Yemen arrests three Qaeda militants, targets leader

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni forces surrounded a suspected al Qaeda regional leader near the capital on Wednesday and captured three militants wounded in a raid, security sources said.

The Yemeni authorities launched an operation this week to root out al Qaeda militants who they said were behind threats that forced Western embassies to close. The raid allayed U.S. concerns, allowing its heavily fortified mission to reopen.

Yemen, the poorest Arab country, was thrust into the foreground of the U.S.-led war against Islamist militants after a Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda said it was behind a Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said fighting in Yemen was a threat to regional and global stability.

Security sources said Yemeni forces had surrounded an area in Arhab, 60 km (40 miles) northeast of Sanaa, where a suspected al Qaeda commander was believed to be hiding in a house. They said the man was the target of a raid earlier this week.

Local tribal elders were trying to mediate, asking security forces not to launch an assault while they try to persuade the suspect to surrender, a tribal source told Reuters.

Yemen's heavily armed tribes often try to protect their kin by entering into negotiations with the government to gain their release or favorable treatment.

Three militants wounded in an attack on Monday were arrested on Tuesday after being spotted in a hospital, an official said.

Arhab was one of the regions targeted by government forces with air and artillery strikes last month in operations that a security source said foiled a series of suicide bombings. Two suspected militants died in the December operation in Arhab.

Four other people who had been sheltering the wounded militants were also detained on Tuesday, the source said. He added that doctors in the hospital may not have realized the men they were treating were suspected al Qaeda members.

Security sources described all the al Qaeda militants arrested in recent days as rank-and-file members of the group.

FRENCH EMBASSY REOPENS

France said on Wednesday it had reopened its embassy to the public after following the United States and Britain on Sunday in closing the mission on security concerns.

The British embassy said on its website it had reopened but public services remained closed.

Placed strategically on the Arabian Peninsula's southern rim, Yemen is trying to fight a threat from resurgent al Qaeda fighters while a Shi'ite revolt rages in the north and separatist sentiment simmers in the south.

In the southern city of Aden, police arrested Hisham Bahraheel, editor of the daily Al Ayyam which has been banned over its coverage of separatist unrest, news websites said.

The newspaper's building was the site of days of protests in which at least one soldier and one security guard were killed.

Yemen has sent troops to take part in a campaign against al Qaeda in three provinces over the past four days. One security source said forces had set up extra checkpoints on main roads.

The West and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda will take advantage of Yemen's instability to spread its operations to the neighboring kingdom, the world's biggest oil exporter, and beyond. Yemen is a small oil producer.

The fresh arrests bring to eight the number of al Qaeda suspects held in the current manhunt, security sources said. Five others were held this week in homes where they were hiding.

Yemen, with shrinking oil reserves, a water crisis and fast-growing population, had already stepped up security on its coast to block militants from reaching its shores from Somalia.

Yemeni officials acknowledge the need for U.S. help with counter-terrorism, but say the government also lacks resources to tackle the poverty that widens al Qaeda's recruiting pool.

Defense and counterterrorism officials say Washington has been quietly supplying military equipment, intelligence and training to Yemen to root out suspected al Qaeda hide-outs.

Civil war and lawlessness have turned Yemen into an alternative base for al Qaeda, which U.S. officials say has been largely pushed out of Afghanistan and is under military pressure from the Pakistani army in bordering tribal areas.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Mokhashaf in Aden; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Firouz Sedarat; Editing by Jon Boyle)