In the wake of numerous reported terror attacks, officials now proclaim that Yemen to be a new “axis of terror”. The Al-Qaeda splinter group, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and US-born cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki are the targets of a new “war on terrorism” escalation.
While mainstream media seeds mass hysteria, full-scale military operations intensify throughout the Arabian Sea region.
Target: Yemen
The “war on terrorism” in Yemen is the pretext for the execution of long-running imperial plans. The Arabian Sea region has been the arena for superpower conflict for decades. It is the center of the West’s 21st century war for control of Middle East oil. It has been an obsession of elites such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski for decades.
Yemen, neighboring Saudi Arabia, at the gate of the Red Sea, is situated in the very center of the hot spot, at one of the world’s most vital oil transportation “choke points”.
The background for the current crisis in Yemen is sharply detailed in an analysis by William Engdahl:
The Yemen Hidden Agenda: Behind the Al-Qaeda Scenarios
In this piece, Engdahl states:
“The strategic significance of the region between Yemen and Somalia becomes the point of geopolitical interest. It is the site of Bab el-Mandab, one of what the US Government lists as seven strategic world oil shipping chokepoints. The US Government Energy Information Agency states that “closure of the Bab el-Mandab could keep tankers from the Persian Gulf from reaching the Suez Canal/Sumed pipeline complex, diverting them around the southern tip of Africa. The Strait of Bab el-Mandab is a chokepoint between the horn of Africa and the Middle East, and a strategic link between the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean….”
“An excuse for a US or NATO militarization of the waters around Bab el-Mandab would give Washington another major link in its pursuit of control of the seven most critical oil chokepoints around the world, a major part of any future US strategy aimed at denying oil flows to China, the EU or any region or country that opposes US policy. Given that significant flows of Saudi oil pass through Bab el-Mandab, a US military control there would serve to deter the Saudi Kingdom from becoming serious about transacting future oil sales with China or others no longer in dollars, as was recently reported by UK Independent journalist Robert Fisk.
“It would also be in a position to threaten China’s oil transport from Port Sudan on the Red Sea just north of Bab el-Mandab, a major lifeline in China’s national energy needs.
“In addition to its geopolitical position as a major global oil transit chokepoint, Yemen is reported to hold some of the world’s greatest untapped oil reserves. Yemen’s Masila Basin and Shabwa Basin are reported by international oil companies to contain “world class discoveries.” France’s Total and several smaller international oil companies are engaged in developing Yemen’s oil production. Some fifteen years ago I was told in a private meeting with a well-informed Washington insider that Yemen contained ‘enough undeveloped oil to fill the oil demand of the entire world for the next fifty years.’”
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
The emergence of AQAP in Yemen coincides with intensifying militarization , ramped up covert operations, and a heavy CIA presence.
Engdahl wrote:
“Al Qaeda, the alleged global terrorist organization created by the late CIA-trained Saudi, Osama bin Laden, has opened a major new branch in Yemen for both Yemen and Saudi operations.
“Al Qaeda in Yemen released a statement through online jihadist forums Jan. 20, 2009 from the group’s leader Nasir al-Wahayshi, announcing formation of a single al Qaeda group for the Arabian Peninsula under his command. According to al-Wahayshi, the new group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, would consist of his former Al Qaeda in Yemen, as well as members of the defunct Saudi Al Qaeda group. The press release claimed, interestingly enough, that a Saudi national, a former Guantanamo detainee (Number 372), Abu-Sayyaf al-Shihri, would serve as al-Wahayshi’s deputy…
“The curious emergence of a tiny but well-publicized al Qaeda in southern Yemen amid what observers call a broad-based popular-based Southern Movement front that eschews the radical global agenda of al Qaeda, serves to give the Pentagon a kind of casus belli to escalate US military operations in the strategic region.[my emphasis-LC]
“Indeed, after declaring that the Yemen internal strife was Yemen’s own affair, President Obama ordered air strikes in Yemen. The Pentagon claimed its attacks on December 17 and 24 killed three key al Qaeda leaders but no evidence has yet proven this. Now the Christmas Day Detroit bomber drama [in 2009-LC] gives new life to Washington’s “War on Terror” campaign in Yemen…”
Lending further propaganda power to the pursuit of AQAP, Yemen is also the birth place of Osama bin Laden, and the scene of the bombing of the USS Cole.
Yemeni Prime Minister Ali Muhammed al-Mujawar said that al-Qaida is a “western made” group, and was never created by his country. According to another report, the threat is exaggerated in relation to the massive military and political resources now being devoted to Yemen.
To quote Engdahl:
”Perhaps there is more to Washington’s recent Yemen concern than a rag-tag al Qaeda whose very existence as a global terror organization has been doubted by seasoned Islamic experts.”
Who or what is Anwar al-Awlaki?
As documented by Michel Chossudovsky in America’s “War on Terrorism”, “Islamic terrorism”, including “Al-Qaeda” are assets of the CIA, a myth designed to obscure a vast covert operation and global war agenda. The “Militant Islamic Network” is a military-intelligence network that has been “run” on behalf of Anglo-American interests.
Now “Al-Qaeda”, the eternal covert operation and propaganda apparatus, has been given a facelift. A new generation of Osama bin Laden “disciples” threatens the world, now led by “homegrown Al-Qaeda” terrorists with operational ties to AQAP.
Anwar Al-Awlaki, an AQAP regional commander, has become the western media’s public enemy number one. The New Mexico-born cleric is a prime suspect for the foiled UPS cargo plane bomb plot (which US and Saudi intelligence knew about several weeks before it happened.), even though Yemeni officials are not clear about his role. He is wanted in Yemen for a suspected role for the October killing of a French oil company executive, and also wanted for the failed bombing of a US-bound plane in December 2009. He is also accused of having an e-mail connection to the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting, and for giving jihadist sermons.
Atop the CIA’s “capture or kill” list, Al-Awlaki has been connected to 9/11 through reported associations with some of the so-called 9/11 hijackers. The rise of Al-Awlaki coincides with the naming of Adnan Shukrijumah as a new leader of “Al-Qaeda” global operations with an alleged connection to 9/11.
Just as Osama bin Laden has allegedly been hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan for almost a decade without detection, Al-Awlaki is reportedly in a mountain hideout in Yemen, where he is difficult if not impossible to locate.
A close examination of Al-Awlaki’s life reveals a bizarre career throughout which he has been thoroughly monitored and interrogated by the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and arrested and interrogated numerous times:
What demands scrutiny is the fact that, despite his dangerous profile, and being covered like a blanket by intelligence authorities, Al-Awlaki has been permitted to live and travel freely and extensively throughout the US and the world, in such places as San Diego, California (where the Al-Qaeda cell was under scrutiny by FBI informants), and Falls Church, Virginia, a short distance from CIA headquarters.
It has been thoroughly documented by investigators such as Mike Ruppert that Al-Qaeda (an intelligence front to begin with) has not only been thoroughly penetrated by intelligence agencies and law enforcement. From Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon:
“Long before 9/11, US and foreign intelligence had achieved penetrations of al Qaeda by all three methods [human, signals and electronic intelligence-LC] and in many differing circumstances in a manner that suggests there was very little that al Qaeda did that the Bush administration and many other governments were not aware of…The bottom line is that, based upon what is known about successful intelligence penetrations for years prior to the attacks of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda could not have sneezed without the CIA or the NSA knowing about it.”
To highlight one specific example, consider Al-Awlaki’s San Diego connection, and an operational relationship with 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhamzi (which Al-Awlaki has himself has denied, but US officials insist).
Quoting Ruppert:
“Two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhamzi and Khalid Almidhar share the distinction of having been active al Qaeda members connected to multiple terror attacks and also having been among the most closely watched, yet completely free to travel even while they were wanted men…the CIA, the FBI, and the NSA had been watching these two since at least 1999, but also that these agencies at times acted in ways to conceal or protect the pair’s movements from law enforcement agencies who had shown interest in them…”
“…Even after the two had been listed as possible terror suspects, they were allowed to re-enter the US after the Malaysia meeting [an Al-Qaeda summit-LC]—their visas unchallenged—and to live openly in San Diego.”
Another similarity between Al-Awlaki and the other US military-trained 9/11 “hijackers” with whom he is connected was a penchant for vice: Al-Awlaki has been arrested repeatedly for soliciting prostitutes.
Quoting Ruppert again:
“If the core of the 19 hijackers were US government OPFOR [opposition force intelligence assets-LC] , it would account for certain details of Mohammed Atta’s life, like his penchants for strip clubs, liquor, and women. These are hardly the passions of a devout Muslim about to become a martyr. Special Operations personnel, have, however, been known to engage in these vices from time to time.”
Despite the pronouncements of unreliable government authorities, and assumptive mainstream media reporting, it is unclear if any named Al-Qaeda mastermind is an intelligence asset, a double/triple agent, a political plant, a pawn, or “real” terrorist created in response to decades of military-intelligence provocations.
No terror incident, no mention of “terrorists” can be accepted at face value without full and open inquiries into the activities of military-intelligence agencies that utilize and manage “terror” assets, and the high government officials who orchestrate global war strategies in the name of “anti-terrorism”. Such disclosure has been rendered impossible, given the world power structure that shields true “evil doers” from all scrutiny and all law.
What is known about Anwar Al-Awlaki’s profile, however, is highly suspicious, and smacks of an intelligence “legend”. Or are the repeated patterns mere coincidence?
As written Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon:
“Given the degree of documented intelligence penetration of al Qaeda; the fact that Osama bin Laden had been a CIA asset during the first Afghan conflict against the Soviets; the fact that a number of the so-called hijackers and/or al Qaeda members had been trained in CIA training camps in Chechnya; had fought in CIA/US-sponsored guerrilla conflicts (e.g. in Kosovo with the KLA in 2000), or had received military training at US installations; given all that, it is reasonable to assume that one or more top al Qaeda officials were in fact double or triple agents…”
“…In covert operations, the best kind of an asset is one that has no idea who is really “running” him. That is not to say that I don’t believe there are terrorists out there who would do any kind of damage they possibly could to the United States. Even if there weren’t any before 9/11 (and there were), the US has gone out of its way to create animosity against this country that is in full flower all over the globe.”
The Big Lie keeps gets bigger
The perpetual threat posed by a fabricated outside enemy, and a fearful world populace, remain the centerpieces of elite policy, and they have been consistently maintained by both Bush/Cheney and Obama administrations. State-manufactured “terrorist” atrocities, provocations and false flag operations continue to elicit violent reaction in the form of “real” terrorism, in endless cycles.
It is ramped up when world leaders seek to manipulate populations at times of crisis. With the US government and the world economy teetering on the brink of collapse, and with a politically neutered Obama administration s for its political survival, a major crisis is at hand. War, the “war on terrorism” and other forms of aggression will be inflicted, in order to appease right-wing extremists, while conveniently serving larger elite agendas across the “Grand Area”.
As if on cue, in a speech in Indonesia, President Obama demanded a united “war on terrorism”, stating that “all of us must defeat Al-Qaeda and its affiliates”.
Whatever comes next—war in Yemen, new “9/11s” of every variety—threatens what’s left of the future of humanity.
