Yemen president meets Washington's top Mideast official

SANAA, Oct 4 (AFP) - Yemen's President Ali Abdallah Saleh met Saturday with William Burns, the US assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, the official Saba news agency reported.

Saleh called after his meeting with Burns for the "safeguarding Iraq's independence, sovereignty and unity," and for pressure to be put on Israel to stop building a barrier around the West Bank, according to Saba.

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Burns also conveyed a message to Saleh from US President George W. Bush on the fight against terrorism, Saba added.

On Monday, the US State Department announced that Yemeni authorities had alerted the United States to a potential new terrorist threat against foreign targets in Yemen, and it called on US citizens there to take "exceptional" security measures.

The following day, a Yemeni newspaper reported that five Islamist groups announced in Yemen that they had merged, calling themselves "Qaeda of Jihad", and threatened to attack Yemeni officials and foreign interests.

mou-ht/sd/dab

Yemen-US