Yemen: AQAP's Assault Against the Government

Yemen's local al Qaeda node, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has claimed credit for a string of high-profile attacks and targeted assassinations in the past month, indicating that the group has broken a long-held tacit agreement with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to avoid directly targeting the Yemeni state. This renewed aggression against the Yemeni state is a result of counterterrorism efforts by Yemeni security forces in AQAP strongholds as well as the rise of a more radical second generation of Yemeni militancy.