"Senior State Department and American military officials are deeply divided over the pace and scale of military aid to Yemen, which is emerging as a crucial testing ground for the Obama administration’s approach to countering the threat from Al Qaeda....Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, said in a policy talk last week that American-backed assaults by Yemeni forces on Al Qaeda may 'deny it the time and space it needs to organize, plan and train for operations.' But in the long term, he added, countering extremism in Yemen 'must involve the development of credible institutions that can deliver real economic and social progress.'" - Lit