Saudis cleared of Al-Qaeda plot in Yemen

SANAA: A Sanaa court on Thursday cleared five Saudi nationals of charges of joining an Al-Qaeda plot to attack Yemen's security forces but jailed two of them for entering the country illegally.
The five, arrested in June, faced charges of plotting, "in association with an armed group belonging to Al-Qaeda to carry out criminal acts against members of the security forces in Yemen," official media reported earlier this month.
They were cleared of the charges on Thursday for lack of evidence, according to the verdict read by Judge Hilal Mahfal in a court in Sanaa.
Two of the group were sentenced to 18 months in prison each after being convicted of forging identity documents and entering Yemen illegally. The remaining three defendants were sentenced to time already spent in detention and now face deportation to Saudi Arabia.
Yemen is the ancestral home of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden and home base of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the network's deadliest franchise according to the United States.
AQAP was formed in January 2009 as a merger of the Yemeni and Saudi branches of Al-Qaeda and Saudi nationals regularly cross the border illegally to join the ranks of the fighters.
Its militants took advantage of a decline in central government control during a 2011 uprising that forced veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of territory across the south.
They were driven back in June 2012 and have been increasingly weakened mainly due to US drone attacks. But they remain active in the south and east of Yemen and regularly carry out hit-and-run attacks on security forces.