Yemen foils plot against embassies in Sanaa

Yemen's security forces have foiled a militant plot to attack embassies in Sanaa, state news agency Saba said on Wednesday, just days after the army forced Al Qaeda out of bastions in the south.

"Security forces have managed to foil a terror plot targeting foreign embassies in the capital," Saba said, citing a top security official.

The official said "three suspects armed with weapons, explosives and maps showing the location of foreign embassies" were detained.

He said the residences of "military commanders and other important people" were also marked on the maps.
The report comes two days after a suicide bomber killed Salem Ali Qoton, the general who spearheaded a month-long offensive against Al Qaeda in Yemen's Abyan and Shabwa provinces in the south.

The offensive, launched on May 12, ended more than a year of Al Qaeda control in a string of towns and villages in the troubled south and east.

The jihadists are believed to have fled to the lawless mountainous regions of the eastern Hadramawt province.

Meanwhile, in the southern province of Bayda, security forces killed local Al-Qaeda leader Salah Al Jawhari and two other "suicide bombers who were preparing to target military and security commanders in Bayda," Saba cited the same official as saying.

Jawhari was "in charge of Al Qaeda suicide cells in both Sanaa and Bayda," the official said.

Security forces also arrested Majed Al Qulaisi, "a member of the (Al-Qaeda) cell that planned" the deadly suicide attack that killed more than 100 troops at a military parade rehearsal in Sanaa last month, he said.

A Tunisian, "one of Al-Qaeda's most dangerous foreign nationals in Yemen," Nizar Abdel Rahman, was also arrested Wednesday, the official said.

After taking office in February, President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has pledged to destroy Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the network's local branch.

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