Fugitives killed in Yemen raid
Security forces say they have killed the man behind an attack on tourists last month.
He escaped from a prison in Sanaa in February 2006 along with a group of other al-Qaeda suspects. Among then was Nasser al-Wehaishi and Jamal Ahmad al-Badawi who are both still at large.
Al-Wehaishi is also accused of planning the Marib attack in which a car full of explosives was driven into a convoy at a temple on July 2.
Al-Badawi had been sentenced to death for the bombing of the USS Cole off the southern port of Aden in 2000. He was also on a US list of most-wanted and a $5m reward for his capture had been offered.
Court hearings
On Monday, a Yemeni court said verdict in the case of three dozen Yemenis accused of planning or carrying out attacks for al-Qaeda would be issued on November 7.
According to the charge sheet, they are accused of “forming an armed group with the aim of perpetrating criminal acts … by attacking foreign residents in Yemen, the clients of a hotel … and causing explosions targeting vital installations”.
They had also “prepared explosives, booby-trapped cars and weapons for other attacks”.
The prosecution says that the group, accused of being members of the Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda, launched an abortive twin attack in September 2006 on an oil refinery at Marib, and petrol storage tanks at the Dhabba terminal operated by Nexen, a Canadian company, in southeastern Hadramut province.