Sanaa, April 28: Yemeni police arrested dozens of al Qaeda suspects in sweeps a day after a suicide bomber tried to kill Britain’s ambassador to Yemen, security officials said on Tuesday.
At the 22-year-old bomber’s home near Sanaa, his father told Reuters that he condemned his son’s actions and that he had tried to get him to marry and find a job, before the young man went missing around six weeks ago.
Othman Ali al-Sulwi, who wore an explosive belt when he threw himself at a convoy taking Ambassador Tim Torlot to work on Monday, had spent two years in prison before being released at the start of this year, his father said.
“I deplore and condemn this act in all its forms,” the father said, adding that he had reported his son’s disappearance to the authorities, who began a search for him.
Sulwi’s attack “bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda”, Yemen’s interior ministry said on Monday.
Among those taken into custody, the officials said, were seven Yemenis who had close relations with Sulwi.
The seven men, as well as the bomber, had all been arrested for suspected al Qaeda ties following the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. targets, but were released after two years in prison, according to the officials.
Yemen has been battling al Qaeda and other militant groups eroding its stability for years. The group’s regional wing, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is based in Yemen and has previously threatened and attacked embassies.
It has carried out a number of attacks on international targets, including the bombing in 2000 of the USS Cole in Aden harbour, which killed 17 sailors.
Last August, it sent a suicide bomber posing as a repentant militant to Saudi Arabia, where he narrowly failed to kill the kingdom’s anti-terrorism chief, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.
Nayef was not seriously hurt in the attack.
UK embassy closes for time being
No embassy staff was injured in Monday’s attack, but two security escorts and a bystander were wounded.
The British embassy will close to the public for at least the rest of the week, an embassy spokeswoman said on Tuesday.
In Yemen’s turbulent north, a pro-government tribe cut the main road from rebel stronghold Sa’ada to the capital Sanaa after what local officials said was an exchange of gunfire in a local market that wounded three people.
Both incidents, which followed the killing of a tribe member by rebels four days earlier, will likely strain a fragile truce agreed between the government and Shi’ite rebels to halt a war in the north that has raged on and off since 2004.
Yemen jumped to the forefront of Western security concerns after al Qaeda’s Yemen-based regional arm claimed responsibility for an attempted attack on a U.S.-bound airliner in December.
But analysts say Sanaa has been more concerned with curbing Shi’ite rebellion in the north and stifling a secessionist movement in the south than with tackling the global al Qaeda.
Western governments and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda will use Yemen as a base for further attacks in the region and beyond.
–Agencies