Yemeni state security prosecutors began on Saturday questioning 22 suspected al-Qaeda operatives believed to have planned terror attacks against Western interests and vital installations in the Arab state, official sources said. A source said the group was recruited by Fawaz al-Rabyee who was killed in a police raid on his hideout near the capital Sana'a on October 1. Rabyee was sentenced to death in 2004 for leading a group linked to al-Qaeda. Security authorities had linked the group to the September suicide attacks on two oil facilities in northern and eastern Yemen, siad the source, adding that among the 22 suspects were four suspected al-Qaeda members arrested in Sana'a four days after the oil attacks. Four attackers and one security guard died when bombers drove four cars into two oil facilities in eastern Yemen on September 15. The four pick-up trucks detonated inside the two facilities in the south- eastern province of Hadhramout and the north-eastern province of Marib.
An al-Qaeda arm in Yemen has claimed responsibility for the September suicide attacks and threatened to launch new attacks against US targets in the country. The group said in an internet statement that 'those operations were only the first spark, and what is coming shall be harsher and more bitter.'