美国国家公共电台 NPR U.S. Ramps Up Its Fight Against Al-Qaida In Yemen

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

In Yemen, the Trump¹ administration has stepped up military action. The U.S. has been bombing al-Qaida targets there this week. The U.S. effort against al-Qaida is just one of three separate conflicts in Yemen, and the country is also suffering a terrible humanitarian² crisis. NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre is here to talk more about it. Welcome to the studio, Greg.

GREG MYRE, BYLINE³: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: What more can you tell us about the scope of these U.S. strikes in Yemen?

MYRE: The U.S. has carried out about 30 bombing strikes in the past two nights. And this is very unusual in Yemen. What we've traditionally seen is the occasional drone strike. And this stepped up activity that we're seeing comes on the heels of a very rare ground raid about a month ago. That ground raid did not go smoothly⁴ at all. A U.S. Navy SEAL Ryan Owens was killed. Several colleagues were injured, and their aircraft had to be destroyed. They did gather some intel, but we're hearing today from Defense⁵ officials that that was not what led to the most recent airstrikes that we've seen.

CORNISH: Do we know what the U.S. goal is here?

MYRE: I think specifically what they fear from al-Qaida in Yemen is the ability to make very sophisticated bombs - bombs that don't have metal in them and could be used to carry out an attack on an airliner⁶. So it's a specific skill that they associate with al-Qaida in Yemen.

CORNISH: Now, it's not just the U.S. and al-Qaida here. There are many other players in the conflict in Yemen. Can you give us a sense of what's going on on the ground?

MYRE: Sure. Saudi Arabia and Iran are waging this major battle for supremacy⁷ throughout the Middle East. And Yemen is one of their main battlegrounds. For the Saudis, Yemen is a country on their southern border. They don't want this chaos⁸. And for the last two years, they've been conducting air strikes with a lot of U.S. assistance. It has not gone well. It hasn't changed the trajectory⁹ of the war in any significant way. And the Saudis are being blamed for a lot of civilian¹⁰ casualties, so not a real success from their point of view. On the Iranian side, they're aligned¹¹ with the Houthi rebels - they're fellow Shiite Muslims. And it's hard to get an exact fix on how much Iran is or isn't doing in Yemen. But it's clearly a way for them to be poking¹² at Saudi Arabia, so it's part of this bigger proxy¹³ battle.

CORNISH: Right. Proxy because Yemen has its own civil war going on.

MYRE: That's right. And it's been an absolute disaster for the country. This is a very poor country. And now you have this multi-sided civil war. We won't get into all the players, but I'll just mention two. One I've already noted¹⁴, the Houthi rebels - they took over the capital two years ago, and they still control it in other parts of the country. But they're not a functioning government in any real sense of the word. And they're fighting against primarily the president's troops. And there's the president Abed Rabbo Mansur Hadi, but he's been out of the country for two years. He's got a loyal army fighters still waging war on his behalf. But he's been mostly in Saudi Arabia. So you have this inconclusive war that drags on with many different actors.

CORNISH: Is it something that can be compared to what is happening in Syria?

MYRE: It is a fair analogy. In both these countries, the Arab uprisings of 2011 is where all this trouble began. You've had multi-sided civil wars, a downward spiral into complete chaos in both countries. The U.S. is carrying out air strikes against the Islamic State in Syria, against al-Qaida in Yemen and, again, just a humanitarian catastrophe¹⁵ in both places.

CORNISH: That's NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. Thanks so much.

MYRE: Thank you, Audie.

1 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

2 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 smoothly   

adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地

参考例句：

• The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。
• Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。

5 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

6 airliner   

n.客机，班机

参考例句：

• The pilot landed the airliner safely.驾驶员使客机安全着陆。
• The passengers were shepherded across the tarmac to the airliner.旅客们被引导走过跑道去上飞机。

7 supremacy   

n.至上；至高权力

参考例句：

• No one could challenge her supremacy in gymnastics.她是最优秀的体操运动员，无人能胜过她。
• Theoretically,she holds supremacy as the head of the state.从理论上说，她作为国家的最高元首拥有至高无上的权力。

8 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

9 trajectory   

n.弹道，轨道

参考例句：

• It is not difficult to sketch the subsequent trajectory.很容易描绘出它们最终的轨迹。
• The path followed by a projectile is called its trajectory.抛物体所循的路径称为它的轨道。

10 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

11 aligned   

adj.对齐的，均衡的

参考例句：

• Make sure the shelf is aligned with the top of the cupboard.务必使搁架与橱柜顶端对齐。

12 poking   

n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• He was poking at the rubbish with his stick. 他正用手杖拨动垃圾。
• He spent his weekends poking around dusty old bookshops. 他周末都泡在布满尘埃的旧书店里。

13 proxy   

n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人

参考例句：

• You may appoint a proxy to vote for you.你可以委托他人代你投票。
• We enclose a form of proxy for use at the Annual General Meeting.我们附上委任年度大会代表的表格。

14 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

15 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。