The debate followed the arrest on Friday of a 23-year-old Nigerian man recruited by Al Qaeda in Yemen where he was also taught how to make explosive devices and was directed to use one such device on a US plane. 
A Saudi Royal Saudi Air Force jet fighter takes off near graduates during a graduation ceremony in Riyadh, Sunday, Dec. 27, 2009. Saudi fighter jets have pounded the strongholds of Yemeni Houthi rebels combatants in northern Yemen. A Nigerian man's claims that his attempt to blow up a U.S. plane originated with al-Qaida's network inside Yemen deepened concerns that instability in the Middle Eastern country is providing the terror network with a base to train and recruit militants for operations against the West and the U.S.
On Saturday, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was formally charged with trying to blow up a Northwest airliner by setting off a device strapped to his body as the plane was approaching the Detroit airport.
“This could be a game-changer because it will be the first time since 9/11 that you’ve had a US-based plot driven out of somewhere other than the Pakistan-Afghan theatre,” said Juan Zarate, former US Deputy National Security Adviser for Combating Terrorism.
“Yemen is a place where Al Qaeda is on the move, a strong movement there,” said former CIA acting director John McLaughlin.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Barack Obama wanted to “increase our cooperation with nations like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia,” places used by Al Qaeda to regroup and plan attacks at US targets.
The three were among half a dozen experts and officials who appeared on various US television channels on Sunday to talk about the failed attempt to blow up the airliner on the Christmas Day.
Mr McLaughlin warned that in the last two or three years Al Qaeda had changed its tactics and had now dispersed across the globe. “They have safe havens of sorts in the tribal areas of Pakistan, one growing in Yemen. In Somalia, it can be claimed that they have a safe haven of sorts,” he said.
New York Congressman Peter King, the top Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, described Nigeria, the home country of Abdulmutallab, as another “suspect country … with a strong Al Qaeda presence” and urged US authorities to increase surveillance of planes and individuals coming from Nigeria.
But a senior Obama administration official told reporters that they might soon find Yemen being mentioned more often in President Obama’s speeches about terrorism. Mr Zarate, the former security official who is also a CBS national security analyst, agreed with the suggestion that Yemen was now what Afghanistan was in the 1990s.
Describing the country as “a problematic theatre, Mr Zarate noted that Yemen had an unstable government, facing three different security situations: a Shia rebellion in the north, secessionist in the south and an increase in Al Qaeda presence.
“And you have greater ties to plots towards the US in Yemen.” He recalled that at least three recent attacks in the US were traced to Yemen: the recruitment centre attack in Little Rock, the Fort Hood case and now the attempt on the Northwest airliner.
In a similar discussion on CNN, experts noted that Yemen was probably the second-most important place in the world for an Al Qaeda presence, after Fata. “Very similar to Afghanistan, there’s a civil war going on. It’s a very poor country.
The government doesn’t control it. Bin Laden’s family, of course, comes from Yemen. The USS Cole attack was directed from Yemen,” noted one expert. “We’ve seen multiple attacks – or attempted attacks on the American embassy there. Al Qaeda has a strong foothold in Yemen.” CNN terrorism expert Peter Bergen noted that Yemen had been a subject of intense American interest since the USS Cole attack in October of 2000, before 9/11. Mr McLaughlin, the former CIA acting director, said that after 9/11, when the US had chased Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in early 2002, the place they thought the militants would go, other than the urban areas of Pakistan, was to Yemen.
“The Yemenis are difficult to work with. They don’t have capabilities. They are dealing primarily with an effort to control their own country,” he added.
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