Despite its claim of responsibility earlier today,
there's a lot that isn't publicly known about Al Qaeda
in the Arabian Peninsula's connection to last week's
by Cherif and Said Kouachi in Paris.
Said previously traveled to Yemen, met with
influential Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar Al Awlaki,
befriended the man behind the failed "underwear
bomb" attempt, and received training and perhaps
some seed money for a future attack against the
offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie
Hebdo.
But that was several years ago, long enough for the
Kouachi brothers to have formulated the operational details of the plot on their own or with the assistance of other, yet-unknown accomplices.
The optics of today's announcement are still
unmistakable. AQAP, which is part of a larger Al
Qaeda network engaged in a struggle for jihadist
hearts and minds with the upstart Islamic State, just
claimed credit for the most galvanizing jihadist terror attack on a Western target in years.
The terrorism in Paris highlights that al Qaeda's core didn't fade into irrelevance after the US invasion of Afghanistan and deaths of its top figures. Instead, it shifted leadership, expertise, and operational capabilities to Yemen (and to some extent Syria).
The global jihadist organization is now deeply
entrenched in the troubled Arabian state. Yemen's
government has disintegrated in the face of threats
from the Shi'ite Houthi rebel movement and AQAP.
AQAP has also quietly pursued a successful ground-
level hearts-and-minds strategy in order to build
enough local support to ensure the group's long-
term survival. And its top leaders have close ties to alQaeda head Aymen al-Zawahiri, to the point where
AQAP is more like the Western wing of Al Qaeda
central than a true franchise.
"They have a robust internal safe haven and a
dysfunctional government that the US has great
difficulty partnering with, and the US's strategy is not very sound for the problem," Daniel Green, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Business Insider. "They have everything they need."
In Yemen, tribesmen stand on the rubble of a
building destroyed by a US drone air strike, that
targeted suspected al Qaeda militants on Feb. 3,
2013.

Al Qaeda's "Global General Manager"

The Arabian Peninsula has always been at the core of Al Qaeda's aims. Osama bin Laden was deeply
incensed by the Saudi monarchy's agreement to host American troops during the Gulf War and dreamed of overthrowing his home country's royal family.
There were a number of Yemenis at top levels in Al
Qaeda's hierarchy both before and after the 9/11
attacks — including Nasir Abdel Karim Al Wuhayshi,
current head of AQAP.
Wuhayshi was bin Laden's secretary and assistant
until the fall of Afghanistan's Taliban regime in 2001.
As Eli Lake reported for the Daily Beast in August of
2013, Wuhayshi had been "picked to lead of one of
the group’s four training camps in Tarnak Farms,
where bin Laden himself often stayed."
As head of AQAP, Wuhayshi endorsed Ayman al-
Zawahiri as bin Laden's successor. As Lake reported,
the Egyptian ex-physician returned Wuhayshi's loyalty by elevating him to Al Qaeda's global general
manager, "able to call on the resources of alQaeda’s affiliates throughout the Muslim world, according to
one US intelligence official."
In his book The Last Refuge: Yemen, Al Qaeda, and
America's War in Arabia, scholar Gregory D. Johsen recounts the organizational connections between Wuhayshi and representatives of Al Qaeda's Saudi branch.
Wuhayshi fled to Iran but was eventually deported to Yemen and imprisoned in 2003. He broke out in 2006, later teaming up with a number of ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees and other experienced al Qaeda hands to form AQAP in early 2009.
This organizational pedigree has allowed AQAP to
function at a remarkably high level. It's won the
allegiance of tribal leaders in Yemen's periphery by
emphasizing local concerns over the imposition of
religious law. It's assassinated dozens of figures in
the Yemeni government and security apparatus,
including the southern commander of Yemen's army
in June of 2011 — and perpetrated numerous suicide attacks against Houthi targets as well (the Houthis are Shiites; Al Qaeda is Sunni).
"The have a very high-quality leadership cadre" says
Green, noting that the group's bomb makers are
particularly skilled.

Attacking External Targets
Most Al Qaeda offshoots are absorbed with local
concerns — Somalia's al Shabaab doesn't seem to
have an agenda beyond the Horn of Africa, for
instance, while Al Qaeda in Iraq had little apparent
ambition to strike at foreign targets before it
morphed into ISIS. AQAP has always been different.
Publicly available documents recovered from Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan cautioned AQAP against focusing on internal state building in Yemen instead of striking at Al Qaeda's enemies abroad.
"From Al Qaeda Central's perspective, AQAP is sort of the special branch and the one most capable of
mounting outside attacks," Brookings Institution
fellow Will McCants told Business Insider.
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, agrees that
the group is better suited towards outside attacks
than other Al Qaeda affiliates.
"AQAP has had more external operations
capabilities, and has had the most external
operations capabilities of any AQ affiliate for some
time," says Gartenstein-Ross. "Part of it could be that AQAP has a green light to carry out attacks and other affiliates don't."
This doesn't mean that AQAP's claim of responsibility for the attack in Paris is airtight. But it could still draw attention to Al Qaeda central's successful reconstitution of itself within Yemen's political and social vacuum.
"It's clear that a lot of core leadership has made it
way to Yemen and is part of AQAP," says Gartenstein-Ross.
And they're still major players in the global jihadist
scene, able to claim a concrete link to a major attack
on Western soil.