FACTBOX: Yemen's resurgent al Qaeda wing

(Reuters) - Here are some key facts about al Qaeda in Yemen, which claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day bombing of a U.S. airline.

* Al Qaeda's wing in Yemen announced a year ago it had changed its name to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. AQAP said it provided the explosive device used on the failed December 25 attack.

* AQAP's Yemeni leader, Nasser al-Wahayshi, was once the secretary of al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, whose father was born in Yemen.

* AQAP has threatened attacks against Westerners in the oil-exporting region and seeks the fall of the U.S.-allied Saudi royal family. Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi said last month up to 300 al Qaeda militants might be in Yemen.

* Yemeni authorities said two AQAP leaders and a U.S.-born Muslim preacher linked to the man who shot dead 13 people at a Texas army base, Fort Hood, last November may have been among 30 militants killed in an air raid on December 24. The deaths have not been confirmed.

* AQAP claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that killed four South Korean tourists in March, as well as attacks on foreign embassies and housing compounds in Yemen in 2008.

* On August 27, 2009, a 23-year-old AQAP suicide bomber tried to kill Prince Mohammed bin Nayef who heads Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign. It was the first known attack on a member of the Saudi royal family since al Qaeda began a violent campaign in the world's top oil exporter in 2003.

* The United States sent home six of the 97 Yemenis from its Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, but further repatriations seem unlikely after the attempted airliner bombing.

* Nearly a year before the September 11, 2001 attacks, al Qaeda bombed the USS Cole warship in October 2000 when it was docked in the southern Yemen port of Aden, killing 17 U.S. sailors.

* The United States and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda might exploit instability in Yemen -- which also faces a Shi'ite revolt in the north and separatist unrest in the south -- to make it a launch pad for further attacks.