A Yemeni court on Sunday began the trial of 36 people suspected of being part of an Al-Qaeda group planning a wave of attacks on oil and gas installations in the country. The group were accused of "forming an armed gang with the goal of carrying out criminal acts ... attacks against foreign residents in Yemen and clients of a hotel ... with explosions aimed at vital sites," the public prosecution told the court, AFP reported. The group were accused of involvement in two unsuccessful attacks on oil refineries in the Maareb and Hadramaout provinces in September last year, in which four suicide bombers and one guard died. Those attacks came days after a video message by the Al-Qaeda network warned that the Gulf and Israel were being lined up for an attack. The group is also accused of carrying out armed attacks on police. Thirty of the suspects denied the charges, saying signed confessions had been extracted under torture.
The other six, who had escaped from a Sanaa prison over a year ago, were sentenced in absentia. The court scheduled the next hearing in the case for March 18. In October 2000, 17 United States sailors were killed when suicide bombers aboard a small boat attacked the destroyer USS Cole off the southern Yemeni port of Aden in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, Sanaa has worked with Washington to clamp down on suspected sympathisers of the network.