Yemen arrest 9 al Qaeda terrorist in July attack

AP/Houston Chronicle:

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 Interior Ministry also announced the arrests, but did specify the number of people detained.

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.

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I think the Yemen attack was coordinated by al Qaeda to coincide with the failed Doc Plot in the UK which also had an Iraqi connection. Both events were also coordinated with the Red Mosque mess in Pakistan where Zawahiri hoped to cause chaos in Pakistan that would allow the Islamist to take over. The al Qaeda summer offensive has been a series of failures and even the relatively successful attack in Yemen has turned out to be a bust for al Qaeda.