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U.S. ready to send troops to Yemen

The USS Cole was badly damaged in a terror attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors.
The USS Cole was badly damaged in a terror attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors.  


From John King
CNN Senior White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The United States is prepared to send a small contingent of troops into Yemen to assist that nation's effort to root out al Qaeda and other terrorist cells, a senior U.S. official told CNN Friday.

The emphasis of the still-evolving operation would be to train Yemeni forces and share intelligence, the official said. Yemen is located below Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh is under heavy pressure from Washington to crack down on al Qaeda operations in his country, and has asked for U.S. assistance.

President Bush in recent days approved such an operation, said an official who drew a parallel to U.S. efforts to help the governments of the Philippines and the Republic of Georgia deal with terrorists within their borders.

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This official was unsure of the number of U.S. troops likely to be involved except to say it was envisioned as "considerably less" than the roughly 600 U.S. troops deployed to the Philippines to help that nation's crackdown against the Abu Sayef terror network.

One diplomatic source said in October there may be suspects in the Yemeni capital San'a linked to people behind the terror attacks on the United States.

One link was said to be Khalid al-Midhar.

Al-Midhar has been identified by the U.S. Justice Department as one of the three hijackers on board American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon.

Yemen was the scene of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 American sailors. U.S. officials believe Osama bin Laden was behind the suicide bombing.

Since the September 11 terror attacks against the United States, cooperation between San'a and Washington has been increasing.

In January, President Bush met with Yemeni President Saleh at the White House.

In October, a U.S. official said Yemen had "one of the most significant" al Qaeda organizational links in the world, composed mostly of Yemenis who received military training in Afghanistan.

On December 19, sources told CNN that Yemeni security forces pursued suspected members of al Qaeda in two locations -- Bayhan and Abidha.

It was the first time that Yemen had resorted to military action against supporters of bin Laden.

No al Qaeda members were captured, but the people believed to have been hosting them in Bayhan were arrested, the sources said. The forces were looking for one or two people in that location.

In Abidha, a gunfight erupted between the Yemeni forces and those suspected of harboring the al Qaeda members. Sources said people were killed and injured, but had no information on how many or who those casualties were.

Yemen's interior ministry issued a warning against hiding suspected al Qaeda members and called for cooperation in the hunt for those believed to have fled.

Diplomatic sources told CNN that thousands of veterans of the Soviet-Afghan war are living in Yemen and were capable of launching "uncoordinated or coordinated attacks."

Yemen's government said it kept a close eye on these so-called "Arab-Afghans," some who lead lawful lives. The government also said it has deported about 5,000 non-Yemeni Arabs, including Arab-Afghan fighters, since 1998.

In October, the government said it has held many for questioning, including anyone travelling to and from Pakistan, which a U.S. official describes as "a door" to Afghanistan for al Qaeda sympathizers.

Yemen would add a fifth nation to those with a U.S. military presence in the campaign against terrorism: Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Georgia and the Philippines.



 
 
 
 






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