The United States and Britain will shortly hold military exercises with Yemen, which has joined the US-led war on terrorism, western diplomatic sources said Tuesday.
The maneuvers are due to take place over the next three months in the Hadramut region of southeastern Yemen, bordering areas where suspected al-Qaeda combatants have taken refuge, according to AFP.
The sources provided no figures or idea of the scale of the exercises.
Washington already has a 20-member team in Yemen to coordinate US military assistance and training to prevent the country from being used as a safe haven by al-Qaeda fighters.
Another 30 US military instructors would arrive at the end of March in Sanaa, the sources said, AFP reported. They would be followed by more US experts to provide special forces and intelligence training as part of the war on terror.
The US team "will operate from a joint command center of Yemeni intelligence in Sanaa and a Yemeni special forces base 10 kilometers from the capital," one diplomat said.
Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh called upon Yemen's armed force "to be strong in the face of all those who seek to harm national security," during a cabinet meeting on Monday, the official press said Tuesday. (Albawaba.com)
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