Evidence doesn't support Al-Qaida claim that Detroit attack was retaliation

Earlier today, Gregg noted that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an international flight bound for Detroit. In a statement, AQAP said the attack came in retaliation for recent airstrikes on Al-Qaida fighters in Yemen that were supported by U.S. "firepower and intelligence," i.e. cruise missiles.

But there are a couple timeline problems with AQAP's claim that the airplane attack came in response to U.S. actions. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian student who tried to ignite 80 grams of pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) hidden in his underwear, apparently acquired his plans and materials during a trip to Yemen between early August and early December, according to the Washington Post. Abdulmutallab actually bought his plane ticket on Dec. 16. The joint Yemeni-U.S. strikes that ostensibly provoked AQAP occurred on Dec. 17.

That doesn't mean that Abdulmutallab wasn't working for AQAP, but it does mean that AQAP was bent on attacking regardless of whether the United States had directly involved itself in Yemen's affairs, and that AQAP can now able to use U.S. action on Yemeni soil as a pretext.

That seems to jibe with what Gregory Johnsen, a Yemen watcher who runs the Waq al-Waq blog, told Gregg yesterday - that AQAP has and will continue to co-opt local Yemeni grievances to justify its own existence. In the words of a commenter on the Jihadica Web site, AQAP's claim is an attempt to "grab the microphone of the post facto news cycle."

That's the danger of what we here at the Majlis have come to call the "whack-a-mole" strategy of U.S. counterterrorism. If AQAP planned on attacking the United States, what better pretext, what better P.R. could America have provided than a cruise missile strike? What may have been viewed as an evil, nihilistic attempt at murder - the Detroit plot - suddenly becomes justified, at least in the minds of some, particularly those living under the thumb of U.S. and Yemeni power.

Do I mean to say that we should take our fingers off the trigger if we've got "bad guys" in our sights, just because we might give AQAP a media victory? No. But we are in desperate need of a more holistic approach to Al-Qaeda and its family of Islamist terrorists, lest we continue to face a long line of Abdulmutallabs.

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