10 al-Qaeda militants arrested in Yemen

Yemeni authorities have arrested 10 Al-Qaeda suspects in the main southern city of Aden, a security official told AFP on Thursday. "Seven Al-Qaeda suspects were arrested on Wednesday in a neighbourhood in Aden after they infiltrated from Abyan province," an Al-Qaeda stronghold, the official said, adding that security forces seized AK-47 rifles carried by the militants. Three others were arrested as "they tried to plant explosives" near a hotel in Aden, he added. Yemen's security forces have been heavily deployed in Aden amid fears that clashes between the army and alleged Al-Qaeda gunmen in Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan, might spread to the strategic port city. At least 81 soldiers and police have been killed and more than 200 others wounded in the Zinjibar clashes, according to a military official. In nearby Huta, dozens of alleged Al-Qaeda gunmen attacked security and government buildings on Wednesday, killing two policemen and wounding five others, medics and residents said. Yemen's opposition accuses the government of embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh of exaggerating the Al-Qaeda threat to head off Western pressure on his 33-year rule. Yemen is the home of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an affiliate of Ayman al-Zawahiri's militant network. Al-Qaeda on Thursday named Zawahiri to succeed Osama bin Laden who was killed by US commandos in a May 2 raid in Pakistan. The group is blamed for anti-US plots including trying to blow up a US-bound airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.