Yemenis in the Radfan district of Lahj protest the government raid that targeted suspected al-Qaeda members
The claim of responsibility was a haughty cackle, even if the operation it reveled in had ended in failure. In an Internet post* on Dec. 28, 2009, the group al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attempt to blow up Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas had demonstrated the "frailty" of American intelligence, "making all they have spent upon security technologies a waste to them." In an additional shout-out, it praised "the hero mujahid [Major] Nidal Hasan," the accused perpetrator of the Fort Hood, Texas, massacre, as an exemplar of the mission "to kill every crusader...
