Accelerating US Operations Against AQAP in Yemen (and Support from Opposition Leaders)

Mark Mazzetti has a very important story in the Times noting that, far from backing away from using lethal force against AQAP targets in Yemen during this time of political instability, the US has stepped up its operations over the past month.  First there was the drone strike directed at Anwar al-Awlaki shortly after the UBL operation, and now (last Friday) we have a successful airstrike (you know, from an actual piloted aircraft) on Abu Ali al-Harithi.  Note that this is the al-Harithi who had fought with AQI in 2003; returned to Yemen in 2004 only to be arrested and jailed; was released by the Yemenis after just three years (the sort of thing that complicates the issue of transferring detainees to Yemen, to say the least); and has been an important AQAP figure since then; don't confuse him with the other Abu Ali al-Harithi, who died in the very first lethal drone strike in Yemen back in 2002. Aside from illustrating that the intensity of the violence in the US-AQAP relationship is on the up (a matter of consequence to the question whether a state of armed conflict can be said to exist as to AQAP separate and apart from AQAP's relationship with core al Qaeda), Mark's piece is especially important for this:

Concerned that support for the campaign could wane if the government of Yemen’s authoritarian president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, were to fall, the United States ambassador in Yemen has met recently with leaders of the opposition, partly to make the case for continuing American operations. Officials in Washington said that opposition leaders have told the ambassador, Gerald M. Feierstein, that operations against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula should continue regardless of who wins the power struggle in Sana.

lf accurate, that is a pretty big deal.  Government consent doesn't erase all the legal issues associated with drones strikes, obviously, but it does at least take off the table the sort of UN Charter/sovereignty objections that one sees, for example, in relation to the UBL operation, thus eliminating the need to rely on an Article 51 self-defense argument premised on the host state's inability or unwillingness to suppress a threat (though such arguments certainly can be made as to much of Yemen, perhaps now more than ever).