Yemen rounds up usual al Qaeda suspects

AFP:

Yemeni authorities have rounded up 25 suspects over a deadly attack on the US embassy in Sanaa claimed by an Al-Qaeda linked Islamist group, a security source said on Thursday.

The Organisation of Islamic Jihad said it was behind Wednesday's car bombing and rocket attack on the highly-fortified US mission which killed six soldiers, four civilians and six assailants.

It said it was demanding the release of militants being held by the Yemeni authorities, which have been battling a wave of attacks by Al-Qaeda extremists since before the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

"We, the Organisation of Islamic Jihad, belonging to the Al-Qaeda network, repeat our demand of (Yemeni President) Ali Abdullah Saleh to free our detained brothers within 48 hours," said a statement signed by self-proclaimed leader Abu Ghaith al-Yamani.

The group vowed it would continue attacks "against Western interests," Yemeni public figures and the Saudi embassy in the capital.

It also called for the closure of the US and British missions in the Arabian pensinsula republic, the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who remains at large seven years after the September 11 attacks.

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In a statement on Wednesday, Islamic Jihad said it would "pursue a series of explosions according to our pre-established plan" and threatened to blow up the embassies of Britain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates if its "brothers" were not freed from Yemeni prisons.

A Yemeni security source said the 25 suspects were rounded up in Sanaa in a manhunt launched on Wednesday and which continued through the night.

"The security services tracked down all the suspects," the source added.

Last month the authorities said they arrested 30 suspected Al-Qaeda members in a crackdown on the network.

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Those demands appear to be backfiring on the terrorist. The key will be whether Yemen will finally hold these guys instead of putting them through a revolving door as Yemen has done in the past.

CNN reports that one of those killed in the attack was an American woman. The US is now urging nonessential personnel to leave Yemen.

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