Ali Soufan Interviewed on PBS Frontline: Yemen is Becoming an Extremist’s Dream. Was it Predictable?

April 8, 2015

Yemen is Becoming an Extremist’s Dream. Was it Predictable?

Frontline, PBS
By: Jason M. Breslow

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Ali Soufan has seen firsthand what happens when extremists move into Yemen. When the USS Cole was bombed in the Port of Aden in the autumn of 2000, it was Soufan, then a special agent with the FBI, who was brought in to act as the attack’s chief investigator. As one of the bureau’s early experts on Osama Bin Laden, he knew more than most about how theological, operational and logistical factors made the country so attractive to Al Qaeda.

“Yemen was always one of the key battlegrounds for Osama bin Laden,” says Soufan, who today runs the New York-based intelligence group, The Soufan Group. “Yemen was always an area where Osama bin Laden used to recruit. It was … a safe house…”

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Will the fight expand beyond Yemen’s borders?

It’s already expanding beyond Yemen’s borders. The moment you inject sectarianism to it, you have a similar situation to what we have in Syria or similar situation to what we have in Iraq … So the moment that sectarianism becomes a problem, then you’re not talking about governments…

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To read the full article and to watch more videos please click on the link below:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-defense/frontline-fight-for-yemen/yemen-is-becoming-an-extremists-dream-was-it-predictable/


 

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