Yemen says the suicide bomber who lightly wounded Saudi Arabia's assistant interior minister on Thursday set out from an area of Yemen known to be an al Qaida sanctuary. A crackdown on al Qaida's Saudi branch has forced it to move most of its operations to neighbouring Yemen, where instability and poverty have enabled it to take root.
Yemen's foreign minister, Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi, tells The Associated Press that the bomber came from Mareb, east of the capital. The foreign minister also said Saturday that the man claimed he wanted to hand himself over to Saudi authorities and urge other militants to abandon al Qaida's ideology. The Saudi newspaper Okaz reported the man who attacked Prince Mohammed bin Nayef was on a Saudi wanted list.