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| Talks in Yemen for top US general | Talks in Yemen for top US general |
| (40 minutes later) | |
| Top US soldier Gen David Petraeus has visited Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh amid a renewed offensive against militants, local media say. | |
| The general - responsible for US Middle East and Central Asian operations - reportedly said the US was keen to support Yemen's fight against al-Qaeda. | The general - responsible for US Middle East and Central Asian operations - reportedly said the US was keen to support Yemen's fight against al-Qaeda. |
| President Barack Obama accused Yemen-based militants of orchestrating the failed attack last week on a US plane. | President Barack Obama accused Yemen-based militants of orchestrating the failed attack last week on a US plane. |
| Yemeni officials said more troops had been sent to fight rebels in the east. | |
| State media in Yemen reported the meeting between Gen Petraeus and President Abdallah but there was no immediate word from the US. | |
| Last week a Yemen-based group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said it had trained the Nigerian man accused of carrying out the attempt to bomb a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. | |
| 'Stronger partnership' | |
| Security sources in the Yemeni capital said reinforcements had been sent to the eastern provinces of Abyan, Bayada and Shawba, where al-Qaeda militants have hideouts, AFP news agency reports. | |
| The alert level in those regions had been raised, the sources said. | |
| "These measures are part of operations to hunt down elements of al-Qaeda, prevent any attempt of a response after the raids, and tighten the noose around extremists," one of the sources said. | |
| In his weekly address posted on the White House website on Saturday, Mr Obama said more details of the alleged plot were becoming clear. | In his weekly address posted on the White House website on Saturday, Mr Obama said more details of the alleged plot were becoming clear. |
| "We know that [Mr Abdulmutallab] travelled to Yemen, a country grappling with crushing poverty and deadly insurgencies," he said. | |
| "As president, I've made it a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government, training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike al-Qaeda terrorists," Mr Obama added. | |
| "Training camps", he said, had "been struck, leaders eliminated, plots disrupted". | |
| The Yemeni government has expressed its willingness to accept more help but wants economic as well as military aid, analysts say. | |
| The country is confronting some daunting challenges - a fast-growing and impoverished population, diminishing water reserves and the likelihood that its only source of income, oil, will run dry in a few years. | |
| But security is just as big a challenge, complicated by an abundance of firearms, an insurgency in the north and a secessionist movement in the south. | |
| While the government is weak and unpopular in much of the country, the US has little choice but to work through it to fight al-Qaeda as any overt US presence would almost certainly provoke a public backlash. | |
| But the prospects of re-asserting central government authority over the lawless areas where al-Qaeda is based look, in the opinion of some analysts, remote - even with beefed-up American support. |