President Bush has approved plans to send as many as 100 troops to Yemen to help train that nation's military to fight terrorists, senior administration officials said today.
While American officials said the details were still being worked out, they said the troops could leave as early as next week. They would consist predominantly of Special Forces, but could also include intelligence experts and other specialists. The main target would be Al Qaeda fighters who are hiding in Yemen.
Yemen is just the latest partner in an increasingly broad campaign that has expanded well beyond Afghanistan to the Persian Gulf, the Philippines and potentially to Georgia and Indonesia as well.
It comes as Democrats have become increasingly restless about the military moves, complaining that the administration has demanded virtually unlimited funds without providing a clear road map of the worldwide military effort.
''If this administration believes as strongly as I know it does about its conduct in the war thus far, I would think they'd look forward to answering the questions that the Congress necessarily must ask,'' Senator Tom Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota and the majority leader, told reporters today.
Administration officials have rejected the charge, saying it does not take account of the scope of Al Qaeda's operations and the need to combat the terror network on a global basis.
The military campaign appears to be expanding by the week. While Washington has been rife with speculation about a major military campaign against Iraq, the operations being planned are very different.
They involve military training by American Special Forces and donations of arms and military equipment to nations struggling to crush isolated but potent Islamic insurgencies that have possible links to Al Qaeda.
Special Operations forces played a central role in Afghanistan, where they called in air strikes and sometimes fought alongside anti-Taliban Afghans. In this next phase of the war on terrorism, the Special Forces' role is largely limited to training and equipping nations that have asked for American assistance, not calling in air strikes. Indeed, American commandos will be discouraged from even firing their weapons, except in self-defense, military officials said. The missions vary from nation to nation.
In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, for instance, Washington is considering sending about 200 Special Forces soldiers and more than $50 million in equipment to aid the feeble Georgian military, which has been unable to establish control over the Pankisi Gorge near Chechnya.
A senior American official said that several dozen Qaeda extremists may be hiding in the Pankisi Gorge and that most, if not all of them, had been there for months and had not fled from Afghanistan.
The American official said there was no current plan for United States soldiers to go into the gorge on combat operations with the Georgians.
Officials say there is now only one American soldier in Georgia, where he was sent to help the Georgians operate 10 UH-1 transport helicopters the United States is providing.
Other training efforts are under discussion as well. Senior military officials are pushing Congress to allow a resumption of military to military relations with Indonesia to help its armed forces root out Islamic extremists with possible ties to Al Qaeda.
Algeria has also asked the United States for night-vision goggles and other military assistance so that it can fight extremists there.
