Antiterror allies: US and Yemen test the limits

Vigilant Yemeni snipers in light-green camouflage and polished black army boots carrying machineguns block the gates to the US Embassy.

The massive concrete and iron diplomatic compound is officially closed for a US government "security review." But inside, there's a bustle of activity. Members of a US Marine contingent lift weights and jump rope to stay fit; others oil and shine their M-16s. Green Berets and CIA operatives plot their next move.

Today this bunkered embassy is just one frontier outpost in a new phase of America's "war on terror."

From Afghanistan to former Soviet Georgia and the Philippines, US forces are training local armies to take on Islamic insurgencies. But recent successes - and failures - here in Yemen exemplify the challenges of collaborating in key terrorist hot spots around the world.

The fallout in Yemen following the Nov. 3 Hellfire missile strike, in which six Al Qaeda members were killed in a missile launched from a CIA-operated unmanned drone, is a case in point. The Yemeni government and US targets there have faced subsequent reprisal attacks.

The US contingent is trying to train backward local "special forces" to perform difficult "hit and snatch" operations against suspected Al Qaeda cells operating in the desert areas. On top of the military challenges are domestic and international political obstacles.

In this case, the local forces are led by the president's inexperienced son, and botched one attempt to capture the key Al Qaeda leader - Qaed Senyan al-Harithi - who was later killed in the US strike.

A larger challenge: The US has to be careful not to make the ruling regime look as if it's cooperating too much with America, because that could create domestic unrest that might topple the government.

Just a week ago, Yemeni officials publicly acknowledged that they had cooperated in the Nov. 3 Hellfire missile attack. There have also been reports - although Yemeni officials won't publicly comment - that the top Al Qaeda suspect arrested last Thursday, Abdul Rahim Al-Nashiri, was picked up at an airport in Yemen and quietly turned over to the US.

"Yemen has to contend with US pressure to eliminate the considerable Al Qaeda presence in its territory," says Bernard Haykel, a Yemen expert at New York University. "But it also has to deal with a population that is broadly sympathetic to Osama bin Laden's political aims."

This week, former Yemeni Prime Minister Abdelkerim al-Iriyani confirmed during a US visit that Al Qaeda members killed in the Hellfire missile attack were not only guilty of participating in the attack on the Cole, which killed 17 Americans, but also were planning "sabotage operations against oil and economically strategic facilities" in Yemen.

It is this kind of activity, where the terrorists turn on the host government, trying to drive a wedge between the people and the government, that has Yemen most worried. That, experts say, is what pushed Yemeni officials to cooperate more fully with the US last fall.

In August, two Al Qaeda members blew themselves up in an attempt to kill Yemeni officials. After that, Yemen agreed to allow US military and CIA teams in the country to train Yemen's special forces.

"Al Qaeda has clearly declared war on the Yemeni government, and on President Saleh himself," says Dr. Haykel. "It became very clear what the president had to do - he had to align himself with the US."

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