Militants in Yemen an urgent concern: Clinton

The United States views al Qaeda militants operating from Yemen as an urgent concern, Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday in the first visit to Sanaa by a US secretary of state in 20 years. Washington is anxious for Yemen, next door to the world's top oil exporter, to step up its fight against an al Qaeda wing based in Yemen, where militants have attempted ambitious attacks against US and Western targets.
"I want to be frank. There are terrorists operating from Yemeni territory today, many of whom are not Yemeni, some of whom I'm sorry to say are American citizens. So this is an urgent concern for both of us," Clinton told a civil society gathering in Sanaa following talks with Yemen's president.
"They have sought to attack our country. And I know they have caused death, injury and destruction in Yemen. So stopping these threats would be a priority for any nation, and it is for the United States," she added. Clinton was in the Arabian Peninsula state to convey to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh the importance of fighting al Qaeda at its grassroots.
"It's not enough to have military-to-military relations," Clinton said before almost two hours of talks with Saleh. "We need to try to broaden the dialogue. We need to have this dialogue with the government." After the talks, a senior US official said Saleh had emphasised co-operation in combating terrorism in his remarks to Clinton. "He wanted to let her understand that he is fully committed," the official said.
Clinton had emphasised the need for consensus building in political reforms. "You shouldn't be trying to jam things down peoples' throats," the briefer said. He said US officials were encouraged by Saleh's remarks on counter-terrorism, but declined to elaborate. "He said some things that were encouraging. Encouraging words need follow-up."
Clinton's trip was mainly about working together to fight the militants, but the United States was also sincere in pushing for broader co-operation on facing Yemen's social, political and economic challenges, he said.
"We can't overemphasise CT (counter-terrorism)," the official said. "But equally the Yemeni people had to see that our partnership is not only about us." Yemen-based al Qaeda militants, engaged in hit-and-run attacks on Yemeni forces in recent months, have aroused US attention with failed plots to bomb cargo planes in October and to blow up a US passenger jet in 2009.
Washington has been quietly ramping up its role in Yemen, hoping to stop the slide toward state failure in a country also facing separate domestic rebellions in the north and south in addition to an al Qaeda resurgence. But the United States is also acutely aware that too big of a footprint could exacerbate fierce anti-American sentiment in Yemen and undermine Saleh's already weak central government.
US-Yemen relations have been strained by Washington's desire for a quicker pace of economic and political reforms, which it hopes would slow recruitment by militants, an aide to US President Barack Obama said last month. Yemen later said it would set up special anti-terrorist forces in four provinces in the south and east to fight al Qaeda. Clinton said Washington and Yemen now increasingly had "a very strong partnership" on counter-terrorism.