New York: The United States has begun covert operations against Al Qaida in Yemen, according to a report in the New York Times newspaper.
The Pentagon will spend more than Dh256m over the next one and a half years to try and combat the growing presence of the terrorist organisation.
According to the report, this money will be spent on sending in special forces teams to train the Yemeni security forces and a doubling of military aid to the country.
It also added that CIA agents who are specialists in counter-terrorism were first sent to Yemen a year ago.
The Gulf country has become the focus of global attention this week after the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a plane heading for Detroit on Christmas Day.
The Nigerian has claimed that he had received training from al Qaida in Yemen.
This follows on from a very public rally in southern Yemen last week, in which Al Qaida announced that its war was with the United States and not the Yemeni army.
Last week, the Yemeni information minister Hassan Al Lawzi told Gulf News that there was "comprehensive and close" co-operation with the US.
He added: "There is a serious approach from the state to face Al Qaida, its members and to smash them.”
The regrouping of Al Qaida in Yemen comes after it had been targeted in Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Iraq.
"Yemen, from a historical and factual perspective, has been a home to jihadists around the world," Dia Rashwan, an expert in Islamic movements, said.
"In the past couple of years we have witnessed a retreat by Al Qaida in different places," Rashwan told Gulf News.
