National Security

The Yemen Raid Was a Bigger Fail Than We Thought

Written by SK Ashby

The raid in Yemen that military officials have privately described as a disaster apparently turned out worse than we thought.

It was previously reported that the goal of the raid was to capture computer hardware that may contain intelligence, but officials told NBC News that they had a specific target in mind; a target they missed.

Military and intelligence officials told NBC News the goal of the massive operation was to capture or kill Qassim al-Rimi, considered the third most dangerous terrorist in the world and a master recruiter. [...]

On Sunday, al-Rimi — who landed on the United States' most-wanted terrorist list after taking over al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate in 2015 — released an audio recording that military sources said is authentic.

"The fool of the White House got slapped at the beginning of his road in your lands," he said in an apparent reference to the Jan. 29 raid.

As we now know, Trump authorized the raid while he was sitting at the dinner table and did not observe the operation in the situation room. Trump was apparently hate-tweeting the New York Times at the time of the raid.

Between Trump regime incompetence and Islamophobia, foreign terrorists are going to experience a recruiting bonanza in the coming years.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer denied that al-Rimi was the primary target of the raid during today's press briefing, but I personally chose to believe the unnamed officials who spoke to NBC News over Spicer. Spicer and the White House have no credibility.