Washington does not intend to dispatch American soldiers into Yemen or Somalia to fight al Qaeda, President Barack Obama said in remarks published on Sunday. "I have no intention of sending U.S. boots on the ground in these regions," Obama told People magazine.
"I have every intention of working with our international partners in lawless areas around the globe to make sure that we're keeping the American people safe," Obama was quoted as saying by the magazine.
"We've known throughout this year that al Qaeda in Yemen has become a more serious problem. And, as a consequence, we have partnered with the Yemeni government to go after those terrorist training camps and cells there in a much more deliberate and sustained fashion," Obama conveyed.
General David Petraeus, who as head of U.S. Central Command oversees an area stretching from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, met Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier this month in Sanaa. "Yemen does not want to have American ground troops there. And that's a good response for us to hear, certainly," Petraeus said in an interview aired on Sunday on CNN.
"Of course, we would always want a host nation to deal with a problem itself. We want to help. We're providing assistance," Petraeus added.
