Al Qa'eda financier held in Yemen

Yemeni authorities have arrested the financier of al Qa'eda operations in the country and in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, an official said today

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Yemeni authorities have arrested the financier of al Qa'eda operations in the country and in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, an official said on the defence ministry news website today. "The arrested man is named Hassan Hussein bin Alwan, a Saudi national, and he is the financier for attacks launched by al Qa'eda organisation in Yemen and Saudi Arabia," the unnamed security official told September Net website.

"He is considered one of the most dangerous members of al Qa'eda," he added. In January the local al Qa'eda branch in Yemen announced in a video message posted on the internet the merging of the Saudi and Yemeni branches into "al Qa'eda in the Arabian Peninsula", led by a Yemeni, Nasser al-Wahaishi. Yemen, the ancestral land of al Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden, has witnessed a number of attacks claimed by the organisation in recent years against foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations. The New York Times reported on Friday that dozens of al Qa'eda fighters and some of the extremist group's leaders are shifting to Somalia and Yemen from their haven in Pakistan's tribal areas amid US military pressure. But a Yemeni official on Saturday dismissed the report as "fabrications that are baseless" claiming that Yemen "is not a suitable place for terrorists to use as a safe haven". * AFP