Yemeni police capture six suspected terrorists (Roundup)

Jun 25, 2008, 15:52 GMT

Sana'a, Yemen - Yemeni police have arrested six suspected terrorists, including a suspected local member of the terrorist al- Qaeda organization, the Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

Security forces arrested five suspected terrorists in the capital Sana'a, the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

The statement said the men, aged between 19 and 45, were arrested at a checkpoint in Khushm al-Bakra, some 20 kilometres north of the capital.

They were heading to Sana'a on a jeep when security forces intercepted them, it said.

'The suspects are being interrogated over charges of involvement in acts of terrorism and sabotage,' the statement said, without providing details about the suspects' affiliation or the date of their arrest.

Separately, a suspected local al-Qaeda member was captured in the north-eastern province of Hadhramout, the ministry said.

Identified as Haitham bin Sa'ad, the man was captured along with four bodyguards in the desert area of Hadhramout, some 900 kilometres south-east of Sana'a.

An al-Qaeda branch in Yemen has claimed responsibility for several mortar attacks in Sana'a in the past few months, including one that targeted a residential compound housing US citizens on April 6 and another against the US embassy on March 18.

Last week, Yemeni police reportedly broke up an al-Qaeda cell that had been plotting terrorist attacks against foreign interests and government facilities in Sana'a.

Reports said the cell's leader, Riydh al-Salehi, was among those arrested.

The ministry said security forces arrested 11 suspected members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Sana'a in late May. It said the detained suspects gave information during questioning about acts of terror carried out by the network.

Last week, Yemeni Vice President Abdu-Rabu Mansour Hadi said his country had expelled 16,000 suspected members of the al-Qaeda network since 2005 as part of its efforts to fight terrorism.

Hadi said the expelled suspects belonged to various nationalities and many of them Arab Afghans, veterans from various Arab countries who fought the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Yemen received thousands of those militants after the war ended in 1989.

Hadi said the suspected militants were sent back to their home countries between 2005 and 2008. He did not name any of the countries.