SANAA, 3 December 2006 — Yemeni state prosecutors began yesterday interviewing 22 suspected Al-Qaeda operatives linked to the September attacks on two oil facilities in the country, security officials said.
The officials told Arab News the group was also believed to have planned terror attacks against Western interests and vital installations in Yemen.
One official, who requested anonymity, said Fawaz Al-Rabyee, who was killed in a police raid on his hideout near the capital Sanaa on Oct. 1, recruited the group. Rabyee was sentenced to death in 2004 for leading a group linked to Al-Qaeda. He said that among the group were four suspected Al-Qaeda members arrested in Sanaa four days after the oil attacks.
Four attackers and one security guard died when bombers drove four cars into two oil facilities in eastern Yemen on Sept. 15. The four pick-up trucks detonated inside the two facilities in the eastern provinces of Hadhramout and Marib.
The Al-Qaeda arm in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the September attacks and threatened to launch new attacks against US targets in the country. The group said in an Internet statement that “those operations were only the first spark, and what is coming shall be harsher and more bitter.”
Yemen has seen several militant attacks in recent years, notably the bombing of US destroyer Cole in the southern port of Aden in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors. A 2002 attack against the French oil tanker Limburg killed one Bulgarian crew member and wounded 12 others.
A number of terrorism-related cases involving militants are currently under way in Yemen. An official journal said recently that 172 people were awaiting trial in Yemen for suspected links to Al-Qaeda. Many more have already been tried.
Last month an appeals court endorsed the sentence of three years and one month in jail for the suspected second-in-command of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, Mohammad Hamdi Al-Ahdal. He was charged with financing attacks against Western targets in Yemen, but the initial verdict said prosecutors had failed to link him to certain attacks in the country.
He was convicted of raising funds for mujahedeen fighting in Afghanistan and Chechnya.
