Yemen, War On Terror | featured news

The acknowledgment that United States military forces have taken “direct action” in those countries opens the window further into the president’s secret war on terrorists.

Yemen's army recaptured the last al Qaeda stronghold in Abyan province on Friday, officials and residents said, and victory appeared close for their offensive to drive Islamist militants from towns they seized more than a year ago.

Al-Qaeda's Yemeni offshoot confirmed the killing of U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki late last month.

The United States is assembling a series of secret drone bases for an aggressive campaign against al-Qaida-linked groups in Somalia and Yemen, the Washingon Post reports.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, also said the American focus had narrowed to capturing or killing key leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

Hundreds of Islamic militants solidified their control over a town in southern Yemen Sunday after seizing tanks in clashes with fleeing soldiers, military officials said. Opponents of the country’s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused him of allowing the militants to freely seize Zinjibar in a bid to stoke Western fears that al-Qaida would take over the country if he responded to demands by demonstrators to step down.

The wealth of information pulled from Osama bin Laden's compound has reinforced the belief that he played a strong role in planning and directing attacks by Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, senior U.S. officials said Friday.

President Barack Obama approved secret joint U.S. military and intelligence operations with Yemeni troops that began six weeks ago and killed six regional al Qaeda leaders, The Washington Post reported.

Yemen's foreign minister says his country opposes any direct intervention by U.S. or other foreign troops in the fight against al-Qaida....