White House says no detainees to Yemen for now
No more detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be sent to Yemen for the time being, the White House announced Tuesday as officials continue to reshape the nation's security posture following a failed Christmas terror plot to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner.
Snip: One of al-Muhajiroun's events was billed as celebrating the "Magnificent 19" plane hijackers who had taken the fight back to the West.
The Yemen hidden agenda - behind the Al Qaeda scenarios, a strategic oil transit checkpoint
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.” [9]
Bab el-Mandab, between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Oil and other exports from the Persian Gulf must pass through Bab el-Mandab before entering the Suez Canal. In 2006, the Energy Department in Washington reported that an estimated 3.3 million barrels a day of oil flowed through this narrow waterway to Europe, the United States, and Asia. Most oil, or some 2.1 million barrels a day, goes north through the Bab el-Mandab to the Suez/Sumed complex into the Mediterranean.
I would add only one other point regarding Yemen and Somolia and that is the weak nearly none existant government that permits jihadi training to be conducted and practiced with little to no resistance.
Excellent background info on Yemen, thanks MamaD.
White House says U.S. to suspend transfers of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen
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Cause they’re ‘special’:
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What are you smokin?
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