U.S. says Yemen group one of many al Qaeda branches | Reuters

U.S. says Yemen group one of many al Qaeda branches | Reuters: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Yemen has made progress in its U.S.-backed fight against al Qaeda, but the extremist group continues to spread elsewhere and has some two dozen affiliates across a swath of the globe, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.

At congressional hearings, U.S. officials painted a picture of an al Qaeda that has expanded from Afghanistan to Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Africa and Southeast Asia.

'Al Qaeda is now difficult to define,' Admiral Eric Olson, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, told a House of Representatives Armed Services subcommittee.

'More than two dozen associated ... groups have established themselves in Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa, the trans-Saharan region, the Maghreb of North Africa, West Africa and Southeast Asia, and there are several different groups now operating within and from Afghanistan and Pakistan,' Olson said.

He said al Qaeda's forces have been regenerated in part by extremists who had been detained, were released and then joined militant groups. Olson said officials estimate about one fifth of former detainees are 'somehow re-engaging in activity ... against our interests.'

Critics of President Barack Obama's call to close the prison at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have cited the movement of former detainees to militant groups as a reason to keep the facility."