Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced on Monday the dismantling of a “terrorist cell” which he said was linked to Israeli intelligence services.
Saleh gave no details but sources close to the investigation said he was apparently referring to a six-member cell arrested on suspicion of involvement in a deadly attack against the US embassy in the Yemeni capital last month.
“A terrorist cell was arrested five days ago and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,” Saleh was quoted as saying by the official Saba news agency.
He said the group operated under the “slogan of Islam.”
The Yemeni president made the statement during a meeting with politicians, tribal leaders, security and military officials at Al-Mukalla University in the southeastern province of Hadramawt.
Saleh did not say how many people were arrested or detail his allegation that the cell was linked to Israeli intelligence.
“Details of the trial will be announced later,” he told the gathering.
“You will hear about what goes on in the proceedings,” Saleh said, urging Yemen’s political parties to close ranks and cooperate to confront acts of terrorism, Saba reported.
Although Saleh said the group was arrested five days ago, sources close to the investigation said he is believed to have been referring to six men rounded up in Sanaa after the Sept. 17 attack on the US embassy which left 18 people dead.
Militants detonated a booby-trapped car before firing a volley of rockets at the heavily fortified embassy in the second attack targeting the mission since April.
The interior ministry said on Sept. 22 that security forces were holding six key suspects over the attack, including an Islamist militant who claimed responsibility for the strike.
“Security services succeeded in arresting six people, some of whom belong to Islamic Jihad, linked to al-Qaeda and which claimed the attack,” the ministry said in a statement.
“One of these people answers to the name of Abu Ghaith al-Yamani, who signed a statement claiming the attack,” the ministry said.
The ministry said a total of 50 people were arrested in connection with the attack, in which six assailants were killed.
In Jerusalem, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry called Saleh’s accusations “totally ridiculous.”
“To believe that Israel would create Islamist cells in Yemen is really far-fetched. This is yet another victory for the proponents of conspiracy theories,” Igal Palmor said.
In August, Yemeni security forces arrested five suspected al-Qaeda militants in Hadramawt, days after the authorities revealed they had uncovered a new “terrorist” cell near the port city of Al-Mukalla.
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
Thailand has netted more than 1.3 million kilograms of highly destructive blackchin tilapia fish, the government said yesterday, as it battles to stamp out the invasive species. Shoals of blackchin tilapia, which can produce up to 500 young at a time, have been found in 19 provinces, damaging ecosystems in rivers, swamps and canals by preying on small fish, shrimp and snail larvae. As well as the ecological impact, the government is worried about the effect on the kingdom’s crucial fish-farming industry. Fishing authorities caught 1,332,000kg of blackchin tilapia from February to Wednesday last week, said Nattacha Boonchaiinsawat, vice president of a parliamentary
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
DEFIANT: Ukraine and the EU voiced concern that ICC member Mongolia might not execute an international warrant for Putin’s arrest over war crimes in Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin was yesterday visiting Mongolia with no sign that the host country would bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The trip is Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) since it issued the warrant about 18 months ago. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the EU expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. A spokesperson for Putin last week said that the Kremlin