30 foreigners held over Al Qaeda links

Yemeni security forces have arrested more than 30 foreign nationals on suspicion of having links with Al Qaeda, among them three Frenchmen, an American and a Briton, a security official said yesterday. "Some of them were arrested on suspicion of belonging to Al Qaeda while others were arrested according to lists provided to Yemen security forces by US intelligence," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Most of those arrested came to Yemen to study Arabic in the same school where Nigerian Omar Farouk had studied," the official said. He was referring to Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to blow up a US airliner over Detroit on Christmas day and who had studied in the Sanaa Institute for the Arabic Language, in the Yemeni capital's old city.