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| Arabia |
| Yemen sends more troops to al-Qaida strongholds |
| 2010-01-03 |
| Yemen deployed several hundred extra troops to two mountainous eastern provinces that are al-Qaida's main strongholds in the country and where the suspected would-be Christmas airplane bomber may have visited, security officials said Saturday. The reinforcements, aiming to beef up the military's presence in a remote region where the government has little control, were Yemen's latest move in a stepped-up campaign to combat al-Qaida. The United States plans to more than double its counterterrorism aid to the impoverished, fragmented Arab nation in the coming year to boost the fight. Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. general who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and who announced the increased aid, arrived in Yemen on Saturday and met with President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a Yemeni government official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press. The confrontation with al-Qaida's branch in Yemen gained new urgency after the failed attempt on Christmas Day to bomb a U.S. airliner headed to Detroit. President Barack Obama said Saturday that al-Qaida's branch in Yemen was behind the attempt. A 23-year-old Nigerian accused in the attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, has told U.S. investigators he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. U.S. and Yemeni investigators have been trying to track Abdulmutallab's steps in Yemen, which he visited from August until Dec. 7. He was there ostensibly to study Arabic in San'a, but he disappeared for much of that time. Yemeni security officials said Abdulmutallab may have traveled to Marif or Jouf provinces -- remote, mountainous regions east of the capital where al-Qaida's presence is the strongest -- though the officials cautioned that it was still not certain where he met up with members of the terror group. Yemeni Information Minister Hassan al-Louzi said Abdulmutallab's movements are "under investigation. They are trying to uncover where he went, who he met with." The security officials also said Abdulmutallab may have been in contact by e-mail with a radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaqi, during his stay in Yemen. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press. Al-Awlaqi, who is in hiding in Yemen, is a popular preacher among al-Qaida sympathizers, calling for Muslims to fight in jihad, or holy war, against the West. Al-Awlaqi earlier exchanged dozens of e-mails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused gunman in the Nov. 5 mass shooting at the Fort Hood, Texas, Army post in which 13 people were killed. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 FRANC24.com [WAFF] >SOMALI PM [Sharmarke] VOWS TO FLUSH INSUYRGENTS OUT OF MOGADISHU [plans EOM Army offensive]. ARTIC > PM warns that iff there is no parallel Afghan-like strategy made by the US-Allies to PREEMPTIVELY confront and defeat the Somali Militants, Somalia + US-World will run the risk of seeing "WHOLE TERRORIST COUNTRIES" [Regions?] BEING LOST TO THE MILITANTS + PROLIFER OF TERROR VIOLENCE, SCHEMES, NETWORKS TO NEW REGIONS, as AFPAK Militants will likely just pack up + move their Opers to Somalia, etc. in response to any successful or effec US-ALLIED strategy in AFPAK. * SAME > AL-SHABAAB MILITANTS PLEDGE TO SEND FIGHTERS TO SUPPORT YEMENI AL QAEDA. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2010-01-03 20:59 |