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UK wont send troops to Yemen for NOW

The UK military says it will not send any troops to Yemen now, but it will stay close and offer assistance to prevent the country to become another Afghanistan.

Britain’s Chief of the Defense Staff General Sir David Richards was reacting to the shift in global attention towards Yemen where the al Qaida terrorist group and its affiliates have stepped up their terror campaign.

The Yemeni-based Qaeda group was emerged as the source of ink cartridge bombs found on an aircraft in the UK last week.

However, Sir Richards said the military’s concentration needed to remain on Afghanistan, British media reported.

Asked if an Afghan-style military intervention was the right approach, Gen Richards said: “It might be, but right now it is not considered to be the case and clearly the Yemeni government does not believe it needs our help and they are extremely on-side, like most Islamic nations are actually.”

“Clearly, the primary agency dealing with this are our intelligence and security agencies. But the military are already helping with their training,” he added.

“I don’t think we want to open up another front there and nor do the Yemenis want us to do that. So we have to find other ways of doing these things and in the meantime making sure Afghanistan doesn’t revert to becoming, if you like, a “second Yemen – “ that is the Army’s primary duty at the moment.

“Our role is to remain very close to them, to help them where they most need it and in the meanwhile focus our efforts on Afghanistan and assisting Pakistan to ensure they don’t become the threat Yemen is beginning to be.

“When people say Yemen is worse than Afghanistan or Pakistan, one reason is that many of al Qaida’s leaders and operatives spend most of their time thinking about their own security rather than planning how to attack us.”

Gen Richards, who succeeded Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup on Friday, said there were “reasons to be cautiously optimistic” about progress in Afghanistan where the allied effort was “just beginning to” turn the tide.

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