the intelligence from in yemen? they have no presence on the ground we are told anymore in the country. how will they develop sources, how will they pay informants in the country? also you can forget now the central government cooperating with the united states. they re in a fight for political survival. they have been driven out of sanaa. they are in the south. all their energy is going after the houthis, trying to respond to the houthis moving south. so the united states counter terrorism strategy in yemen is in complete tatters. the group al qaeda in yemen is getting stronger. they want to hit u.s. aircraft. i think they are likely to put more resources into that because of this rivalry with isis. start all over again. thank you both so much for being with us. appreciate it. in our national lead his lawyer wants the jury to believe he was coerced by his brother to participate in the boston marathon terror attacks but dzhokhar tsarnaev s computer tells a different story. from det
information. we know that service members and some of the service members spouses have been targeted online by isis members, be it twitter, facebook but this is the first time we are seeing sort of a compilation of addresses and service members names. it s very concerning. pamela thanks so much. appreciate it. want to bring in cnn terror analyst paul cruickshank and a former state department official. thanks for being here. paul let me start with you. we talk about whether or not this is a credible threat but if you are one of these families or service personnel, one of the hundred on this list you don t have the luxury of thinking about whether it s credible or not. you have to be very concerned right now, especially because you know this is the type of thing that isis has talked about doing. that s exactly right. of course last year last october, there were two canadian soldiers who were murdered by pro-isis extremists within just a few days of each other. there was also back
we now have the threat of a shia takeover of the government in yemen. that is not only a problem for the u.s. it s very much a provocation to saudi arabia. a proxy war could be staged there any minute. paul we talked about al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. this is a group that has actively targeted the united states all around the world for years. they have actually staged real life terrorist attacks, not just planned them. but now we see isis. last week isis claiming responsibility for killing 137 people on the ground. there were more attacks today, killing 29 that they claim credit for. now isis is popping up there. what s the significance of that? well it s very significant indeed because just until a few weeks ago, isis really just had a fledgling presence in yemen. they have been able to very quickly build up some operational capability there. i think there have probably been defections from aqap to isis. i think probably there has been the arrival of yemeni isis veterans fro
they are understanding they initially started recruiting from aqap ranks but now are expanding and trying to recruit within tribal areas. reporter: all of this leaving the u.s. at risk. we will have no intelligence footprint or capabilities to monitor what aqap and isis and the shia militants are doing in the region and without good intelligence the plots against the homeland. reporter: pentagon officials say there was no direct threat to u.s. commandos on their base in yemen but with so much fighting going on across the country they simply couldn t stay couldn t do their job, couldn t go out and meet with villagers. right now, it is as we see in so many countries, the people of yemen who are suffering so much in these crosshairs. there is so much suffering there. barbara starr at the pentagon thanks so much. so much of this war on isis has been waged on the digital battlefield, the terrorists have really weaponized the internet so the pentagon had to be concerned when a group
london and last may, there was an aspirational plot by a pro-isis american here in new york state, rochester, new york to kill veterans of the iraq war. so absolutely this needs to be treated very seriously indeed. david, i want to shift gears to yemen. there really is nothing short of a full scale civil war going on right now. the u.s. still says it is supporting what it calls the legitimate government there, but is there a legitimate government there, and why exactly is this country so important to the united states? well yemen has been a failed state for awhile but this is a very negative benchmark. we can no longer keep troops in the country. these were special forces troops who were used to being in a conflict zone. that s really going to hurt our ability to impact and degrade al qaeda and perhaps isis as isis is potentially in yemen now, too. yemen is important for that reason because we have to stop terrorists from training there, from becoming stronger there. it s also impo