Washington, December 31: The United States and Yemen are identifying targets for potential US retaliatory strikes against Al-Qaeda in Yemen after the failed Detroit plane attack.
US special operations forces and intelligence agencies and Yemeni counterparts are working to identify potential Al-Qaeda targets in the Arab country, a senior US official told.
The all-news network said this was part of a new classified security agreement with Sana’a which allows the US to use cruise missiles, fighter jets or unmanned armed drones against targets in Yemen with the consent of its government.
Another official told that the Yemen was still reluctant to allow US ground operation insides its territories.
US War on Terror Reaches Yemen
It has not yet consented to the type of Special Forces helicopter-borne air assault that would put US commandos on the ground with the mission of capturing suspects for further interrogation.
Al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula has claimed the failed December 25 bombing of the Northwest jet over Detroit.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, said he got the explosive powder and training from Yemen.
The Yemeni government confirmed he stayed in the country several months in 2005 and came back again in August.
Abdulmutallab told interrogators his plot was personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born imam linked to the Fort Hood shooting spree.
In December, US-backed Yemeni forces made at least two unsuccessful attempts to kill al-Awlaki, according to the Washington Times.
The latest was the day before the Detroit plane was to be attacked.
The New York Times unveiled last week that Washington provided Yemen with firepower and intelligence to conduct a series of deadly strikes on Al-Qaeda in the past 10 days.
Al-Qaeda said the Detroit plot was launched in response to recent “American aggression” in Yemen.
Help Pleas
Yemen has admitted the existence of hundreds of Al-Qaeda members on its soil, appealing for help from the West to forestall more terror attempts.
“Of course there are a number of Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders,” Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi told the BBC.
“I can’t give you really an exact figure. May be hundreds of them, 200, 300”
The top diplomat cautioned that they are posing a major threat to Yemen and Western interests.
“They may actually plan for attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit.”
Al-Qirbi called for more help from the Western countries to train local security forces to crack down on Al-Qaeda.
“We have to work in a very joint fashion in partnership to combat terrorism,” he said.
“If we do that, the problem will be under control.”
He said the US, Britain and the European Union could do a lot to improve Yemen’s response to Al-Qaeda.
“We need more training, we have to expand our counter-terrorism units and this means providing them with the necessary training, military equipment, ways of transportation, we are very short of helicopters.”
Al-Qaeda has been gaining more ground in Yemen in recent years.
Last month, it ambushed and killed three senior Yemeni security officers and four bodyguards in Hadramawt province.
-Agencies