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| Arabia |
| Yemen holds 16 suspected separatists in south |
| 2010-02-22 |
| Government forces have arrested 16 people on suspicion of separatist activity in southern Yemen, security sources said on Saturday. Yemen, the poorest Arab country, is battling secessionists in the south, a Shiite insurgency in the north and a resurgent al-Qaeda, whose local arm claimed responsibility for a failed Dec. 25 bomb attempt on a U.S. plane approaching Detroit. Those arrested were accused of taking part in unauthorized protests and jeopardizing security and unity in the Arabian Peninsula country, the sources said. Some group members were carrying anti-government leaflets and banners, and others had attacked security forces with stones, they said. Further details were not available about the arrests, which took place in three provinces late on Friday. People in the south, home to most of Yemen's oil facilities, have long complained that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement which united the long-divided country to seize their resources and discriminate against them. Yemen, which already hosts 170,000 African refugees, wants to block the flow of asylum seekers across the Gulf of Aden -- which separates it from Somalia -- because of security concerns, the Interior Ministry said on its website on Saturday. The move is part of Yemen's efforts to "prevent terrorist elements from the Horn of Africa from infiltrating its territory, especially after (Somalia's Islamist militant) al-Shabaab ... organization said it intends to support al-Qaeda elements in Yemen", it said. The refugees, many of them fleeing political turmoil in Somalia, hope to find jobs in neighboring Saudi Arabia, or in other parts of the Middle East. |
| Posted by:Fred |