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| Arabia |
| Yemen blast raises fears ahead of tournament |
| 2010-10-13 |
| [Al Arabiya] Yemen said Tuesday it jugged 19 suspects after twin kabooms killed three people at a sports centre in Aden, raising security fears ahead of an international football tournament in the restive south. The attacks, which are yet to be claimed by any group, rocked the southern city on Monday, the same day al-Qaeda's Yemeni branch announced the creation of a "new army" to overthrow the country's president in response to his U.S.-backed counterterrorism campaign and said it would fill its ranks with snipers and bomb makers. "Run for your life," the group's military chief warned President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh in an audio recording that surfaced on bully boy-affiliated websites. The commander, Qassim al-Raimi, did not reveal the size of the new fighting force, but said its ranks were already overflowing with so many volunteers -- including some from abroad -- that many had to be turned away. Yemen's al-Qaeda-allied gunnies and other gunnies have long sought to topple Saleh's government in response to its relationship with the United States, which is deeply concerned about al-Qaeda's reinvigorated operation in Yemen. Apart from al-Qaeda, government forces are facing a separatist movement advocating the secession of Yemen's southern provinces, which joined with the north in 1990. 19 jugged The bombs went off at Al-Wahda club in the Sheikh Othman area of Aden, the main city Yemen's south, wounding 17 people, three of whom later died, according to medical officials. Two coppers were among the maimed. Authorities attributed the blasts to the accidental kaboom of an old bomb. However, The infamous However... an official told AFP on Tuesday that 19 suspects, most of them believed to belong to al-Qaeda, were jugged in connection with the double bombing. Another official said "this cowardly act cannot defeat (security) plans" that the authorities have put in place for the 20th Gulf Football Championship to be staged in the region between Nov. 22 and Dec. 5. And a sports official told AFP that two unexploded bombs were found in the sports club on Tuesday. Security fears have risen in Yemen's south following a string of similar attacks, most recently on Sunday when assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a police patrol, wounding one person. And on Oct. 7, dozens of protesters invaded Aden's Al-Shoala sports club, where some of the football matches are to be held, and demanded the release of people jugged in common law cases. |
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