Posted on 12/26/2001 4:15:15 PM PST by synarch
WASHINGTON – Yemeni sources told United Press International Wednesday that the presence of uniformed U.S. military personnel in the country would embarrass President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but covert U.S. operatives would be welcome as long as they are discreet. "Marines in the country might weaken enthusiasm for President Saleh's cooperation in the war on terror," one well-placed Yemeni source told UPI Wednesday in response to reports this week that U.S. officials had asked Sanaa to host Marines in the next front in the war on terror. Meanwhile, the State Department on Wednesday knocked down reports that the United States had asked Yemeni authorities to host Marines to hunt al-Qaeda terrorists suspected to be hiding in the country. "We have made no requests to the government of Yemen for hosting U.S. military forces," a State Department spokeswoman Lynn Cassel told United Press International. Reports from Yemen Tuesday indicated U.S. Marines were planning to enter the country to search out al-Qaeda members affiliated with Osama bin Laden, the man who has evaded U.S. capture in Afghanistan. But Saleh has stepped up his own efforts to target the terror groups in the last week. On Dec. 18 Yemeni forces launched a raid on the Hassouna in Maareb district, where bin Laden-linked terrorists were believed to be hiding. While the raid turned up no terrorists and yielded more casualties for Yemeni armed forces, U.S. officials have applauded the move. "The U.S. government appreciates recent operations taken by Yemen to target terrorists based or operating in that country," Cassel told UPI. Yemeni news services report that a similar message was cabled from Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier this week to Saleh. The attacks from Yemen's forces earlier this month come after Saleh's meetings in Washington with President Bush and other top leaders. Saleh came away from his Nov. 26 and 27 meetings in Washington with an understanding that Yemen clearly would not be a target for U.S. military operations and quickly delivered this message to government ministers and other political leaders in the country. According to Yemeni sources who asked not to be identified, the president briefed leaders of his government within hours of arriving home from the trip in the port city of Al Mukalla. In the meeting, according to these sources, Saleh told his government that he had guarantees from Washington that Yemen would not be a target in the new war on terror. Attending the meeting was the head of Yemen's Islah party – the Islamic political arm within the government – and the speaker of Yemen's parliament, Sheikh Abdullah Bin Hussein Al-Ahmar. Saleh considers the sheikh a longtime political ally and relied on his support in the mid-1990s in his civil war with the former socialists largely in the south of Yemen. Nonetheless, Yemeni sources tell UPI that Saleh was far more open to allowing a greater U.S. presence into the country from the CIA and other arms of the government than he was to bringing in the Marines. In the meetings, U.S. officials offered to help train Yemen's special forces, for example offering increased training for Yemen's customs service and border patrols. Pakistan is holding dozens of Yemeni nationals believed to be members of bin Laden's organization caught trying to cross the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan. The government in Sanaa is debating whether to demand that they be extradited to Yemen or whether they can be tried in Pakistan or by U.S. military tribunals. According to U.S. officials, counter-terrorism experts from the State Department, CIA, Pentagon and National Security Council agree Yemen is one of a handful of countries, including Somalia and Sudan, where al-Qaeda members are hiding. "I wouldn't call this a list," one U.S. official told UPI earlier this month. "But our intelligence has become much clearer in the last two months on the extent of bin Laden's international reach." This official said the new list was culled primarily from new information discovered in U.S. and northern alliance raids of al-Qaeda targets inside Afghanistan. Copyright 2001 by United Press International. All rights reserved
CIA -- The World Factbook 2000 -- Yemen
... Yemen. Introduction. [Top of Page]. Background:
North Yemen became independent of the ...
Yemen and Cuba agree on enhancing the joint investments of ...
... Yemen and Cuba agree on enhancing the joint investments of the
private sector Yemen-Cuba, Economics, 9/15/2000. ...
February 28, 2000: Extended Deterrence Dilemma: Asia
... Strategy, Vol. 3 (1981). Richard E. Bissell, "Soviet Use of Proxies in the Third
World: The Case of Yemen," Soviet Studies, Vol. 30 (January 1978), pp. 87-106 ...
Yemen
... 1990 with the merger of the Yemen Arab Republic Yemen (Sanaa) or North Yemen and
the Marxist-dominated People's Democratic Republic of Yemen Yemen (Aden) or ...
Yemen
... and the Marxist-dominated People's Democratic Republic of Yemen Yemen (Aden) or South
Yemen; previously North Yemen had become independent on NA November 1918 ...
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