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The State Department says U.S. officials have concluded that the American Embassy in Yemen was targeted by three mortar rounds that crashed into a nearby high school, apparently killing a Yemeni security guard.

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

Local Store Owner Sentenced by Jim Aroune Published Jan 28, 2008 A Rochester store owner will be confined to his home for six months for illegally sending money to Yemen. Mohamed Muthana received this sentence Monday. A jury convicted Muthana of running an illegal money transmitting business out of the Yemeny Superette on North Street. More than $60,000 headed to Yemen from there. Muthana will also serve three years probation and pay a fine.

SAN'A, Yemen - A Yemeni court convicted Wednesday 32 al-Qaida suspects of planning attacks on oil and gas installations in the country, sentencing them to prison terms of up to 15 years. Four others were acquitted. Six of those convicted remain at large and were tried in absentia. The prosecution had charged the group, all from Yemen, with forming an armed gang and planning attacks against oil installations with rocket-propelled grenades in September 2006. The trial opened in March and authorities did not disclose when or how they were arrested. Three of them claimed they were tortured and forced to...

Forty-five Jewish people in Yemen have taken refuge in a hotel in northern Yemen after receiving death threats from Muslim extremists. The group fled their village 10 days ago when they were confronted by masked radical Islamist gunmen. The minority community has followed a traditional way of life in the village of Salem for centuries. But, earlier this month, the Salem Jews received a letter accusing them of spreading vice and corruption. The message was clear - the Jews must leave the country or lose their lives. Decade-long insurgency Dawoud Yousef Mousa and his neighbours fled to Saada City,...

FRESNO, Calif. - A California man accused of trying to supply stolen U.S. military equipment and defense secrets to Yemen was denied bail Friday after a prosecutor said he had ties to a terrorist financier who plotted to help al-Qaida and Hamas. The allegations emerged at a hearing for Amen Ahmed Ali, 56. Defense attorney David A. Torres said his client was surprised by the charges. "But he's also strong. He looks forward to his day in court," Torres said. In pressing to keep Ali behind bars, prosecutors said that a search of Ali's house turned up contact information for...

Well it has happened once again. This time, two Yemeni men are claiming that the US kept them hostage for eighteen months in two 'secret' detention facilites and interrogated and tortured them. Amnesty International of course was all over the story adding to the legend of clandestine CIA torture chambers in far corners of the globe. I am not so naive tas to believe that we don't pull some shenanigans to get the information we need to protect our troops and innocent civilians, but AI has been given free reign by the media to lay out their claims to the...

Two men seen taking pictures of the George Washington Bridge from an inflatable raft in the Hudson River yesterday afternoon were taken into custody by the police when they came ashore. The police said last night that no arrests had been made, but Sgt. Brian Mullen of the 34th Precinct said that charges against the men, who were not identified, were pending. One possible charge was unauthorized use of the raft in the wrong place, he said.

A Yemeni immigrant who was discharged from the U.S. Air Force after expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden following the Sept. 11 attacks faces trial next week on accusations of lying to land a job as an airport screener. Sadeq Naji Ahmed, 25, a former airman at Eglin Air Force Base in Pensacola, Fla., faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of making false statements on a questionnaire to get a job with the Transportation Security Administration at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

A Yemeni cleric who once said that Osama bin Laden had called him his sheik was convicted of financing terrorism yesterday in a federal court in New York City. The victory for the Justice Department came in one of the government's most visible terrorism-financing prosecutions, a case that had for a time appeared uncertain after the F.B.I.'s star informer set himself on fire outside the White House in November. Advertisement The sheik, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad, a prominent Yemeni who once held a government post in his country, was convicted by a jury in Federal Court in Brooklyn of conspiracy...

The Sana'a appeals court upheld on Saturday morning a death sentence against Abdul-Rahim al-Nashiri in the case of attacking USS Cole destroyer off Aden seaport in October 2000. The court, headed by Judge Saiyd Naji al-Qataa, also canceled the death verdict against Jamal al-Badawi to 15 years in prison. SABA reported. Last September, the Sana'a primary court had sentenced death verdict against al-Nashiri and al- Badawi. The attack on the USS Cole destroyer killed 17 U.S. sailors and wounded 23 others.

February 3, 2005 -- Brooklyn jurors on the terror-financing case of a Yemeni sheik yesterday viewed secret tapes of him huddling with an assistant — allegedly to create code words for weapons and ammunition. Not knowing his German hotel room was wired, Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad allegedly suggested to his assistant that instead of referring to a shortage of ammunition, they could say, "The corn is running low." "A person must be clever," al-Moayad, 56, tells Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, 31, on the tape. "For example, if you wish to buy ammunition . . . 'By God, Sheik Mohammed,...

A federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday watched a secretly recorded videotape of a Yemeni cleric boasting about his relationship with Osama Bin Laden. "We talked and chatted like normal people," Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad told a pair of FBI informants meeting him in a wired hotel room in Frankfurt, Germany. Al-Moayad added that he provided Bin Laden with financial support and taught him Islamic law. "He called me 'his sheik,'" he said. As a result of the January 2003 sting operation, Al-Moayad and an associate are charged with conspiring to funnel cash, weapons and other support to Al Qaeda and...

NEW YORK (AP) -- A judge earlier this week refused to let federal prosecutors present some of the most potentially damaging evidence against a Yemeni sheik charged with funneling millions of dollars to terrorists. Prosecutors will not be able to present documents allegedly linking Sheik Mohammed Ali Hasan al-Moayad to suspected al Qaeda militants in Afghanistan and Croatia, Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. ruled. Opening arguments are due to begin this week in the case of Al-Moayad and his Yemeni assistant Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, who are charged in federal court in Brooklyn with supporting al Qaeda and the Palestinian extremist...

<p>November 17, 2003 -- A Yemeni cleric who allegedly boasted of giving Osama bin Laden millions of dollars collected at a Brooklyn mosque could be hauled into federal court as soon as today, after more than 10 months spent fighting extradition from Germany, a law enforcement source said. Sheik Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad and his alleged assistant, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, are expected to be arraigned in Brooklyn Federal Court immediately upon their arrival in the U.S. on charges they gave material support to al Qaeda and Hamas.</p>

THE trial of a Yemeni imam accused of supplying millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden and Hamas began in New York today. Jury selection was expected to take about two weeks, with the prosecution to begin presenting its case on January 25. Mohammed Al Hasan Al-Moayad, 56, was detained with another Yemeni in Germany in January 2003 and extradited to the United States later that year. US Attorney-General John Ashcroft said in announcing charges against Mr Al-Moayad in March 2003: "The FBI undercover operation developed information that Al-Moayad personally handed Osama bin Laden $US20 million ($26.3m) from his terrorist...

A Yemeni cleric suspected of supporting Hamas and al- Qaida laughed as he described a terrorist bus bomb that killed five people and injured more than 50 in Tel Aviv in 2002, according to court records disclosed yesterday by Brooklyn federal prosecutors. The suspect, Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad, was caught on tape by federal undercover operatives in a Frankfurt, Germany, hotel room describing his ties to the terrorist groups and his willingness to accept more than $1 million that was to be funneled to Hamas, according to the court filings. "Yes, ha, ha, ha," was how Al-Moayad reacted when the...

NEW YORK  — A Yemeni sheik accused of funneling millions of dollars to terrorist networks warned U.S. agents that "Allah will bring storms" to America because of his arrest, according to newly filed court papers.Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayad (search ) made the remark last year after a German court ordered him extradited to the United States to face charges he helped finance Al Qaeda (search) and Hamas, prosecutors said in the documents filed in U.S. District Court. The statement — spoken in English to agents bringing al-Moayad from Frankfurt to New York on Nov. 16, 2003 — counter defense claims that...

NEW YORK (AP) - An FBI informant who set himself on fire in front of the White House played a role in at least three terror investigations, court documents show. Defense attorneys said Wednesday they are re-examining Mohamed Alanssi's role in the cases against their clients, who are accused of helping fund Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and the Palestinian group Hamas. "Ultimately what I'm heading for is a motion for dismissal," said Frank Hancock, the lawyer for Abad Elfgeeh, a Yemeni-born man accused of illegally sending millions of dollars overseas. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, who filed the...

A court convicted 15 Yemeni militants on terror charges including the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and plotting to kill the US ambassador. One man was sentenced to death for killing a Yemeni police officer and seven received 10 year prison terms. Six of the defendants plus the one man tried in absentia, who received the longest prison terms, 10 years, were found guilty of participating in the October 2002 bombing of the Limburg oil tanker, which killed one Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden. The conviction of one of...

SAN`A, Yemen (AP) - A Yemeni politician and religious figure - designated a suspected terrorist by the United States - declared his innocence Saturday and called on Washington to substantiate its allegations. On Tuesday, Sheik Abdulmajid al-Zindani, an Afghan war veteran and the spiritual leader of the Islamic-oriented Islah Party, was added to a U.S. Treasury Department list of those suspected of supporting terrorist activities. The allegation claimed al-Zindani, who is in his 60s, had "a long history of working with Osama bin Laden, notably serving as one of his spiritual leaders." The Treasury Department said al-Zindani had actively recruited...

<p>WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in Iraq believe they may be facing an Al Qaeda cell in Fallujah after a man with suspected ties to the terror network was captured last week, sources told Fox News Friday.</p> <p>The man said to have been arrested was Husam al-Yemeni, said to be part of the leadership structure of Ansar al-Islam (search), the Al Qaeda-associated terrorist group based in Iraqi Kurdistan. Some U.S. officials described al-Yemeni as the first Al Qaeda operative captured in Iraq.</p>

WASHINGTON -- U.S. forces in Iraq captured a leader of the insurgency who is believed to be a close associate of Abu Musab Zarqawi, described by some as a key link between the al-Qaida terrorist network and toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a senior American official said Friday. U.S. troops captured Husam al-Yemeni last Thursday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is described by U.S. officials as the leader of an insurgency cell in Fallujah, west of Baghdad. The official said al-Yemeni is the highest-level member of Ansar al-Islam captured so far. The group comprises mainly ethnic...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German court said Monday it had approved the extradition to the United States of two Yemeni citizens suspected of links to the al Qaeda network who were arrested in Frankfurt in January on a U.S. request. The men are Yemeni Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Mouyad and his assistant, Mohammed Moshen Yahya Zayed. U.S. authorities accuse the two of being al Qaeda supporters, but have not linked them directly with the September 11, 2001 hijacked airliner attacks on the United States. U.S. officials accuse Sheikh Mohammed, a preacher at Al Ihsan Mosque, one of the...

SANNA (Reuters) - A Yemeni Islamic cleric arrested in Germany for suspected al Qaeda links has said he was lured to travel there to receive a charitable donation from a U.S. Muslim, a state-run newspaper said on Thursday. Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Mouyad, held along with an aide in Germany on a U.S. request last week, said he had been led to believe the U.S. Muslim man wanted to meet him to make a contribution, the September 26 weekly said. The cleric told Yemen's ambassador at a German detention center he had been told "he should travel to the United...

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) - German officials are considering whether to extradite two Yemeni al-Qaida suspects arrested last week at Washington's request, officials said Monday. No date has been set for any decision, said Wolfgang Frank, a spokesman for the state court in Frankfurt, which will have to rule on the case. The men, Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayyed and Said Mohammed Mohsen, were arrested Friday at the Sheraton hotel near Frankfurt's international airport following a U.S. request for their arrest with a view to extradition. German officials say al-Moayyed, 58, is suspected of organizing logistics for al-Qaida in Yemen. Mohsen is...

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — German authorities, acting on a U.S. request, arrested two Yemeni men Friday on suspicion they belong to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization, a German security official said. Federal and state police arrested the men at a hotel at the Frankfurt international airport, the security official said on condition of anonymity. One of the men was identified as Mohammed Ali Hassan Sheik al Mujahed, in his mid-50s. He is supposed to have been the imam of a large mosque in the Yemeni capital, San`a, and is suspected of being responsible for al-Qaida's logistics in Yemen, the official...

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, under its new chairman, Richard Lugar, should make its first order of business an inquiry into President Bush's maladroit and shortsighted decision-making in the So San affair. Our National Security Agency, to its credit, spotted the movement of 15 Scud missiles and 85 drums of chemicals from a factory in North Korea to its secret loading aboard the freighter So San, and tracked the unflagged ship around the world to the Arabian Sea. The C.I.A. was unable to determine the customer of these offensive weapons, unreliable in military combat but useful in striking terror into...

JAKARTA - Two foreigners - a Yemeni and a Malaysian - are suspected to have played a key role in the Bali bombing. Senior Indonesian intelligence sources told The Straits Times that the two, especially Yemeni national and Al-Qaeda operative Syahfullah, provide clear evidence that Osama bin Laden's terrorist network had a direct hand in the Oct 12 blasts. They said the 40-year-old Syahfullah, who was known to be responsible for a series of terrorist attacks in the Middle East, particularly the bombing of an American military barracks in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 soldiers, entered Indonesia on a forged...

<p>SAN`A, Yemen (AP) --  A Yemeni man died when a bomb he was carrying exploded in a crowded market on Friday, injuring two bystanders, police said.</p> <p>Police said it was difficult to identify the man because his body was blown to pieces. It was not immediately clear if the bomb exploded prematurely. The blast occurred in a market in Yemen's capital, San`a.</p>

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) — An explosion ripped through a residential building in the capital San'a Friday, killing two bombmakers, police said. The Ministry of Interior said in a statement the homemade bomb went off prematurely, killing one person instantly and seriously wounding another, who later died on the way to a hospital. One of the victims was identified by police as Mohammed Abdel Khaleq al-Boreihi. The identity of the other and the motive for the bombing were not immediately clear. Police said three people, including one who shared the rented apartment with the victims, were arrested and were being interrogated....