(UPI) - Yemen has stepped up security measures at its vital installations following threats by presumed al-Qaida operatives.
A Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told United Press International Friday that all security precautions have been taken at ports, airports and oil installations, especially at the site of a project for liquefied natural gas (LNG).
He said security was beefed up after a group calling itself al-Qaida Branch in Yemen claimed responsibility for attacking two oil installations last September which the Yemeni authorities said they had foiled.
"Al-Qaida's threats to attack vital centers in the country are just made for intimidation... This group has no effective presence in Yemen anymore and it has since been quiet," the official said.
He said security measures were also tightened at all government institutions as well as around foreign interests and Western embassies.
A private U.S. institution for financing foreign investments, OPIC, expressed in a recent report fears that the LNG project it is funding in Yemen could be a target for a terrorist attack on the model of the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole, which was hit by a booby-trapped boat in the port of Aden killing 17 American sailors.
A spokesman for the Yemeni gas company said "security is a primary concern at the LNG project site and a security plan was put in place in coordination with the Yemeni authorities to protect it."
The interior ministry in an earlier statement played down al-Qaida pledges to attack U.S. interests in Yemen, stressing that the government "will hit with an iron fist terrorist elements and abort their criminal plans."
The LNG project is jointly owned by the Yemeni government, French Total, U.S. Hunt and a South Korean oil company. |
Yemen steps up security after Qaida threat
In 2007 the opposition Yemen Congregation for Reform (Islah) Islamic oriented Party maintained its having political and media sway over the Joint meeting Parties (JMP) block, also consisting of Yemen Socialist Party and the Nasserite Unionist Organisation. 
Yemen is practically a cool green paradise, with crisp mountain air, enormous acacia trees, pristine coral reefs and verdant fields bursting with khat, a psychoactive plant that induces mild euphoria. 
Sana'a: Yemen will not be able to combat terror without regional and international cooperation, said a Yemeni official, who warned of the ramifications of letting Yemen fight terrorism alone.
Many journalists covered the funeral of the murdered Minister, Pierre Gemayel, the latest victim in a string of political assassinations in Lebanon.
Doctors use the word “crisis” to describe the point at which a patient either starts to recover or dies. President George W. Bush’s Iraqi patient now seems to have reached that point. Most commentators appear to think that Bush’s latest prescription – a surge of 20,000 additional troops to suppress the militias in Baghdad – will, at best, merely postpone the inevitable death of his dream of a democratic Iraq. Yet as “Battle of Baghdad” begins, factors beyond Bush’s control and not of his making (at least not intentionally) may just save Iraq from its doom.