Yemen Rounds Up Terror Suspects

The authorities in Yemen have arrested "scores" of Muslim militants in a crackdown against suspected terrorists after the killing of three US missionaries and the assassination of a veteran politician, security officials said today.

Jarallah Omar, the deputy secretary general of the Socialist party, was buried in the capital, Sana'a, today amid tight security. He was shot on Saturday. The three Americans were shot on Monday at a Baptist hospital in southern Yemen. Both attacks were carried out by suspected Muslim extremists.

An unnamed security official said the authorities hoped that today's arrests would help crack a terrorist cell targeting foreigners and secular politicians.

Yemeni officials have said the existence of the alleged cell was revealed in confessions by Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, the main suspect in the killing of the US missionaries in the town of Jibla, 125 miles south of Sana'a. A fourth American left hospital yesterday after being treated for abdominal wounds.

Yemeni officials suspect that Mr Kamel has connections to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group. The official news agency Saba has quoted an official as saying that Mr Kamel told interrogators that he plotted the attack in collaboration with Ali al-Jarallah, who Yemeni officials say is a Muslim extremist. A member of the fundamentalist Islamic Reform party, he was arrested for Mr Omar's murder.

An FBI team arrived in Jibla on Monday to help with the investigation into the murder of the missionaries. US officials say FBI agents "are very close" to the interrogation, but it is unclear whether they have been allowed to question Mr Kamel directly.

In past investigations of attacks on Americans in Yemen, US investigators have complained of having limited access to suspects.

The US embassy said it was too early to tell if the Jibla shootings were a terrorist incident, though the Yemeni prime minister, Abdul-Kader Bajammal, included the killings in a list of terrorist acts he presented to parliament on Monday. Mr Bajammal accused "extremist elements in several [Yemeni] parties of having links with al-Qaida".

There have been a number of anti-western attacks in Yemen, where anti-US sentiments are running high over US support for Israel and the standoff with Iraq.

The US stepped up its military presence in the region after the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole off Yemen by an explosive-laden boat. The attack killed 17 US sailors.

In October, a French oil tanker, the Limburg, was rammed in a similar attack and set ablaze near the southern Yemeni port of Mukalla. Both attacks were linked to al-Qaida.

In November, a CIA-operated Predator drone fired a missile that killed Bin Laden's top lieutenant in Yemen, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, and five other al-Qaida suspects.