White House Continues to Back Yemen as Model for Successful Counterterrorism

Brent Stirton/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — The White House continues to hail Yemen — a country that is descending into chaos — as a model for fighting extremism, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Wednesday.

“The White House does continue to believe that a successful counter-terrorism strategy is one that will build up the capacity of the central government to have local fighters on the ground to take the fight to extremists in their own country,” Earnest told reporters at the White House. “That is a template that has succeeded in mitigating the threat that we face from extremists in places like Yemen.”

President Obama has long pointed to the counterterrorism campaign in Yemen as a model for the fight against ISIS.

“This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” Obama said in September as he outlined his strategy to degrade and destroy ISIS.

But today, the U.S. strategy in Yemen has virtually collapsed amid the fall of the American-backed government. The U.S. embassy in Yemen has been shut down and U.S. military personnel have been evacuated.

“We have not seen that kind of progress in terms of strengthening the central government, I think you could make a pretty strong case that we’ve seen the opposite of that, but we do continue to enjoy the benefits of a sustained counterterrorism security relationship with the security infrastructure that remains,” Earnest said. “There are elements of the Yemeni government that we continue to be in touch with that continue to further our efforts to apply pressures to extremists that seek to operate in that country.”

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