Obama says no plans for US troops in Yemen, Somalia

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Obama says no plans for US troops in Yemen, Somalia

 

Monday, January 11, 2010

 

 

Washington (dpa) - The United States does not plan to send its troops to either Yemen or Somalia amid growing concern about terrorism threats from those countries, President Barack Obama said in an interview. "I never rule out any possibility in a world that is this complex," Obama said in the interview with People magazine, excerpts of which were released Sunday. "In countries like Yemen, in countries like Somalia, I think working with international partners is most effective at this point."

 

 

"We have known throughout this year that al-Qaeda in Yemen has become a more serious problem," Obama said in the interview, the full version of which is to be published Friday.

 

He also acknowledged that "the same is true in Somalia, another country where there are large chunks that are not fully under government control and al-Qaeda is trying to take advantage of them."

 

But the president said he had "no intention of sending US boots on the ground in those regions," according to The New York Times.

 

"One of the things that we have to understand is that unlike a traditional war, the threats that we face and our allies face are not always going to be centred or localized in a particular geographic area but are rather networks that are connecting over cyberspace," Obama said.

 

"And how we project ourselves to the world, the message we send to Muslim communities around the world, the overwhelming majority of which reject al-Qaeda but where a handful of individuals may be moved by a jihadist ideology, what countermessaging we have to them - all those things - continue to be extraordinarily important."

 

The al-Qaeda terrorist group's affiliate in Yemen is believed to have been behind the failed attempt to blow up a Christmas Day flight over Detroit. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a 23-year-old Nigerian, is accused of trying to ignite explosives as the Delta/Northwest Airlines flight was to land.

 

Abdulmutallab on Friday entered a not-guilty plea during a brief arraignment hearing in a federal court in Detroit. He faces up to life in prison if convicted.

 

An initial inquiry commissioned by Obama found last week that the intelligence community had "sufficient information" to stop the attack. Obama has sharply criticized his intelligence community for the "systemic failure" and outlined a series of measures to strengthen intelligence gathering and analysis.