UPI - SANAA, Yemen, Oct. 5 (UPI) -- The Yemeni authorities revealed the arrest of al-Qaeda cell members allegedly planning suicide attacks against government installations and foreign interests.
The "September 26" daily, mouthpiece of the defense ministry, reported Thursday the terror suspects planned to attack the Yemeni Businessmen Club and an Italian restaurant in the diplomatic neighborhood in Sana’a, as well as a health club near the residential quarters of Canadian Exxon's foreign employees.
It said the authorities are hunting down the remaining members of the cell which they have been monitoring for some time.
"The terrorist gang had rented a shop in a northern Sana’a neighborhood where they planned their suicide attacks against public utilities and foreigners, especially Americans," the paper said.
It said the gang possessed disguise tools, including masks, women's cloaks and forged car plates in addition to fake documents and identity cards. Police seized from the shop, reportedly used by the gang as a hideout, 12 bags containing 50 kilograms of explosives each.
The paper noted that al-Qaeda has recently renewed its activities in Yemen following a lull in the past few years during which Yemen's cooperation with Washington's global war on terrorism helped dismantle 90 percent of the network's cells in the country, according to Prime Minister Abdel Kader Bajamal.
In the past few weeks, Yemen's security services succeeded in aborting two suicide attacks that targeted oil installations in the east of the country, seized an al-Qaeda cell and killed two al-Qaeda fugitives, including Fawaz Rabihi, the main suspect in the 2002 attack on the French giant tanker, the Limburg.