Sanaa, Yemen (CNN) -- Yemen has launched a wide-scale offensive against al Qaeda in the country's southeastern province, a government official said Tuesday.
The Yemeni government "dispatched forces backed by heavy weaponry, jets and choppers to surround a mountainous area," said the official, who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
The official said the offensive was in response to a militant attack last week on a pipeline carrying liquefied natural gas. The official described the multibillion-dollar pipeline as a "lifeline of the region."
The official added that militants have occupied homes and barricaded themselves in. He challenged claims that 80,000 people had been displaced.
A senior U.S. defense official said the U.S. military has been providing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance help during the offensive but stressed that Yemeni forces were primarily responsible for its planning and execution.
"The Yemeni government understands the threat within its own borders, to themselves and their people," the defense official said.
The Yemeni government has been fighting a growing al Qaeda element in Yemen called al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The militant offshoot group grabbed the attention of the West with the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines trans-Atlantic flight as it landed in Detroit, Michigan, on December 25.
The suspect, Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who has pleaded not guilty to six federal terrorism charges, was reportedly trained and armed in Yemen.
CNN
