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Best U.S. option in Yemen? Help it fight al Qaeda: Gates

16 November 2010 23:05 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday he believed the best tool to fight al Qaeda in countries like Yemen was boosting local capabilities, adding, "We don’t need another war", APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
Al Qaeda affiliates in troubled states like Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere are proving a growing threat to the United States and its allies, nine years after the September 11, 2001, attacks by al Qaeda’s central leadership triggered the war in Afghanistan.
Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, has taken credit for last month’s failed parcel bomb plot against U.S. targets and for an attempt to blow up a U.S. passenger jet last Christmas.
"The truth is what we have seen is as we’ve brought pressure on al Qaeda in (Pakistan’s) North Waziristan, the terrorist movement has metastasized in many ways," he said.
"So now we see them in Somalia, Yemen and North Africa, in the Maghreb."
The United States has already ramped up counterterrorism assistance to Yemen to $155 million in fiscal year 2010, from just $4.6 million in 2006. U.S. officials are also looking at additional ways to put pressure on militants, including enhanced training of Yemeni forces.
"Our biggest tools particularly with respect to Yemen are the partnership capacity of the Yemenis themselves and enabling them to go after these guys. We don’t need another war," he told The Wall Street Journal CEO Council.
"And the Yemenis have shown a willingness to go after AQAP."
Analysts warn there are practical limitations on how much the United States can do to assist deeply troubled states like Yemen, whose weak central government faces colossal economic problems and internal strife.
Gates acknowledged Yemen’s president faced "a tribal management challenge he has to deal with."
"But I would say that as far as going after the terrorists, yes, they do have the right attitude," he said.