Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases

DEBKAfile
November 9, 2010

In the first week of November, directly after the discovery of two explosive parcels mailed from Yemen to the United States, Washington moved a squadron of Predator drones to a secret base at the Yemeni Red Sea port of Al Hodaydah …

Until now, the covert facility – finished in April on a site CIA director Leon Panetta has selected last January – was allotted to US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) units for mounting clandestine raids against Al Qaeda cells deep inside Yemen.

The new deployment of drones elevates American military intervention in Yemen by another notch.

Monday night, Nov. 9, Awlaki himself aired a 25-minute videotape on extremist websites. It was devoted to an unbridled attack on America. Muslims around the world were called upon to kill Americans…

http://www.debka.com/article/9135/

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PRESS TV
January 7, 2010

Yemen’s government is to allow the US to set up a military base on its territory, a political analyst says.

The US can no longer rely on Yemen’s government to fight al-Qaeda because it is losing its legitimacy and becoming weaker, Ali Al-Ahmed, a political analyst, told Press TV on Wednesday.

Al-Ahmed added that his sources have revealed that the Yemeni government has decided to let the US military establish the air base on an island called Socotra located off the coast of Yemen.

According to the Saudi scholar, the island is a natural wildlife refuge. The information about the US air base will be made public in the next few weeks. …

www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=115536&sectionid=351020206

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The Times
December 31, 2009

The Pentagon is drawing up urgent plans for increased military co-operation with Yemen, including possible retaliatory strikes against al-Qaeda targets, according to US officials engaged in a high-stakes bid to neutralise Islamist militants without enraging the Arab world.

The Obama Administration, caught out by the Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines aircraft, is reviewing every possible response and has not ruled out military strikes if targets linked directly to the failed attack by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab can be identified. …

In line with the terms of a secret military assistance pact agreed last year, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, the Yemeni Foreign Minister, insisted yesterday that any attacks on al-Qaeda targets in Yemen would be by Yemeni government forces. …

The US has never publicly acknowledged the rapid build-up of its military presence in and near Yemen since last year but sources say that attacks already mounted by Yemeni government forces on al-Qaeda training camps would have been impossible without American hardware and knowhow. Future strikes could involve the use of US drones, fighter jets and ship-launched cruise missiles. …

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6972110.ece

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