In a speech on 23 May 2013, President Obama declared the war on terror over. “We must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror,’” he said, “but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.” He argued that al-Qa`ida is on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan and no longer threatens the U.S. homeland. Though he didn’t mention Yemen, Obama could well have added that he believes that al-Qa`ida in Yemen is also on the defensive and that the new government in Yemen is sufficiently stable to return the large number of Yemeni prisoners cleared for release from Guantanamo to their homeland.