The AQAP - Ansar al-Shariah Link

As I've mentioned in recent posts there has been a great deal of speculation (at least in the world I inhabit) about what, if any, are the exact links between AQAP and Ansar al-Shariah.

And while my full thoughts on these links are still forthcoming, today we have another, and I believe crucial, piece of evidence to throw into the mix.

This video shows Tariq al-Dhahab, the Ansar al-Shariah leader and Anwar al-Awlaki's brother-in-law, receiving the bay'a or oath of allegiance on behalf of Nasir al-Wihayshi (the AQAP commander) and Ayman al-Zawahiri (the head of AQ).

Obviously recorded at some point in the last couple of weeks, the video was shot when al-Dhahab was in Rada'a, and it appears as though he is standing in the courtyard of the recently restored Amarriya mosque and school.

(On a side note, I attended the Amarriya's grand opening and have visited it several times - both before and after - and the last thing I ever though I would see was an al-Qaeda induction ceremony taking place in the building that the Dutch, US and others had helped to restore.)

There are still a lot of questions, how binding is an oath of allegiance that is given as a matter of course, and possibly under some sort of duress, real or imagined?

But leaving that and other questions aside for the moment, the video is the latest indication that al-Qaeda is continuing to grow in Yemen.

If I were an official in the US government this video would be keeping me up nights.  For all the recent years of focus on AQAP in Yemen and US efforts there, the evidence continues to suggest that the group is getting stronger in terms of numbers instead of weaker.

(Please don't misread this and think AQAP or Ansar al-Shariah is about to take over the state, Yemen is a huge place and these groups remain unpopular in many parts of the country, but the evidence continues to show that they are making gains.)

For me this begs two questions: 1.  Why is this?  Why instead of growing weaker is AQAP and Ansar al-Shariah attracting more members? And 2. Is the current US approach to Yemen a part of the problem, is what the US is doing in Yemen actually making the problem worse instead of better?