Al Qaeda man captured wearing bomb belt: Yemen

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni forces on Saturday captured an al Qaeda militant wearing an explosive belt who was planning a suicide attack on "economic facilities," a government official said.

The man was detained while driving a motorbike in the Khalf area in the Hadramaut region, the Ministry of Interior official said in a statement sent to Reuters. He was named as Saleh Abdul-Habib Saleh Shawash.

"The primary interrogation of this terrorist (revealed) he was planning a suicide attack against economic facilities in Hadramaut ... the interrogation is ongoing to reveal more information about this and to see who else might be involved in the plan," the source said.

Yemen has gained a reputation as a haven and a training and recruiting center for al Qaeda militants since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

Authorities stepped up operations against the group after its Yemeni wing said it was behind an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on December 25.

Yemen is also fighting a war with Shi'ite rebels in northern regions bordering Saudi Arabia and facing simmering separatist sentiment in the south.

The Shi'ite rebels, known as Houthis, made a truce offer last week and said they had withdrawn from all Saudi territory.

Yemen said on Saturday that the Houthis' claim to have left Saudi territory was "a new attempt to evade, lie and deceive."

The rebels said on Friday that Saudi air and artillery attacks had continued despite the truce offer.

(Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; editing by Andrew Roche)