out what s going on on the ground. british have lost theirs. without the embassy, we ve basically got nothing there. we can view this from the air using drones. but it just makes it that much harder. this has been a big problem for us. last september, bob baer the president touted yemen as a success story. this is the president of the united states on september 10th of last year. the strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us while supporting partners on the front lines is one that we have successfully pursued in yemen and somalia for years. since then the u.s. has evacuated, abandoned yemen. the same exists in somalia, no u.s. embassy there. is he getting bad intelligence from the u.s. intelligence community or is he simply wrong in these kinds of assessments? no. he got bad briefings. he got bad briefing on syria and
i think we re already there. there s been fierce fighting in the central parts of yemen, in the province between these two groups. and this is all really playing to the advantage of aqap al qaeda s affiliate in yemen. it s getting a recruitment windfall from june any tribals. been able to expand its operations throughout the country. it now has more resources than anytime before. this has been the most active al qaeda affiliate when it comes to launching clocks against the united states. it has more resource to do that than ever before. this is a group that wants to blow an american airliner out of the sky. they ve been making sophisticated devices. this is of huge concern to washington, d.c. right now for all of our security. yeah. they re saying it may be teetering towards civil war. certainly does look like civil war already. looks like another syria in the
very dangerous situation in yemen. nic robertson in london thanks very much. yemen is clearly split three ways there s the elected government forced out by the rebels. those rebels are these iranian backed houthis who control areas of the capital and are now in the southwest as well. then s al kei ga also known as aqap. they re in eastern yemen. let s talk about all of this with our cnn military analyst retired lieutenant colonel from california. our cnn intelligence and security analyst, former cia operative and our cnn terrorism analyst. colonel, with the u.s. and british special forces now out, are there any eyes and ears on the ground specifically as related to aqap or even isis that could help the u.s. appreciate what s going on? this is a major blow. we ve lost our ability to find
released by isis showing the suicide bombers in last week s horrific attack. stake a look at these. more than 130 people were killed in those terror attacks, hundreds more were injured. the worsening situation there leading to the deck collar ration from a united nations envoy that the country is inching ever closer to a full-blown civil war. let s go to our senior international correspondent nic robertson. what can you tell us about these new images we re now getting from isis nick? wolf, one of the interesting things about these images, they are all yemenis. they re sort of in their deepest fighting at the moment. we hear of al qaeda killing houthis here. but these are potentially former al qaeda members, certainly isis members now from this part of yemen that s in a deep fight
about that. if you re going to say, for instance, in a lot of states have choose life. i understand. plates that are pro-life. well then the other side of that is pro-choice which a lot of people i know are. yeah. all right. they re controversial issues. but i understand. we have to leave it there. we ve got to leave it there. thank you very much. i hope we can pick it up sometime. thank you for having me on. i m randy k. thanks for watching today. waffle starts right now. hello. i m wolf blitzer. it s 1:00 p.m. here in washington. wherever you re watching from around the world. thanks for joining us. let s get right to the breaking news on yemen. new pictures have just been