Guns And Mothers

In Yemen, starvation and a bloody civil war are leading some women to join Al-Qaeda

- Janine Di Giovanni

THE FIRST counter terrorism operation authorized by President Donald Trump quickly went awry. In late January, Navy SEAL Team 6 and United Arab Emirates special forces attacked Al-Qaeda insurgents in Yemen, but the militants spotted the approaching Americans and an hour long fire fight ensued. One SEAL died and three others were injured, and Yemeni officials claim that between 13 and 16 civilians were killed—including at least eight women and children.

Those numbers are still being verified, but the dead reportedly included the 8-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born former top operative of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). (Al-Awlaki, and later his teenage son, was killed by American drone strikes in 2011.) The girl’s photo quickly circulated online, sparking outrage over what many—the Trump administration excluded—consider a hasty and poorly organized U.S. raid.

The civilian deaths were a shocking PR blunder, but part of the reason so many women were killed is that some of them actually squared off against the SEALs. A Department of Defense spokesperson later said they appeared to be trained combatants of AQAP, Al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Yemen and Saudi Arabia and one of the group’s most dangerous branches. The fate of the female Al-Qaeda fighters made me wonder why they joined such a brutal group. There is no excuse for militants’ attacks, of course, but it’s important to understand their root causes. That would include ideology but also desperation: Yemen is rapidly running out of resources. When people are hungry and need to feed their kids, they will resort to almost anything.