Terrorist recruiting cell uncovered in Yemen

Police in Yemen have uncovered a terrorist cell of four extremists who were recruiting young people to carry out suicide attacks in Iraq and elsewhere, a security official said.

The four were allegedly receiving funds from abroad and were recruiting young men in their 20s from mosques and religious seminars during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, said the official, citing their confessions.

Also yesterday, a second security official in the port city of Aden said Yemen has set free the al-Qaida mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors.

Jamal al-Badawi, who is wanted by the FBI, was convicted of the attack in 2004 and received a death sentence that was commuted to 15 years in prison.

He and 22 others, mostly al-Qaida fighters, escaped from prison in 2004, but al-Badawi was granted his freedom 15 days ago after turning himself in and pledging loyalty to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, said the official.

Al-Badawi had escaped prison once before with nine other suspects in the Cole attack in April 2003, but was rearrested and transferred to a prison in San’a.

The Interior Ministry said earlier that al-Badawi voluntarily gave himself up to police, but media reports said tribal chiefs mediated his surrender after he renounced terrorism and pledged allegiance to the Yemeni leader.

The security official said police in Aden were told by the government in the capital, San’a, to “stop all previous orders concerning measures adopted against al-Badawi”.

Witnesses in Aden said that al-Badawi was receiving well-wishers at his home in the al-Buraika district Aden, who were congratulating him for his freedom.

Yemen does not have a law that criminalises Jihad, or holy war. Detainees remain in prison until they either renounce their commitment to Jihad or are released under pressure from family and human rights groups.

Since the suicide attack in July that killed eight Spanish tourists visiting an ancient Yemeni temple, President Saleh has said in several interviews with local papers that al Qaida had reached a truce with the government.

Al-Qaida used to have an active presence in Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden.

The group was blamed for the bombing of the Cole and the attack on a French oil tanker that killed one person two years later.