Yemen captures key al-Qaida chief as foreign missions reopen

SANAA – Yemeni security forces, under U.S. pressure to rein in extremists, Wednesday captured a key al-Qaida leader believed behind threats that saw foreign embassies in Sanaa hastily bolting their doors, police said.

The arrest of Mohammed al-Hanq and two other suspected al-Qaida militants at a hospital in Raydah, north of capital, came as Yemen’s authorities said al-Qaida militants were being choked countrywide and forced into "holes."

Hanq had evaded arrest on Monday during a security force raid in Arhab, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Sanaa, in which two of his relatives were killed and three other people wounded.

A security official told AFP security forces had Wednesday morning swooped on a hospital in Raydah, 80 kilometres (50 miles), north of Sanaa in Amran province, where the suspects were receiving treatment.

"Mohammed al-Hanq and two others who were wounded were captured in a hospital in Amran," the official said.

Two other al-Qaida suspects meanwhile turned themselves in to the authorities in the region of Marib, east of Sanaa, on Wednesday, and a third surrendered in Arhab, a security official said.

The interior ministry said Wednesday its security forces were repeatedly raiding hideouts of "terrorist elements" in several provinces and had turned their "fight against terrorism into a daily confrontation."

"(Security operations) are not leaving the terrorist elements the chance to take a breath or reorganise their lines," the ministry said in a statement on its website.

"al-Qaida elements are no longer the ones taking the initiative in deciding the time and place of confrontations," it said, adding that "painful and recurring strikes have forced al-Qaida to retreat to the holes."

The U.S. embassy closed on Sunday over security concerns prompted by fears of an al-Qaida threat against foreign interests just days after a failed attack on a U.S. airliner claimed by the al-Qaida franchise in Yemen.

Some countries, including Britain and France, followed suit while others curtailed consular operations as security was tightened around their missions.

The U.S. embassy reopened for business on Tuesday, saying that Yemeni security forces had addressed a "specific area of concern" the previous day — thought to be a reference to the crackdown on Hanq’s group.

The British and French embassies have also resumed operations, although the British mission’s consular services remained shut on Wednesday.

Long-standing concerns that Yemen, a country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, has become a haven for Islamic terror groups were thrown into sharp focus when a Nigerian man allegedly trained in Yemen was charged with trying to blow up a U.S.-bound jet.

The botched Christmas Day attack was claimed by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which also urged attacks on Western interests in Yemen.

The would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, reportedly confessed to being trained by an al-Qaida bombmaker in Yemen for the suicide mission on the Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Explosives allegedly sewn into the man’s underwear failed to detonate, and passengers jumped on him.

In the wake of the failed attack, General David Petraeus, the U.S. regional military commander, jetted into Sanaa for talks with Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

At the same time, Yemen sent army reinforcements to the eastern provinces of Abyan, Bayada and Shawba, where al-Qaida militants have hideouts, and raised the alert level in those regions.

On Monday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton further upped the pressure on Yemen, saying the lack of security in the impoverished country has international ramifications.

"The instability in Yemen is a threat to regional stability and even global stability," Clinton told reporters in Washington.

The situation in Yemen, where aside from al-Qaida setting up lairs in remote mountainous regions the government is battling a Shiite rebellion in the north and facing down secessionists in the south, prompted U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday to suspend transfers of freed Guantanamo Bay inmates to the country.

Washington has also unleashed a barrage of measures to stop would-be attackers riding planes into the country, overhauling its terror watchlists and adding dozens more suspects to "no-fly" lists.

Further boosting security measures, all travellers coming from or via 14 "terror linked" countries, among them Yemen, will have to undergo compulsory enhanced screening.