The US more than doubled military aid to Yemen from $67 million to $150 million this year, and is helping to train Yemeni counterterrorism forces. The Obama administration is also reportedly considering the deployment of covert US squads that could strike terrorist targets more quickly – and without the “explicit blessing of the Yemeni government,” reported the Wall Street Journal.
But the Yemeni public, which doesn't see AQAP as the most important issue facing their country, is wary of US intervention. Some Yemen analysts believe that an overt US role could spur AQAP recruitment, as Gregory Johnsen of Princeton University told the Monitor this spring:
“Al Qaeda wants to present Yemen on par with Iraq and Afghanistan ... to present Yemen as being occupied by outside forces, because once they do that, then it throws open the gates of recruitment,” said Mr. Johnsen.
