Yemen, on the southern Arabian Peninsula, was the destination of five visits by John Kiriakou between 1990 and approximately 2010 — a period that begins with the country’s brief unification and ends with the closure and evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Sanaa.[1][2]
The five trips, briefly
- First (~1990) — Kiriakou flew down from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for a three-day weekend during the prophet’s-birthday holiday. The two Yemens — the Republic of Yemen (North) and the Soviet-satellite People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South) — were in the process of merging. “People were literally dancing in the streets.”[1][2]
- Second — Unification under strain; the North dominating the South; “it just wasn’t good.”[2]
- Third — Civil war, with North and South launching Scud missiles at each other. South Yemeni Vice President Ali Salim al-Beidh fled to Oman.[3]
- Fourth — Grim. Safe accommodation only at the Marriott, with thirty-foot blast walls.[3]
- Fifth (~2010) — Kiriakou traveled as senior investigator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The U.S. embassy was being closed and personnel evacuated.[4]
The 2010 al-Qaeda attacks
In the period of the fifth trip, al-Qaeda staged sequential attacks on foreign diplomatic missions in Sanaa: six South Korean diplomats were assassinated en route from the airport to their hotel; a follow-up team of South Korean intelligence officers sent to investigate that attack was assassinated on the same road. “The Koreans just shut the embassy down and evacuated everybody. It’s grim. It really is. And there’s no hope in sight.”[5][6]
Kiriakou’s encounter with the DCIA Deputy
In the Marriott’s lobby during the fifth trip, Kiriakou encountered Steve Kappes, the Deputy Director of the CIA, on a quiet visit; the package-moving protocol used by the visiting protection detail revealed his presence. Kappes departed with a six-vehicle armored convoy. Kiriakou, “on the CIA shit list by then,” waited for “my one poorly armored ten-year-old Volkswagen to come and pick me up.”[7][8]