SANAA, 30 July 2005 — A Yemeni Interior Ministry official escaped a bid on life when an explosive device blew up under his car in Sanaa yesterday, police said.
They said the device went off minutes after Col. Abdullah Arab, interior minister’s deputy assistant, left the vehicle outside his home in the northern Sanaa suburb of Jiraf.
No one was injured in the explosion that left the vehicle severely damaged. The blast blew out windows of Arab’s house and adjacent houses. Security forces cordoned off the area and police experts began an investigation.
US to Free 7 Yemenis From Gitmo
Yemen will soon receive seven detainees to be released from the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by the US Army, Foreign Minister Abu-Bakr Al-Qerbi said in remarks published here on Thursday.
“The US authorities have decided to free seven Yemenis from the Guantanamo base and hand them over to Yemen,” the minister told the Defense Ministry’s newspaper “26 September”.
The minister said that “Yemen has received an official note” from Washington confirming the intention to transfer the men to their country. An ad hoc Yemeni commission was set up by the government to follow up arrangements for the handover, said Al-Qerbi.
The seven Yemenis are among 25 men cleared by a US military Administrative Review Board, which considered them no longer posing a threat to the United States or its allies.
Al-Qerbi did not say whether the men would face prosecution in Yemen or be freed. Around 500 detainees are held at the US naval base detention facility, most of them were captured during the 2001 US-led military attack on Afghanistan that toppled the Taleban hard-line regime.
Yemeni authorities are still checking the nationality of 110 Guantanamo captives who are thought possibly to be Yemenis.
