Dangerous Liaisons

The killing of Jamal al-Badawi is little cause for celebration, veteran counterterrorism officials say

- Jeff Stein 

WHEN REPORTS ARRIVED IN EARLY JANUARY that Jamal al-Badawi, a long-sought Al-Qaeda militant, had been incinerated in a U.S. airstrike in Yemen on New Year’s Day, President Donald Trump let out a whoop.

“Our GREAT MILITARY has delivered justice for the heroes lost and wounded in the cowardly attack on the USS Cole,” Trump tweeted on January 6. Badawi, at large for over a decade, had quarterbacked the October 12, 2000, attack on the guided-missile destroyer with an explosives-laden boat as it lay at anchor in the Yemeni port of Aden.

The Pentagon had taken nearly a week to verify the news, perhaps keeping in mind that many a top terrorism target, including Osama bin Laden and Islamic State leader Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, were once declared dead, only to pop up later. “U.S. forces are still assessing the results of the strike following a deliberate process to confirm his death,” a spokesman for U.S. Central Command had said. Days later, however, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni-based organization whose membership has quadrupled in recent years, eulogized Badawi as “a martyr” who had indeed died from “a Crusader drone strike.”

The demise of Badawi, held responsible for the death of 17 sailors and the wounding of 40 more aboard the Cole, came as bittersweet revenge for the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. They had hunted him following his repeated escapes from Yemeni prisons in 2003 and 2006, as well as after he was released by authorities in 2007 on a promise he would refrain from further violence.

“I dealt with Jamal Badawi for a long time,” tweeted former FBI special agent Ali Soufan, who cracked the top bin Laden lieutenant way back in 2001 through a skillful, nonviolent interrogation, only to see him back on the street again and again.