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Jose Mercury News",600,400);> Font ResizeU.S. has a covert front on al-Qaida in unstable Yemen By Eric Schmitt and Robert F. Worth New York Times Posted: 12/27/2009 06:42:16 PM PST Updated: 12/27/2009 10:24:00 PM PST WASHINGTON --- In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against al-Qaida in Yemen. A year ago, the CIA sent some of its top field operatives with counterterrorism experience to the country, according a former top agency official. At the same time, some of the most secret special operations commandos have begun training Yemeni security forces in counterterrorism tactics, senior military officers said. The Pentagon is spending more than $70 million over the next 18 months, and using teams of special forces personnel to train and equip Yemeni military, Interior Ministry and coast guard forces, more than doubling previous military aid levels. As U.S. investigators sought to corroborate the claims of a 23-year-old Nigerian man that al-Qaida leaders in Yemen had trained and equipped him to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines jet on Christmas Day, the plot casts a spotlight on the Obama administration's complicated relationship with Yemen. The country has long been a refuge for jihadists, in part because Yemen's government welcomed returning Islamist fighters who had fought in Afghanistan during the 1980s. The Yemen port of Aden was the site of the audacious bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in October 2000 by al-Qaida militants, which killed 17 sailors. But al-Qaida militants have made much more focused efforts to build a base in Yemen ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Advertisement ------------------------------------------------------------------------ in recent years, drawing recruits from throughout the region and mounting more frequent attacks on foreign embassies and other targets. The White House is seeking to nurture enduring ties with the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh and prod him to fight the local al-Qaida affiliate, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, even while his impoverished country grapples with seemingly intractable internal turmoil. With fears also growing of a resurgent Islamist extremism in nearby Somalia and East Africa, administration officials and U.S. lawmakers said Yemen could become al-Qaida's next operational and training hub, rivaling the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan where the organization's top leaders operate. "Yemen now becomes one of the centers of that fight," said Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, who visited the country in August. "We have a growing presence there, and we have to, of special operations, Green Berets, intelligence," he said on "Fox News Sunday." Yemen's remote areas are notoriously lawless, but the country's chaos has worsened in the past two years, as the government struggles with an armed rebellion in the northwest and a rising secessionist movement in the south. Yemen is running out of oil, and the government's dwindling finances have affected its ability to strike al-Qaida. -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.TrackingServlet.service(), siteId = 568, contentId = 14078168, typeId = VIEWED, number = 1, result = true
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