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In a Bloomberg story about the recent failed U.S. attempt to rescue two hostages from Al-Qaeda in Yemen, Dartmouth’s Daniel Benjamin says the U.S. has greater capability for such actions in Yemen than in the parts of Iraq and Syria controlled by the terrorist group ISIS.

“The willingness to take on a bit of risk is probably greater in Yemen simply because intelligence collection has been going on so much longer there and because we have a positive relationship, and at this point a fairly deep relationship, with the Yemeni authorities who we have found to be committed to countering AQAP,” Benjamin tells Bloomberg. “In Syria, we really are just still in the early stages of collecting the necessary intelligence to operate effectively there.”

Benjamin is director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding.

Read the full story, published 12/7/14 by Bloomberg.