CAIRO – American military teams and intelligence agencies are involved in secret joint military operations with Yemeni troops that killed scores of Al-Qaeda people in recent weeks.
The joint military operations begun six weeks ago and were approved by US President Barack Obama.
They involve several dozen troops from the clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), whose main mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists.
The Americans, who do not take part in the actual attacks, help plan missions, develop tactics and provide weapons and munitions.
They provide the Yemenis with highly sensitive intelligence, including electronic and video surveillance, as well as three-dimensional terrain maps.
The operations included a strike, authorized by Obama, on a compound where Anwar al-Aulaqi, an American of Yemeni origin, was thought to be meeting with al-Qaeda leaders.
The joint efforts have resulted in more than two dozen ground raids and strikes in the past six weeks, in which scores of people, including six regional al-Qaeda leaders, were killed.
“Information sharing has been a key in carrying out recent successful counterterrorism operations,” a Yemeni official told the Post.
He added that the two countries maintained a “steadfast cooperation” in combating al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The US has voiced increasing concern about Al-Qaeda existence in Yemen since a botched attack on a US-bound airliner which was claimed by the AQAP.
New Strategy
The joint secret operations were seen as proof of Obama’s counterterrorism strategy, which is based on closely working with foreign partners.
“President [Ali Abdullah] Saleh was serious about going after al-Qaeda and wasn’t going to resist our encouragement,” the senior US security official said.
The broad US involvement in Yemen came to light recently through a series of visits by high-level American military officials.
They included the rarely seen JSOC commander, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan and Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of US Central Command.
The Obama strategy of working with foreign partners is seen as a sharp contrast to the do-it-alone counterterrorism policies of the Bush administration.
But the far-reaching US military role in Yemen could backfire for the Saleh regime, especially that tribal, political and religious groups resent American interference.
Several prominent Yemeni scholars had threatened to declare war if American troops were sent to Yemen.
Smelling trouble, Saleh has repeatedly reaffirmed opposition to Western intervention in his country’s fight against al-Qaeda.
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