Yemen

SANAA, YEMEN -- Yemen's president vowed over the weekend to track down al-Qaeda militants who refuse to renounce terrorism, as President Obama affirmed in a magazine interview that he has no plans at the moment to send troops to Yemen in response to concerns that the terrorist network's presence has become more dangerous in that country. The comments by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a longtime ruler who has been accused of vacillating about his country's Islamic extremists, underscored a growing sense in Yemen that his government could be imperiled if stronger actions are not taken.

Osama bin Laden spent his final years struggling to exert authority over the al-Qaeda network he founded, voicing dismay about the decisions of regional affiliates and drafting orders for often unresponsive subordinates even just one week before he was killed, according to documents released Thursday. The letters, part of a trove of material recovered during the U.S. raid on bin Laden's compound last year, include chilling admonitions to remain focused on killing Americans.

IT'S BEEN 10 years since the first strike by an armed U.S. drone killed an al-Qaeda leader and five associates in Yemen. Since then, according to unofficial counts, there have been more than 400 "targeted killing" drone attacks in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — countries where the United States is not fighting a conventional war. About 3,000 people have been killed, including scores — maybe hundreds — of civilians. And though the United States is winding down its military mission in Afghanistan, the Obama administration, as The Post's Greg Miller reported last week, "expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.

THE DISMAL socioeconomic state of Yemen inspires despair in some of those considering what can be done about al-Qaeda's base there. It's the same defeatism that infects the discussion of other hosts to terrorism -- Afghanistan, Pakistan or Somalia. Experts acknowledge that bad or nonexistent governance, extreme poverty, and unchecked proselytizing and intimidation by Islamic extremists create the conditions under which al-Qaeda can train and recruit fighters and prepare attacks against the United States.

THE KILLING of Anwar al-Aulaqi by a U.S. airstrike in Yemen on Friday delivered a significant blow to al Qaeda and — in spite of the cleric's U.S. citizenship — was clearly justified, both legally and morally. Some analysts pointed out that Mr. Aulaqi was not the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or its robust operations in Yemen. But that misses the point of why he was dangerous, and why President Obama was right to place him on a target list. Considerable evidence supports the administration's contention that Mr. Aulaqi played a direct role in attempted attacks on the United States, including the failed bombing of an airplane on Christmas Day 2009 and a plot to bring down two cargo planes with explosives placed in packages.

Thanks for the June 3 front-page article " Increase in drone strikes in Yemen raises questions . " A quick read told me that, from the president on down, the U.S. government is not questioning itself about the use of drones. It is steadfast in its determination to expand the criteria for the use of drone technology, which already defy both international and U.S. law. This is "waterboarding isn't torture" all over again. Helen Schietinger, Washington

The bodies of 29 Africans washed up on a beach in southern Yemen after smugglers forced the migrants to jump overboard in open water, Doctors without Borders said Wednesday. About 120 Somalians and Ethiopians had paid Somalian smugglers to take them across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, the humanitarian group said. Migrants said the smugglers threw two children and an old man overboard during the trip, then forced the rest into the water when the boat neared Yemen. The bodies of 10 passengers have yet to be recovered.

Christopher Boucek, 38, an authority on the Islamic world who had done research on Saudi Arabia and Yemen and was an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, died Nov. 2 at Reston Hospital Center. His wife, Marie Boucek, said he had a heart attack. He lived in Reston. Dr. Boucek first came to Washington in 1994 as an intern at the State Department. In the late 1990s, he worked with several D.C. organizations dealing with U.S.-Arab relations. He moved to Cairo in 2000 to edit an English-language newspaper and then returned to Washington as media analyst at the Saudi Embassy.

DRONES HAVE become a game-changing technology in the fight against terrorism. Before 2001 U.S. commanders could not reliably target al-Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan, much less the group's top commanders. But some 2,000 militants have now been killed by drones, including several deputies to Osama bin Laden. The Obama administration, which has sharply escalated the use of drones in Pakistan's tribal territories , is moving to expand their use in Yemen and Somalia. According to a report last week in The Post, drone bases have been established or are under construction in Djibouti, Ethi­o­pia, the Seychelles and on the Arabian Peninsula.

By concentrating on the strategic threat posed by the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen and its plans for attacking U.S. targets there, U.S. intelligence agencies failed to focus on the group's preparations for a direct strike in this country, a White House review of the Dec. 25 attempted airline bombing has concluded. That lapse, along with insufficient attention to separate warnings that a specific person -- Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab -- may have been recruited by extremists in Yemen, led to a breakdown in systems designed to "connect the dots" about an imminent threat to the homeland, President Obama said Thursday in announcing the findings.