The way things are shaping up, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, formed by Saudi and Yemeni jihadists in 2009, is facing a formidable array of counter-terrorism heavy hitters.

The Americans have sent in Special Forces teams to back up Saleh's hunter-killer squads with satellite surveillance and other technology to monitor and locate the AQAP cells.

Saudi Arabia's intelligence services, a key factor in Riyadh's success in crushing the jihadists in the kingdom in 2007, have been operating in Sanaa since June. They are now reported to be moving their undercover agents out into the provinces of Maarib, Shabwah and Abyan, all seen as jihadist bastions, to track down those who they perceive pose a threat to the Saudi monarchy.

The General Intelligence Presidency, the kingdom's principal intelligence agency, was the first to set up in Sanaa under an agreement between King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia and Saleh. The GIP has been headed since October 2005 by Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi monarch's younger half-brother.

It was followed several weeks later by a unit from the General Security Services, which is attached to the Saudi Interior Ministry. The GSS answers to the head of the kingdom's counter-terrorism apparatus, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, whom al-Qaida tried to assassinate Aug. 27.

The prince, whose forces crushed al-Qaida in Saudi Arabia, was the first member of the royal family targeted by the jihadists and that jolted Riyadh.

The Saudis fear that if Saleh's beleaguered government cannot keep the rickety Yemeni state together, al-Qaida will be able to exploit the chaos to unleash a new offensive against Saudi Arabia.

The organization's ability to mount operations against the Americans on their own turf -- the Fort Hood, Texas, massacre in November and the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines Airbus in December were traced to AQAP -- underlined the potency of the threat the jihadists in Yemen pose.

Riyadh has provided Sanaa with $2 billion to avert complete collapse, making the $150 million in security aid promised by Washington for fiscal 2010 seem like a drop in the ocean.

"The Saudis understand that they're the real prize for al-Qaida and Yemen is the platform," says Ahmed al-Kibsi, a political scientist at Sanaa University.

Saleh's record against the jihadists has been patchy at best since 2001, largely because they have considerable sympathy among the power elite.

The president, 67, is a former army colonel who took power in 1978 in what was then North Yemen after his predecessor was assassinated.

He has always had an ambivalent attitude toward the jihadists. His rule, the second longest in the Middle East after Moammar Gadhafi of Libya, depends on alliances with the tribal leaders who are conservative Muslims.

"Although Saleh's style remains dictatorial, he acknowledges the limits of his authority by relying on patronage," says veteran Middle East analyst Simon Henderson of the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs.

Saleh retains power through control of the army, where he has placed relatives in key command positions and the intelligence services.

His son, Col. Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, commands the Republican Guard and the army's Special Forces. His half-brother commands the air force.

His nephews also hold important positions -- Ammar heads national security, Yahye runs the Central Security Organization and the elite 150-man counter-terrorism unit, and Tarek leads the Presidential Guard.

One of the biggest problems for the Americans and Saudis in their efforts to eliminate al-Qaida has been the jihadist penetration of Yemen's Political Security Organization whose upper echelon answers directly to Saleh.

Saleh has used it negotiate various arrangements with radical Sunni militants, including recruiting veterans of the 1979-89 Afghan War against the Soviets for the regime's security forces in internal conflicts.

The Americans suspect that a spectacular breakout by 23 top al-Qaida operatives from a maximum-security PSO prison in Sanaa in February 2006 was actually organized by PSO officers. Those who escaped and are still alive constitute the AQAP leadership.

To counter this, the Americans were instrumental in establishing a rival intelligence service, the National Security Bureau, in 2002 to provide a more reliable partner than the PSO.

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