HADRAMOUT, Yemen -- The United States will supply Yemen with coast guard boats and help build a training facility to bolster security along its coastline, a security official said Saturday.
He spoke a day after a U.S. official said President Bush had given the go-ahead to dispatch troops to train the military in the Arabian peninsula country to combat terrorists.
The Yemeni official said U.S. forces will train 2,000 Yemeni military personnel at a coast guard training center to be built in Aden, site of the October 2000 attack that killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole.
Washington has been pushing Yemen for greater cooperation against terrorism since the suicide bombing, which the United States blames on Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.
The Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the United States will initially deliver 15 boats fitted with high-tech communications equipment. He would not say when they would be delivered.
The official said Yemen needs 250 boats to protect military and commercial ships, including oil tankers, along its 1,490-mile coastline on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The United States, Canada, France and Germany will provide funding for the center, boats and training, said the official, who was accompanying President Ali Abdullah Saleh on a tour of eastern Yemen.
A U.S. administration official said on condition of anonymity Friday that Bush had given the go-ahead to send troops to train Yemen's military to combat terrorists.
A senior U.S. defense official, who also spoke anonymously, said Gen. Tommy Franks was empowered to work out the details with Yemen. Franks, who visited Yemen last month, is responsible for U.S. military operations in the region.
A Yemeni official said Friday that up to 100 U.S. troops, including security experts and intelligence officers, would arrive soon. He did not say when, but said they would come in groups of 20 to 20 and staying for 15 to 20 days.
The plans represent another step in the Bush administration's moves to expand the war on terror beyond Afghanistan. U.S. officials believe Yemen, where bin Laden's father was born, has been home to many al-Qaida members and sympathizers.
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