Embassy Attack in Yemen a ‘Wake-Up Call’

News Stories - September 19, 2008

Questions

1. Name the president and capital of Yemen.

2. a) Who is Ali Soufan?
b) What is Mr. Soufan urging the U.S. government to do in the wake of this week's terrorist attack on the American Embassy in Yemen?

3. What action by Yemen's president signaled that his commitment to fight al Qaeda was slipping, according to Mr. Soufan?

4. What is Islamic Jihad in Yemen?

5. What is ironic about Susan Elbaneh's death?

6. Re-read paragraphs 6-8. Then read the bullet points below from a previous NY Sun article on the terrorist attacks in Yemen.

One of the tasks of the FBI, which will investigate the attack, will be to determine whether members of Yemen's armed forces participated in the attack.
Elements of Yemen's security services, which America has trained and subsidized (given millions of dollars to) since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, may indeed have had a hand in yesterday's bombing.
In April, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorism suspects, Jaber Elbaneh, arrived at a Sana'a courtroom that was hearing the case against another Al Qaeda associate and denounced the court, only to walk free moments later. Court officials refused to arrest and extradite him.
President Saleh, for his part, pardoned the mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombings in Aden, Jamal al-Badawi, last October after he escaped with Nasir Wahishi (leader of al Qaeda in Iraq) from a high-security prison and then later turned himself in.

How do you think the U.S. should deal with the Yemini government in the wake of this latest attack?