As the plot thickens in the case of the thwarted Christmas bombing by a Nigerian man purportedly trained by Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, the US is reportedly stepping up its counter-terrorism efforts to open a largely covert front in Yemen.

The New York Times reported this on its front page Monday as a follow to the story of the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight on which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate a chemical bomb. The chemical detonator failed and passengers jumped him, preventing the attack from taking down the airliner.

The New York Times’ Eric Schmitt and Robert F. Worth had some interesting facts about how the CIA began a program a year ago to send top field operatives in Yemen. They also revealed that the Pentagon is spending $70 million over the next 18 months and using teams of special forces to work with the Yemeni military in counter-terrorism

At GlobalPost and here on this blog, we first reported the US expanding its counter-terrorism initiative to Yemen and around the Horn of Africa back in September. It looks like we were on to something and we will continue to follow the story.