WASHINGTON — Teams of U.S. anti-terrorism and security experts are headed to Yemen to help search for suspects in the mail bomb plot and to train cargo screeners at the San'a airport.

The White House's top counterterrorism official, deputy national security adviser John Brennan, told Yemen's president on Sunday that his country has the lead in responding to the terrorists, according to a top Yemeni official.

The phone conversation between Brennan and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh came as Brennan led a team of national security and intelligence officials in a second day of meetings assessing the best options in striking back at the al-Qaida offshoot suspected of trying to mail explosive-laden cargo to the U.S. last week. Officials say the powerful bombs containing industrial grade explosives may have been aimed at bringing down the planes.

The Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has been linked to the bomb plot because of the use of the explosive PETN, which was used by the group in last Christmas Day's bombing attempt of a Detroit-bound airliner.

U.S. authorities also had intelligence that Yemeni al-Qaida was planning this operation, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.