SANAA: Yemeni police have arrested 30 suspected Al-Qaeda members believed to have been plotting attacks in Saudi Arabia, official sources said yesterday.
The 30 men, all Yemenis, were captured in the past few days in the southeastern province of Hadhramout, where police dismantled an alleged Al-Qaeda cell on Aug. 12, a police source said in remarks published by the 26 September weekly, organ of the Yemeni Army.
The source said the men had planned to join comrades in the “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” group to carry out joint attacks in the Kingdom.
He said the arrests were made after police got information about the suspects from documents and a computer found in the house raided by police in Tarim town in Hadhramout province.
Following the raid, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said police found in the house documents and blueprints concerning plots by Al-Qaeda to strike targets inside the country and in Saudi Arabia.
Police killed five suspected members of Al-Qaeda and arrested two others in the raid.
Among the suspects killed was Hamza Al-Quaiti, a suspected mastermind of several car bomb attacks that hit Yemen in recent years. Two police officers were also killed in the clash.
Yemen extradited to the Kingdom last week eight Saudi nationals wanted by Saudi authorities on security-related charges.
