Dozens of al Qaeda jihadists are hiding out in a remote area of Yemen, a top official said, as President Ali Abdullah Saleh Sunday urged militants in the conflict-ridden country to lay down their arms.
Al Qaeda fighters, among them Saudis and Egyptians, have streamed in from Afghanistan and have joined local members of the jihadist network in lairs carved out in the rugged Kour mountain in southern Shabwa province, said provincial governor Ali Hasan al-Ahmadi.
"There are dozens of Saudi and Egyptian al Qaeda militants who came to the province," Ahmadi told the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat daily.
"This is in addition to Yemenis who came from Marib and Abyan (provinces) and a number of militants from Shabwa province itself," he added.
Among them, he added, are the leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Nasser al-Wahishi, his number two, Saeed Ali al-Shehri, a Saudi, and radical US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi. The Egyptians and Saudis, Ahmadi said, had travelled to Yemen from Afghanistan.
AQAP group has claimed it was behind the botched Christmas Day bomb attack onboard a US airliner, while Yemeni officials have said the would-be bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been in contact with Awlaqi. The United States has accused the al Qaeda branch in Yemen of training Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Northwest Airline flight before it landed in Detroit, but was overpowered by passengers.
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