Report: U.S. suspends counterterrorism cooperation with Yemen

USPA News - The United States has been forced to suspend its counterterrorism cooperation with Yemen after the Arab country`s government collapsed, the Washington Post reported on late Friday, though U.S. drones are still deployed over southern Yemen for now. The development comes just a day after President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Prime Minister Khalid Bahah and their cabinet resigned en-masse, throwing the country into a steep crisis and making it unclear who is now running the country as Shiite Houthi rebels have seized strategic parts of the capital Sana`a.

The Washington Post, citing U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity, reported late Friday that the U.S. government had been forced to suspend its counterterrorism operations with Yemen, a move that is certain to benefit al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which is the most dangerous al-Qaeda branch and claimed responsibility for this month`s attack in Paris. Armed drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command will for now remain deployed over southern Yemen, where al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is based, the newspaper reported. Yemeni security services had long provided much of the intelligence for U.S. drone strikes in the country, but those agencies are now controlled by Houthi rebels. "The agencies we worked with are really under the thumb of the Houthis. Our ability to work with them is not there," one U.S. official was quoted as saying by the Washington Post. "The chaos has aided al-Qaeda. There̢۪s no question in our mind that al-Qaeda has gotten a breather," the official told the newspaper.