Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Meanwhile in Yemen

Well that's an interesting level of involvement in Yemen:

No Americans were among the hostages – six Yemenis, one Saudi, and one Ethiopian – brought to safety after an intense firefight at the cave in remote eastern Yemen where the hostages were being held.

Two dozen American special forces led the raid on Tuesday in support of Yemen's president.

I wonder why our support needed to be a direct raid by our special forces people rather than drone strikes or other air support?

Who did we rescue, anyway?

UPDATE: Ah, perhaps it is more about who we didn't rescue:

U.S operation forces took part in a rescue mission that freed eight hostages in a remote corner of Yemen, but a Yemeni official said Wednesday that it did not liberate five others, including an American journalist and a Briton who were moved elsewhere by their al-Qaida captors days before the raid.

We'll see what kind of information we obtained from the raid to pursue these guys.