American forces to Yemen

The US is in the preparing plans for sending military officials -- "send several hundred U.S. Special Forces" -- to Yemen to assist the Yemeni forces in their fight against armed groups, The Washington Post said today.

Meantime, Pentagon official Victoria Clarke said yesterday that "We've agreed completely to work closely with them (Yemen ..) on what is the appropriate connection, what's the appropriate level and nature of the relationship so they can more effectively combat terrorism."

Clarck said that no final decision has been made yet on what the assistance package would include.

Clarck said "we are very sensitive to talking about what the countries feel comfortable talking about. So we'll work out substantively what it is we're going to do together and then figure out what we can talk about publicly."

The Pentagon said yesterday about US concerns in Yemen "we also put out a list probably a month, five weeks ago of several folks that we were looking for. And in that country, there were seven or eight already detained. So we feel that there may be al Qaeda in that country. Historically, if you look back, it's -- that's where bin Laden was born."