After a long and tedious manhunt of extremists in Aden:More arrested [Archives:2003/665/Front Page]

Aden, 2 September – Yemeni authorities arrested last week in Aden five Islamic extremists and confiscated a big amount of weapons and explosives, a reliable source said. The security in Aden launched a massive arrest campaign against suspected extremist elements. Five persons including members of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army (AAIA) who escaped the government military operation against around sixty members of the army at Huttat rugged mountainous area. The arrested militants confessed while being interrogated that they were planning terrorist operations against US and British interests in Aden. The police found out during this campaign at Khour Maksar district a big amount of weapons including R.P.G explosives and some cassettes including speeches for Osama Bin Laden. The sources said that the arrested militants who are suspected of having links to al-Qaeda were forming a terrorist cell and that three of them got fund from another Yemeni person to buy weapons. The financier who is not yet identified is believed to be one of the masterminds of al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Late June the army launched an operation to arrest around 60 persons of the AAIA at Huttat. The government forces arrested most of them. The number of the arrested militants is 31 while those who were killed in the military operation were 6 persons. The government forces battled the militants in Huttat after they attacked a military medical convoy in the area.
The minister of interior, Dr. Rashad al-Alimi announced mid July that security forces were still hunting down to arrest the rest of those who could escape to rugged mountainous areas nearby Abyan province are 28. Some of those who escaped were arrested.
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