JANUARY 12, 2020
WHITE HOUSE
DAY
President Trump is not through with the mullahs.
Less than two weeks after the assassination of General Soleimani, the world is now distracted by new events in Iran. Thousands are defying the Iranian government and taking to the streets of Tehran to protest the downing of Flight 752. Iranian public anger, which was once directed at Donald Trump, is now focused on the false story that the Ukrainian aircraft crashed due to mechanical error. The people well understand they have been deceived.
And even though the claim has since been changed by the mullahs, there is continuing anger. Protesters are now being arrested. Television journalists reporting on the dissent are fired. Elected members of the Iranian Parliament—or, the Majiles, officially known as the Islamic Consultative Assembly—who support the protesters are banned by the mullahs from running again.
There are also rumors that demonstrators are being shot dead.
Inside the White House, President Trump senses weakness. He takes to Twitter: “To the leaders of Iran—DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”
The president is still annoyed about the criticism of the Soleimani attack. So he is looking to turn the tables. He is also searching for other terror targets.
This is a departure from Donald Trump’s usual philosophy in the Middle East. He does not actively support American troops being based on the ground in places like Afghanistan and Iraq. He thinks those countries should fight their own battles. He does not want to spend the money or manpower defending places he believes are not vital to American interests.
Nevertheless, the fight against terrorism has become very personal for Mr. Trump. His assessment of his predecessor, Barack Obama, is that he showed weakness, thereby encouraging terror acts all over the world. Also, President Trump is influenced by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has provided intelligence information indicating that Islamic terrorism is on the rise.
And so it is that President Trump has decided to become extremely aggressive in the elimination of known terrorists. And a man named Qasim al-Rimi, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is at the top of his list. Al-Rimi’s group is not only active in the Middle East, it is responsible for an attempted bombing of a commercial airliner in the United States on Christmas Day 2009.* More infamously, it was AQAP terrorists who stormed into the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo and slaughtered its employees.
In addition, President Trump has a personal motive for wanting al-Rimi dead. Just three days after being sworn in as president in 2017, Mr. Trump authorized a mission into Yemen that resulted in the death of a Navy SEAL. And while the Trump administration publicly proclaimed the raid a success, the president still sees that foray as a blemish on his terror record.
Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens of SEAL Team 6 died in that 2017 raid. Three years are an eternity, and the mission is all but forgotten. But Donald Trump has not lost the memory.
However, he needs an immediate provocation to go after Qasim al-Rimi.
He gets one sixteen days after the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
The moon is nearly invisible. It is the night of January 29, 2017. The V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft goes “feet dry” as it crosses from the Indian Ocean into Yemeni airspace. Ten minutes later, a joint team of Navy SEALs and United Arab Emirates commandos touches down five miles outside the village of al-Ghayil, a reputed terrorist stronghold. Tonight’s mission is a “sensitive site exploration” (SSE) to search for electronics and other sources of information that pinpoint al-Qaeda forces in Yemen. This data will then be used to launch a quick series of strikes on the terrorists. The SEALs have been in the Middle East for months, undertaking “kill or capture” operations. A successful strike receives no media coverage and remains top secret.
Tonight will not be a successful operation.
This mission deep into Yemen was in fact planned years ago. Though the terror threat in Yemen is very real, officials in the Obama administration considered the plan too high risk. The president well remembered a raid he authorized in 2014 to free an American who had been held hostage in Yemen for fifteen months. Forty US Army Special Forces operators took part in the action, believing thirty-three-year-old American photographer Luke Somers was in “imminent danger,” in the words of President Obama. The raid was not a covert operation and included drone strikes, strafing runs by American jets, and the assistance of Yemeni government ground troops. Despite this great show of force, things went wrong. The resulting firefight saw the terrorists kill Somers and fellow hostage Pierre Korkie, a South African teacher. President Obama received a great deal of criticism after the raid’s failure. With this in mind, he refused to sign off on another attack in Yemen.*
But new secretary of defense James Mattis sees things differently. He believes the plan against al-Qaeda has the potential for a very substantial payoff. The desert location has been monitored closely by drones and satellites for months and appears to be lightly defended. Over dinner at the White House just four days ago, Secretary Mattis aggressively lobbied President Trump to formally authorize the mission.†
At the very least, Mattis believes the raid will capture sensitive information. But there’s also the chance that al-Qaeda leaders may be on-site—in particular, Qasim al-Rimi. Born in Yemen thirty-eight years ago, the terrorist’s career dates to the 1990s, when he served with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. An average-looking man, al-Rimi is a fanatic and has been on a list of the world’s most wanted terror suspects since 2011. He is responsible for bombing hospitals and killing innocent tourists.
Secretary Mattis reminds President Trump that this sensitive site exploration offers him a chance to differentiate himself from his predecessor by taking a bold risk. The general believes the raid on al-Ghayil could be a “game changer.”
The next morning, Mr. Trump signs what is known as the “execute order”—EXORD—giving the go-ahead. Within hours, Navy SEALs and counterparts from the UAE are flown to the amphibious ship USS Makin Island. The ship will serve as a Quick Reaction Force site if the raid runs into trouble, launching aircraft and helicopters to assist the Special Forces personnel inside Yemen. More than two thousand marines are on board, prepared to go into battle as a backup force.
On the night of January 29, 2017, the teams are flown from the Makin Island by V-22 Ospreys and dropped at a position five miles from the known terrorist location. The flight is a short fifteen minutes. Al-Ghayil is a series of stone homes and buildings atop a rugged mountaintop. The land is windswept and treeless, a barren desert fortress.
As the commandos walk quietly uphill toward the village in almost complete darkness, drones pick up intense movement from inside some houses. Night vision cameras record images of al-Qaeda fighters taking up positions. Despite every attempt at stealth, the terrorists know the SEALs are coming.
The raid has been compromised.
To this day, it is not known how al-Qaeda received this information. Yet despite the new risk, the commandos press on, determined to complete the mission. Their opponents are not disorganized fighters—each of the terrorists has spent months learning military tactics at training camps in Afghanistan and Iran. They have prepared their positions well in advance. They take cover in homes, a medical clinic, even a mosque. The ground is mined.
And the terrorist soldiers are not just men; even the wives of the al-Qaeda fighters are armed and dangerous. As the three dozen elite troops approach al-Ghayil, heavy fire breaks out. The SEALs and their UAE counterparts are pinned down. They cannot know the size of the force arrayed against them. The fighters have no choice but to call for help.
Out in the Indian Ocean, the alert sounds aboard the USS Makin Island. The Quick Reaction Force is launched. American fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships race to the battlefield and pour down fire on al-Qaeda positions. The village of al-Ghayil is leveled, and fourteen al-Qaeda fighters are killed.
But the mission is not a success. Despite efforts to prevent the loss of civilian lives, sixteen children are killed—ten of them under the age of thirteen. SEAL Team 6 collects no electronics or other documents. An Osprey is sent to extract those SEALs teams. The damaged aircraft is intentionally destroyed so that its onboard technology does not fall into terrorist hands.
Several American troops are wounded. Chief Petty Officer William Ryan Owens, a Navy SEAL and married father of three, is killed when a bullet strikes him in the torso just inches above his protective body armor.*
And despite all the effort, there is absolutely no sign of Qasim al-Rimi.
Back in Washington, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer quickly calls the mission a “very successful raid.” But Arizona senator John McCain publicly disagrees.
“When you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, an American … life is lost and [there are] wounded, I don’t believe that you can call it a success,” says McCain, the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
President Trump appears on the television show Fox and Friends soon afterward to offer his side of the story.
“Well, this was a mission that was started before I got here. This was something that was, you know, they wanted to do.”
The botched terror raid in President Trump’s first week in office results in enormous criticism. Mr. Trump never forgets that he was thwarted by fighters loyal to Qasim al-Rimi. A bounty of $10 million is quickly placed on al-Rimi’s head.
The terrorist is not impressed. A week after the failed raid, al-Rimi openly taunts President Trump in an eleven-minute al-Qaeda video.
“The new fool of the White House received a painful slap across his face,” the terrorist crows.
It is almost three years later, January 18, 2020. The Muslim call to prayer echoes over the al-Estibal military camp in the village of Marib, Yemen. It is almost dark as soldiers in uniform file in and kneel on their prayer mats. Their nation is engaged in a war with the Houthi rebels, a Shia terrorist movement sponsored by Iran. Qasim al-Rimi is not part of the Houthi organization but helps it in order to secure a remote hiding place for his organization.
Al-Rimi knows he is being hunted. In 2019, his group publicly supported a terror attack inside the United States when a gunman opened fire on pilots in training at Naval Air Station Pensacola, in Florida. Three servicemen were killed, two sheriff’s deputies wounded. Al-Rimi calls the al-Qaeda killer “a courageous knight.”
As the government troops continue their prayer service, a missile slams into the mosque. Instantly, 111 Yemeni soldiers die. In this moment, the world of terrorism changes. As the mosque implodes from the explosion, confusion about the source of the attack follows. There was no suicide bomber exploding a vest. No one drove a car into the building. And there was no sound of artillery or a mortar round. The only possible explanation is that someone launched a drone strike.
America is immediately suspected. But that makes no sense. Under President Trump, the United States has reduced its presence in Yemen. In 2017, his first year in office, 131 air strikes were launched by American jets in Yemen. In 2018, there were just 36; in 2019, only 6. Secretly, Donald Trump has upped the ante in the war on terror. But striking Yemeni soldiers is not on his list because they are actually fighting Islamic terrorists.
As for the destruction of the mosque in Marib, no one takes responsibility. The mystery deepens. But soon, US and Israeli intelligence see the fingerprints of Iran. On June 20, 2019, the Iranians shot down an American Global Hawk drone over the Strait of Hormuz using surface-to-air missiles. In addition, they are the only country in the region to have drone capability. The White House is quickly informed that Iran now has the weaponry to strike American troops in the Middle East at any time.
Also, in the hands of a terrorist like Qasim al-Rimi, an unmanned aerial drone could be flown almost anywhere to commit an act of terror. It is clear al-Rimi is a very dangerous person. Thus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issues a statement shortly after the mosque attack, stating that such mayhem “produces instability that terrorist groups and other malignant actors can exploit for their own purposes.”
So with Iran and al-Qaeda working together in Yemen, President Trump has a decision to make. It comes quickly.
The date is January 25, just one week after the Marib mosque attack. The time is 11:00 a.m. At a house in the Joe-Nasseem area of Marib, the Saturday morning is uneventful—that is, until a Hellfire missile fired by an American drone destroys the home and kills its occupant. To this day, his name and status within al-Qaeda is unknown.
Two days later, in the Al-Hazmah area, another Hellfire destroys another house. This one leaves behind the charred body of an individual named Abdullah Al-Adani. Three hours after the attack, an al-Qaeda crew comes to remove the body for identification.*
But once again, Qasim al-Rimi survives. The terrorist then goes quiet, correctly believing the drone strikes are aimed at him. Al-Rimi’s continuing ability to evade death is considered remarkable by his trackers.
Until things change.
On January 29, in the village of Al-Hosson Al-Mashrif, a car bearing two men rolls through a Houthi roadblock, heading for a small house. The men depart the vehicle. They step inside. Within an instant, an explosion shatters the midday calm. Both men die instantly, casualties of two drone rockets.
One of the men is Abu Al-Baraa Al-Ibby, a senior al-Qaeda official.
The other man is Qasim al-Rimi.
President Trump does not announce the assassination. In fact, it is several days before confirmation of the mission is made public. It is left to the State Department to make the official statement: “At the direction of President Trump, the US conducted a counterterrorism operation in Yemen that successfully eliminated Qasim al-Rimi, a founder and the leader of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula and a deputy to al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.” *
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is gone.
Qasem Soleimani is gone.
Qasim al-Rimi is gone.
But the war on terror remains.
However, it is now shifting to a new battlefield.
