SAN'A, Yemen (AP) - Nine people have been arrested in connection with the July suicide attack on a Spanish tour group which killed 10 people, a security official said Monday. The government said it used helicopters to track down the suspects south of the capital, San'a. The suspects included three Yemenis who had recently returned from Iraq, the security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.The attack happened in early July when a suicide bomber plowed his explosives-laden car into the tour group's convoy at a temple linked to the ancient Queen of Sheba in the central province of Marib. Eight Spaniards and two Yemenis were killed.
Officials said earlier this month that they had used DNA to identify the body of the suicide bomber, 21-year-old Abdu Mohammed Saad Ahmed, a Yemeni citizen. The government said he was part of a 10-person terror cell that included eight Yemenis, a Saudi national and an Egyptian. The Egyptian, Ahmed Bassiouni Dewidar, an alleged al-Qaida operative, was killed three days after the attack while resisting arrest.
Prior to Monday's operation, more than a dozen people had been detained in connection with the investigation, but none of the members of the terror cell had been captured.