Yemen's president said on Tuesday that security authorities knew al-Qaeda was plotting attacks in the impoverished country, after a suicide car bomber killed seven Spanish tourists and two local drivers.
"Yemeni security authorities had information that al-Qaeda elements were preparing to carry out terrorist attacks," President Ali Abdullah Saleh told reporters a day after the massive blast at an ancient temple site.
They "boosted security measures around oil facilities and government institutions, but the Balqis temple was not taken into account" as a potential target, he said.
A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into the Spanish tourists' convoy as they were wrapping up a tour of the temple in Marib, 170km east of the capital Sanaa.
The temple dates back 3,000 years, to the time of the biblical Queen of Sheba. The site has become a major tourist attraction since its significance was discovered in 1988, despite the threat of kidnapping by local tribesmen.
The bombing was the worst attack against Westerners in the Arabian peninsula country since al-Qaeda extremists struck the USS Cole off the southern port of Aden in 2000, killing 17 US sailors.
Spain's Onda Cero radio quoted survivor Maria Begona Larrabeiti as saying the experience was "an absolute nightmare."
"I saw the first car burning. In the second, people were in a bad state and, in mine, people were screaming," she said.
In addition to the nine people killed on Monday, six Spanish tourists, two Yemeni drivers and four police guards escorting the tourists were wounded.
No group has claimed responsibility.
"Preliminary information suggests the perpetrator of the attack was an Arab national," Saleh said without elaborating.
A security source said the bombing was apparently masterminded by al-Qaeda militants still on the run after escaping from a Sanaa prison in February last year.
At least three of the 23 al-Qaeda suspects who tunnelled out of jail remain at large after the others gave themselves up or were arrested or killed.
One of those still at large is Jamal Ahmad al-Badawi, convicted and sentenced to death for the Cole blast and featured on the US list of most-wanted terrorists with a US$5 million bounty on his head.
"Security agencies have upgraded their readiness to 100 percent to track down the elements involved in this criminal and irresponsible act," Saleh said.
Authorities are also hunting the escaped al-Qaeda militants, who number "three to four," he said.
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
RSS