SANAA, 24 November 2006 — Yemeni authorities stepped up security at the southern port of Aden yesterday after receiving a foreign intelligence tip-off that Al-Qaeda might strike at the harbor, security officials said.
The officials told Arab News that extra police and army troops were deployed around the port’s installations and at the Aden oil refinery.
They said authorities received an intelligence alert from a foreign government that Al-Qaeda was planning to carry out attacks at the port. “We have tightened security at the port and strict measures are being taken to prevent any attack,” one coast guard official said by telephone from Aden.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said the move followed “information from a friendly country.” He would not give further details. The Aden port was the scene of a suicide attack on the US destroyer USS Cole in October 2000, in which 17 US sailors were killed. A French oil supertanker was hit by a similar attack at an oil exporting facility in southeastern Yemen in October 2002.
