Yemen arrests 29 al Qaeda suspects after raids

[Guest guest]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/091228/world/international_us_yemen_qaeda

Yemen arrests 29 al Qaeda suspects after raids

Mon Dec 28, 9:12 AM

By Mohamed Sudam

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen said on Monday it had arrested 29 suspected al Qaeda

members and vowed to carry out more raids against the group, after an attempted

bombing of a U.S. airliner turned the spotlight on the poor Arab country.

Al Qaeda's presence in Yemen has grown in the past year and Washington has said

a Nigerian who tried to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day said he had help

from al Qaeda militants in Yemen, where the government is battling instability.

The United States and Yemen's neighbor Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda will use

instability in the country to carry out attacks in the world's main oil

exporting region and beyond.

Yemen's national security chief Ali Mohammad Al-Ansi said the arrests took place

after Yemen launched strikes against the group, saying it planned to attack oil

facilities, government buildings and the British embassy.

" Until now 29 persons have been arrested and authorities are still following up

and pursuing the remaining terrorists, " he said in remarks reported on the

Defense Ministry website.

Ansi did not refer to the attempt by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to set

off explosives on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Abdulmutallab, who is charged with trying to blow up the aircraft, has been

linked to Yemen. Under questioning in the United States, he said al Qaeda

operatives in the country gave him an explosive device and trained him on how to

detonate it, a U.S. official said.

MORE OPERATIONS

" There will be more operations awaiting terrorist elements and their nests, " the

website quoted an unidentified security official as saying.

Last week, Sanaa said it had killed more than 30 al Qaeda members in an air

raid. The dead possibly included the top two leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian

Peninsula (AQAP) and an American Muslim preacher linked to a man who shot dead

13 people at a U.S. army base.

Raids on December 17 killed about 30 militants, the government said. Opposition

groups said about 50 civilians were killed, including women and children. AQAP

said the raids was carried out by U.S. warplanes and vowed to retaliate.

The New York Times has said the United States gave military hardware,

intelligence and other support to Yemeni forces for the raids.

Besides al Qaeda, Yemen is also grappling with a Shi'ite revolt in the north and

a separatist movement in the south with both complaining of social and economic

discrimination, which the government denies.

The conflict in northern Yemen drew in Saudi Arabia last month when the Shi'ite

rebels briefly occupied some Saudi territory, prompting Riyadh to launch an

offensive.

The rebels said on their website on Monday Saudi warplanes carried out 36 raids

against border areas and northern Yemen late on Sunday.

(Writing by Ulf Laessing; editing by Dobbie)

[Guest guest]

I think what they are doing is setting themselves up in any Islamic country that

will have them. This forces anti-terror countries to attack the Islamic

countries to weed out terrorists thereby causing Islamic countries to become

more incensed at non-Islamic countries.

It would be best to attempt to weed all these terrorists out now, but given that

Islam seems to be taking a moral radicalized shift generally speaking, I don't

think weeding out terrorists would ever work for the simple reason that it would

be increasingly harder to find all the terrorists, or that so many people would

have to be killed that it would become a generalized war.

Administrator

I've seen other stories about this, al Qaeda looking for a new base or bases.

In a message dated 12/28/2009 12:44:41 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

no_reply writes:

" Al Qaeda's presence in Yemen has grown in the past year and Washington has said

a Nigerian who tried to bomb a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day said he had help

from al Qaeda militants in Yemen, where the government is battling instability. "