Operations would continue after security forces swept door-to-door through Aden’s Saada area on Friday seeking out suspected militants, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Yemen has accused Al-Qaeda of the attack last Saturday in which militants in military uniform raided the police intelligence building, killing seven security officers, three women and a 7-year-old boy, and freeing several detainees.

The security official said clashes had broken out before dawn on Friday. Police rounded up 30 suspects throughout the day, nine of whom were charged with Al-Qaeda links, while the rest were charged with participating in rioting.

One detainee died. Security officials said the man died from an asthma attack, while opposition website Sahwa Net said he died from wounds after being tortured.

The Defense Ministry said security forces had received information from a previously-detained Al-Qaeda operative, Ghodel Mohammed Saleh Naji, that those responsible for last week’s attack would be holding a Friday meeting.

All participants in the meeting were held, the Defense Ministry statement said. Authorities said earlier they had arrested the head of the group behind the assault.

Yemen has been a growing security concern for the West since the Yemen-based arm of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for an unsuccessful attempt to set off a bomb on board a US-bound airliner in December.

Yemen is struggling to curb a separatist movement in the south and cement a cease-fire with rebels in the north. It is under international pressure to quell domestic conflicts to focus on a growing Al-Qaeda presence in the country.

A day before last Saturday’s attack, Al-Qaeda’s Yemen-based branch threatened to respond to a state crackdown against it in eastern Yemen, calling on local tribesmen to take up arms against the government.

In another development, an appeals court in Yemen on Saturday upheld drugs-trafficking sentences against four Pakistanis, condemning two to death and giving 25-year jail terms to the others, the Defense Ministry’s website reported.

Court President Mohammed Al-Hakimi confirmed the verdicts handed down in October 2009, condemning Salim Daoud Abdelrahim and Imam Bakhsh Ayub Yakub to death, the 26sep.net website said.

It said the other two convicts, Ghulam Khan Wali Mohammed and Mohammed Sidiq Ahmed, were sentenced to 25 years in prison.

The court “confirmed the death sentences against two Pakistani drug convicts and 25 years imprisonment against another two,” the website reported. The four are accused of smuggling 1,695 kg of hashish into Yemen via its coastal territories.