WASHINGTON — The United States is building a secret CIA air
base in the Persian Gulf region to target terrorists in Yemen, preparing for
the possibility that an anti-American faction may take over Yemen and ban U.S.
forces from hunting a lethal al-Qaeda faction there, The Associated Press has
learned.

The anti-al-Qaeda effort in Yemen is being run by the Joint
Special Operations Command, the top U.S. military counterterrorism outfit, and
the CIA provides intelligence support. JSOC forces have been allowed by the
Yemeni government to conduct limited strikes there since 2009 and have recently
allowed expanded strikes by U.S. armed drones and even war planes against
al-Qaeda targets who are taking advantage of civil unrest to grab power and
territory in the Gulf country.

The new CIA base provides a backstop, if al-Qaeda or other
anti-American rebel forces gain control, one senior U.S. official explained.
The White House has already increased the numbers of CIA officers in Yemen, in
anticipation of that possibility. And it has stepped up the schedule to
construct the base, from a two-year timetable to a rushed eight months.

The Associated Press has withheld the exact location at the
request of U.S. officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because
portions of the military and CIA missions in Yemen are classified.

Drones like Reapers and Predators are unmanned aircraft that
can be flown from remote locations and hover over a target before firing a
missile. Yemeni officials have indicated their preference toward drones, versus
allowing U.S. counterterror strike teams on Yemeni soil, saying they are less
apt to incense the local population.

The planned CIA base suggests a long-term U.S. commitment to
fighting al-Qaeda in the region, along the lines of the model used in Pakistan,
where CIA drones hunt militants with tacit, though not public, Pakistani
government approval. Its construction also indicates a possible shift in the
internal debate in the administration over whether U.S. special operations
forces should continue to lead the fight in Yemen, U.S. officials said.

While that policy debate plays out in Washington, U.S.
special operations forces based just outside Yemen are taking aim almost daily
at a greater array of targets that have been flushed into view by the unrest.
U.S. forces have stepped up their targeting as well, because of the besieged
Yemeni government’s new willingness to allow U.S. forces to use all tools
available — from armed drones to war planes — against al-Qaeda as a way to stay
in power, the U.S. officials said.

The CIA would not confirm the White House decision to build
the CIA base or expand the agency’s operations in Yemen.

CIA Director Leon Panetta said last week that agency
officers were working in Yemen together with JSOC, as well as other areas where
al-Qaeda is active.

The U.S. needs to keep the pressure on, to break al-Qaeda’s
momentum there, the State Department’s counterterror coordinator, Daniel
Benjamin, said Tuesday. Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
considered the most immediate terror threat to America, is already operating
more in the open and has been able to acquire and hold more territory, he said.

Benjamin added said there are growing concerns that AQAP
will use the chaos to acquire more weapons, and also to fuel connections
between al-Qaeda-linked militants there and al-Shabab insurgents in Somalia.

The Obama administration has been working for months in
concert with the mediation efforts of Yemen’s Gulf neighbors to persuade
President Ali Abdullah Saleh to transfer power. Saleh was evacuated for
emergency medical treatment in Saudi Arabia, after being hit by explosive
devices planted in the presidential mosque more than a week ago. The U.S. has
continued to press for a deal in the hope that a political solution could
pre-empt any plan by the Yemeni leader of 33 years to return. That, officials
fear, could lead to further instability.

Benjamin said he is hopeful that counterterrorism efforts
will continue in Yemen, as the political transition moves along and a new
government takes hold.

But another U.S. official said Yemeni opposition groups have
voiced criticism of the U.S. counterterror program and vowed to stop it, should
they take power.

Since 2009, Yemen has allowed JSOC to employ a mixture of
armed and unarmed drones, ship-fired missiles, small special operations teams
working with Yemenis, and occasional war plane bombing runs, Yemeni and U.S.
officials say. But permission was on a case-by-case basis, and waxed and waned
depending on the mood of the mercurial Yemeni president.

With al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula essentially in control
of large swathes of Yemeni territory, the Yemeni government now hopes U.S.
targeting will remove some of the enemies threatening the Saleh regime. That
new target-at-will attitude was reinforced after the attempt on Saleh’s life,
both U.S. and Yemeni officials say.

The U.S. forces are also taking advantage of the fact that
more al-Qaeda operatives are exposing themselves as they move from their
hideouts across the country to command troops challenging the Saleh regime.

That has led to the arrests of al-Qaeda operatives by Yemeni
forces, guided by U.S. intelligence intercepts, and those operatives are
talking under joint U.S.-Yemeni interrogation, providing key information on
al-Qaeda operations and locations, U.S. officials said.

That in turn led to the best opportunity in more than a year
to hit U.S.-born radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in early May. A host of
technical difficulties meant three separate attempts, by two types of unmanned
armed drone-craft and war planes all failed, prompting some grousing among
intelligence agencies that CIA-led strikes might net better results.

But the CIA has neither the drones nor the personnel to take
the lead in the operation at present, two officials say.

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had long urged al-Qaeda not to
directly challenge Saleh but to keep Yemen as a haven from which to launch
attacks against the United States, while AQAP leaders argued that they should
overthrow with Yemeni government. A record of that debate between bin Laden and
the Yemeni al-Qaeda leadership was found among the records at the compound in
Pakistan where bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces May 2.

Bin Laden warned the Yemeni offshoot that its leaders would
be targeted more aggressively and easily if they tried to take power, just as
they are now, the officials said.