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Yemen court questions U.S. al Qaeda suspect
 SANAA - Yemeni authorities have begun questioning a U.S. citizen suspected of being an al Qaeda militant who is accused of killing a guard as he tried to escape a hospital, a state-run website said on Thursday.Sharif Mobley, arrested in March along with 10 al Qaeda suspects, was handed over to a court in the capital Sanaa. He also faces charges of wounding another guard as he tried to shoot his way out of the hospital where he was being treated, the Yemeni Defence Ministry website said. Yemen became a major Western security concern after the Yemen-based regional arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December. A Yemeni official has said Mobley may have had links to a Nigerian man who was behind the Dec. 25 plane bombing attempt. Public Service Enterprise Group Inc, a U.S. company which owns several nuclear power plants, said in March that Mobley, 26, worked at nuclear reactors in 2002-2008, doing routine labour work. Mobley had been in Yemen for at least a year, first studying Arabic at a language institute before attending a university run by prominent hardline Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, an official said after his arrest. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man suspected of being behind the Dec. 25 attack, had visited Yemen to study Arabic and Islam and had had contact with radical U.S.-born Muslim preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who is based in the impoverished Arab country. Awlaki was also linked to a U.S. Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people at a base in Texas in November. Posted by: Steve White 2010-05-07 |
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