Sanaa, June 14: Al-Qaeda militants, among them two Saudis, were involved in a weekend bombing of a Yemeni oil pipeline, the defence ministry’s 26sep.net news website said on Monday.
“The perpetrators of the attack are a dangerous group of Al-Qaeda members wanted by security services, among them… Saudi Said al-Shahri” and another Saudi called al-Ghamidi, 26sep.net reported.
A tribal leader was also among the saboteurs, the website said, without identifying the leader by name.
Tribal sources said on Saturday that tribesman used a bulldozer to expose the oil pipeline in Marib province and then blew it up in response to an army raid on the home of a tribal chief accused of sheltering Al-Qaeda members.
After the bombing, tribal leaders in Marib, east of Sanaa, pledged to stop harbouring Al-Qaeda members and to stop carrying out acts of violence, a tribal source and the Yemeni government said.
The province, a stronghold of Al-Qaeda, has been the site of frequent unrest.
On June 5, a Yemeni army colonel and two soldiers were killed in an attack on a convoy en route to Safar oil field, in an attack attributed to Al-Qaeda.
Last month, tribesmen from Marib carried out two pipeline attacks. Authorities have since repaired the damage.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the site several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.
However, the organisation’s local affiliate, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has suffered setbacks amid US pressure on Sanaa to crack down.
—Agencies