Yemen foils bomb attacks on Gulf Cup tournament

Yemeni security services on Saturday captured six al-Qaida members and found bomb devices and plans of bomb attacks on hotels and stadiums in the southern port city of Aden, which is due to host the Gulf Cup football tournament next month, a security official said, as cited by Xinhua.

“The al-Qaida cell was holing up in a house close to the main stadium which has been prepared to host the Gulf Cup soccer tournament next month,” the provincial security official told Xinhua by phone.

“They were captured on Saturday afternoon. We found a large quantity of bomb devices, as well as prepared plans show all facilities of the Gulf Cup tournament. It is horrible,” he said, but refused to elaborate any further.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said that about 30,000 soldiers were prepared to guard the upcoming 20th Gulf Cup football championship with the participation of the six Arab Gulf states as well as Iraq and the host Yemen, scheduled to be held in Aden from Nov. 22 to Dec. 4, according to official Saba news agency.

The Interior Ministry said Saturday in a statement posted on its website that police arrested on Oct. 6 a subversive gang of six men plotting attacks against security and other targets in Aden.
The ministry identified one of the detained as thirty-year-old Saleh al-Beraiky and said he was arrested when he was trying to place a plastic bag containing a 1,800 gram explosive device with a detonator and stopwatch at a strategic site.
Al-Beraiky has confessed to organizing the crime and revealed to the police his seven colleagues, the ministry added. “Security services have been searching for the rest two gang’s members.”

On Sept. 26, Yemen’s security forces captured eight members of an outlawed group allegedly planning to carry out attacks on tourism facilities in the southern port city of Aden, the ruling party’s news website reported.
“Documents displaying their plans to attack the tourism facilities in Aden were found when security forces raided the group’s hideout in al-Buraiqa town of Aden,” an provincial security official said.

Yemen has beefed up crackdown on terrorist groups with support from the international community after the resurgent al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula carried out a series of deadly attacks against Western, oil, tourism, government and security targets since early this year.