Yemen under pressure to crack down on militants

Yemen on Tuesday launched a major military, intelligence operation to find key suspect in foiled parcel bomb attack.

SANAA: Yemen on Tuesday launched a major military and intelligence operation to find a Saudi al Qaeda bomb-maker, a key suspect in the foiled parcel bomb attack on the United States, a security official said.

He said the aim of the operation in the provinces of Maarib and Shabwa was to capture Ibrahim al-Asiri, as well as the US-born radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who is wanted by Washington for his links to al Qaeda.

Yemen, under pressure to crack down on militants operating  in the region after a foiled bomb plot involving US bound parcels, began the trial of  Awlaki , wanted ‘dead or alive’ by Washington.

Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been linked to a failed bombing of a US bound plane in December 2009 that was claimed by Yemen's al Qaeda wing, is thought to be hiding in southern Yemen.

Also on Tuesday, the trial of a Yemeni journalist and al Qaeda expert was set to continue in Sanaa. Abdulelah Shai is being tried for alleged links to al Qaeda, including helping to publicise the views of Anwar al-Awlaki.

Two others are also being tried in absentia along with Awlaki, a relative, Othman al-Awlaki, and a gunman,  Hisham Mohammed Assem, who last month killed a Frenchman at Austrian oil and gas company OMV's site.

"(The three defendants) ... were members of an armed gang that targeted foreigners," the prosecutor said when reading out the charges. The US Treasury has blacklisted Awlaki as a "specially designated global terrorist", a move that freezes any assets he may have under US jurisdiction.

Earlier this year, the United States authorised the CIA to capture or kill him. Awlaki has also been linked to an army major who went on a shooting spree that killed 13 people last year at Fort Hood in Texas.

The two parcel bombs intercepted last week on cargo planes in Britain and Dubai are thought to be the work of al Qaeda's Yemen-based arm, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), US officials say.

Yemeni police had previously arrested a young student at Sanaa University in connection with the parcel bomb plot but released her the next day, saying it had been a case of mistaken identity.