Yemeni president Abdullah Ali Saleh refused Saturday night, Oct. 30, to allow Washington to land US special forces in Al Gouf, 140 kilometers south of Sanaa the capital, DEBKA counter-terror sources reveal. Based there, according to US and Saudi intelligence, is Ibrahim Hassan Al Asiri, the Saudi who masterminded the al Qaeda (AQAP) plot to plant explosive packages aboard cargo flights bound for the United States. There too is Al Qaeda's main fighting base in Yemen with a network of terror planners and bomb makers.