SANAA: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has briefed Crown Prince Sultan, deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, on terrorist plots against Saudi Arabia uncovered after police raided an Al-Qaeda hideout in southeastern Yemen, official media reported yesterday.
Saleh told Prince Sultan in a telephone conversation late Tuesday that an Al-Qaeda cell dismantled by security forces in the Hadhramout province on Monday had plotted terrorist attacks in Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
The Yemeni leader said police had seized documents containing “dangerous information unveiling a plan by Al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist acts in Yemen and Saudi Arabia,” according to the state-run Al-Thawra daily.
Authorities said on Tuesday that a key member of Al-Qaeda in Yemen was killed in Monday’s gunbattle in the Hadhramout province.
They said Hamza Al-Quaiti, believed to be the mastermind of several terrorist attacks that hit Yemen in recent months, was among five Al-Qaeda suspects killed as police stormed their hide-out in Tarim, 900 km southeast of Sanaa. Two police officers were also killed and five others, including two policemen, injured in the shootout.
The Defense Ministry on its website quoted unnamed official sources as saying police seized a cache of explosives, including 40 bags of gunpowder, explosive devices, hand grenades, machine guns and gas cylinders.
Hostage freed
Meanwhile, tribesmen released a French engineer of Algerian origin yesterday after holding him hostage for one day in southeastern Yemen, provincial officials said.
They said the release of the hostage, who was kidnapped to press for the freedom of jailed fellow clansmen, was secured after mediation by tribal figures and local officials in Shabwa, 580 km southeast of Sanaa.
The engineer, identified as Yassin Yaboz, 46, works for a giant gas exporting project in the Arabian Sea port of Balhaf. He was taken at gunpoint from the Habban area, about 40 km from Ataq, the provincial capital of Shabwa.
Also freed by the kidnappers, who belong to the powerful Laqmoush tribe, were four bodyguards taken hostage with Yoboz.
A provincial official told Arab News the hostages’ release was secured after local officials pledged to set free three Laqmoush clansmen being detained in the neighboring Hadhramout province over a land dispute.
Authorities sent army and police forces to the area late Tuesday to pursue the kidnappers.
Shabwa has been the scene of several kidnappings of foreigners in recent years.
Armed tribesmen from impoverished areas of Yemen often take hostages to use them as bargaining chips with the government.
