No plan to send troops to Yemen, Obama says

Obama made a fresh push for international cooperation to confront militants in Yemen, where the top US military officer, Admiral Michael Mullen, said sending troops was "not a possibility."

"I never rule out any possibility in a world that is this complex... In countries like Yemen, in countries like Somalia, I think working with international partners is most effective at this point," Obama said in a People interview to be published Friday. The magazine released a transcript Sunday.

"I have no intention of sending US boots on the ground in these regions."

He insisted the lawless tribal belt straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border "remains the epicenter of Al-Qaeda," but acknowledged a Yemen-based affiliate of Osama bin Laden's network has become "a more serious problem."

The impoverished country's long-standing scourge of extremism was thrown into the spotlight after the Al-Qaeda branch claimed responsibility for a narrowly-averted Christmas Day bombing aboard a US-bound airliner.