Activities
Yemen played an early role in al-Qaeda's history, as it is Osama bin Laden's ancestral homeland. Al Qaeda was active in Yemen well before the Saudi and Yemeni branches merged.
Al Qaeda was responsible for the USS Cole bombing in October 2000 in the southern port of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors. In 2002, an al Qaeda attack damaged a French supertanker in the Gulf of Aden.
The Global Terrorism Database attributes the 2004 Khobar massacre to the group. In this guise, it is also known as "The Jerusalem Squadron".
In addition to a number of attacks in Saudi Arabia, and the kidnap and murder of Paul Johnson in Riyadh in 2004, the group is suspected in connection with a bombing in Doha, Qatar, in March 2005. For a chronology of recent Islamist militant attacks in Saudi Arabia, see Insurgency in Saudi Arabia.
In the 2009 Little Rock recruiting office shooting, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Leon Bledsoe, a Muslim convert who had spent time in Yemen, on June 1, 2009 opened fire with an assault rifle in a drive-by shooting on soldiers in front of a United States military recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, in a jihad attack. He killed Private William Long, and wounded Private Quinton Ezeagwula. He said that he was affiliated with and had been sent by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
In August 2009, an AQAP suicide bomber tried to kill Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who heads Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign and is a member of the Saudi royal family. In 2009, AQAP also carried out a suicide attack in Yemen that killed four South Korean tourists.
AQAP said it was responsible for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's attempted Christmas Day bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on December 25, 2009. In that incident, Abdulmutallab reportedly tried to set off plastic explosives sewn to his underwear, but failed to detonate them properly.
On February 8, 2010, deputy leader Said Ali al-Shihri called for a regional holy war and blockade of the Red Sea to prevent shipments to Israel. In an audiotape he called upon Somalia's al-Shabaab militant group for assistance in the blockade. AQAP was behind a suicide bombing aimed at the British ambassador in Yemen in April 2010, and a rocket fired at a British embassy vehicle in October 2010.
The 2010 cargo plane bomb plot was discovered on October 29, 2010, when two explosive-laden packages bound for the United States via cargo planes were found, based on intelligence received from government intelligence agencies, in the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates. The packages originated from Yemen, and were addressed to outdated addresses of two Jewish institutions in Chicago, Illinois, one of which was the Congregation Or Chadash, a LGBT synagogue. On October 30, 2010, On November 5, 2010, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took responsibility for the plot. It posted its acceptance of responsibility on a number of radical Islamist websites monitored by the SITE Intelligence Group and the NEFA Foundation, and wrote: "We will continue to strike blows against American interests and the interest of America's allies." It also claimed responsibility for the crash of a UPS Boeing 747-400 cargo plane in Dubai on September 3; U.S. and United Arab Emirates investigators had said they had not found any evidence of terrorist involvement in that incident. The statement continued: "since both operations were successful, we intend to spread the idea to our mujahedeen brothers in the world and enlarge the circle of its application to include civilian aircraft in the West as well as cargo aircraft." American authorities had said they believed that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was behind the plot. Officials in the United Kingdom and the United States believe that it is most likely that the bombs were designed to destroy the planes carrying them.
In November 2010 the group announced a strategy, called "Operation Hemorrhage", that it said was designed to capitalize on the "security phobia that is sweeping America." The program would call for a large number of inexpensive, small-scale attacks against United States interests with the intent of weakening the U.S. economy.
On 21 May 2012, a soldier wearing a belt of explosives carried out a suicide attack on military personnel preparing for a parade rehearsal for Yemen's Unity Day. With over 120 people dead and 200 more injured, the attack was the deadliest in Yemeni history. AQAP claimed responsibility for the attack.
During the June 2012 al Qaeda retreat from key southern Yemen stronghold, the organization planted land mines, which killed 73 civilians. According to the governor's office in Abyan province, 3,000 mines were removed from around Zinibar and Jaar.
The group also publishes the online magazines Voice of Jihad and Inspire.
Read more about this topic: Al-Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsula
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