With fear comes power
Ensuring more secure prisons in the Middle East means a safer future for us By Mikaela Tenner
On February 13, prison guards at Yemen's Sana’a Central Prison were alarmed when they heard an explosion in front of the facility. It was not long before they were overwhelmed by open gunfire and two more explosions, later discovered to be car bombs. The armed attackers blew a hole in the wall of the prison, allowing twenty-nine prisoners to escape. Of these twenty-nine escapees, nineteen were convicted terrorists. Though there were no immediate claims of responsibility, Yemeni and International officials soon traced this feat back to the terrorist group al Qaeda.
This daring escape was one of several that al Qaeda has performed throughout the Middle East in 2014. International sources are worried about the increasing number of prison breaks because they have been a key source of Al Qaeda strength in the past. In 2006, Al Qaeda tunneled into a Yemen political security prison, allowing twenty-three suspected terrorists to escape and adding to the strength of their already powerful terrorist group.
After receiving news of the prison break this week, international officials became further concerned when a video of an al Qaeda gathering came to light. The video, posted to an Islamic website and dated back to March, shows hundreds of al Qaeda members celebrating the prison escape. In the fifteen-minute clip, the leader of Yemen’s al Qaeda group vows to attack the United States. United States intelligence has been analyzing the video since its release last Monday.
This video was released on a public website where any United States intelligence agencies could have discovered it. Instead of conducting their meeting in secrecy, al Qaeda chose to publicly release the video. However, although the fifteen-minute clip shows the celebration, it hardly releases any al Qaeda secrets. The video shows men gathering, celebrating, and making proclamations that "we have to remove the cross, (and) the bearer of the cross, America."
Al Qaeda wants to destroy America; this information is hardly news to anyone. The released clip of their gathering gave away no secrets, plans or strategies of the group, and was likely only released as an intimidation tactic.
Al Qaeda has heavily relied on a campaign of intimidation to reach their present-day power. In the past, they have made attempts to hide videos of their members training and plotting against the Western world. Their use of intimidation not only aided them during their formation as a Middle Eastern terrorist group, but helped them over time to create an organization with large amounts of political power. Al Qaeda relies on fear, because with fear comes power.
Top US officials must take action on these continuous prison breaks committed by al Qaeda. The low security levels of Middle Eastern prisons may be a primary reason why these prison breaks have been so successful over the last decade. American prisons are far more sophisticated than Middle Eastern prisons, and the United States should help Middle Eastern countries in making their prisons more technologically advanced.
Aiding the prisons in these countries would not only help these countries, but it would serve to protect the United States. The prisoners that escape are adding to the already large numbers of al Qaeda, and the larger the group becomes, the more likely it is that they will commit acts against the United States. If the United States is to have any chance at reducing their chance of attack, they must take appropriate measures to enhance security features on Middle Eastern prisons and halt this stream of al Qaeda prison breaks.