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Washington, January 16, 2010 – 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 centered 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.
Source: dpa, January 11, 2010
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