

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