Major General John Sattler said he had discussed the procedures for timely approval of military actions in their countries in meetings with leaders of Yemen, Djibouti, Eritrea and Ethiopia, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Liaison officers will be posted aboard the USS Mount Whitney, Sattler's command ship, to provide a direct link to their governments, he said.

Sattler commands a 1,300-strong force that has been assembled in the Horn of Africa to pursue, disrupt and capture or kill "terrorists".

So far, it has engaged in no known actions.

He said the mission is to go after all kinds of transnational terrorists, not just Al-Qaeda, which is believed to have strongholds in Yemen and ties to like-minded groups in Somalia.

Getting clearance in time to successfully strike elusive (terrorists) remains a nagging concern, the marine general told Pentagon reporters in a phone call from the Mount Whitney, in the Gulf of Aden.

"If it is a very fleeting target, very time sensitive, you're right, you need to have that chain of command," he said.

"The sequence of events that have to unfold to go and prosecute that target need to be well defined so that phone numbers are known, individuals to be spoken with are known, to get that clearance," he said.

"I will tell you I am comfortable we have that now, but I will never be wholly comfortable," he said.

Sattler said he has seen no indication that Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda leader, is in the region.

Within the same line, a U.S. CIA drone aircraft attacked, on November 5, a vehicle of six alleged members of Al-Qaeda, signifying a strategic turn in the American "war on terror".

Days prior to the strike, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "The only way to treat them is [for] what they are - international killers. And the only way to find them is to be patient, and steadfast, and hunt them down. And the United States of America is doing just that."

The immediate reaction to the attack from the Bush administration was a subdued one, with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld indicating that the assassination of alleged Al-Qaeda official Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harth was "a good thing".

Speaking of the U.S.-Yemen relationship in the "war on terror", Rumsfeld said the "arrangement has been a good one and it is on-going."

Although the United States has not proffered a justification for its conduct, if and when queried, the United States bases its justification on the basis of anticipatory self-defense, according to observers.

The Bush administration’s definition of "anticipatory self-defense" is more clearly articulated and set forth in the Bush administration’s "National Security Strategy". 

A key focus has been threats to shipping that passes through the Bab el-Mandeb strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

"Terrorists" used explosives-packed boats to attack a U.S. destroyer, the USS Cole, in 2000, and a French supertanker in 2002.

"A lot of our intelligence is focused on areas where these types of boats could, A, be stored; B, be moved to, launched from," Sattler said. "We take that threat very, very seriously."

Sattler's task force is working with a coalition naval task force that is intercepting suspect vessels in the area.

About 900 troops, many of them special operations forces, are based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, forming the core of a helicopter-borne strike force.

"We are capable of massing a very capable force on very short notice to go ahead and attack a target once we had credible intelligence that was actionable," he said.

Intelligence gathering efforts have concentrated on the movements along the coastlines and certain porous border areas, including those in Somalia, a country fragmented by civil war, he said.