Al Qaeda has lost its war in the south. For much of the past year, thousands of pro-al Qaeda gunmen and armed foreigners held several large towns and cities in the south. This forced many tribes to take sides and most lined up against the "foreign" al Qaeda. The tribes have long resisted giving up power to the national government, and there is great hostility towards the many foreigners showing up to support al Qaeda. The last four weeks have seen al Qaeda take heavy losses and get pushed out of much territory it has controlled for over a year. As a result of these setbacks al Qaeda has reverted back to suicide bombings.
We've supported the Yemen government in this battle. I've just never worried that much about this front. The vast majority of the "pro-al Qaeda" gunmen were not internationalist jihadis but tribal guys against the government and flying a flag of convenience. Not that I thought we should ignore this front since there are real jihadis there who'd love to kill us here at home, as the underwear bomber showed.
But we seem to have intervened enough to make the government forces strong enough to pound the jihadis but not so much that we might get tired of our commitment.
I'm content that good jihadis litter the battlefields of Yemen.
