Germany: Washington, Sanaa request extraditing arrested Yemenis

A state of security alert was announced yesterday in Germany against likely terrorist attacks following the arrest of two Yemenis, one of them suspected to have had a major role in the attack against the US warship "USS Cole." The two men were held in a strongly guarded jail.

Each of the US, under whose request the two men were arrested, and also Yemen ask for the possibility of having the two convicted men with whom preliminary investigation show that the accusation addressed to them have the possibility of their being involved in USS Cole incident.

According to preliminary information, the second German TV station "Z. D. F," Sheikh Muhammad Ali al-Mu'yad, the Imam of the Grand mosque in Sanaa, a leading member in the Yemeni al-Islah ( reform) party in Yemen and a former parliamentarian, is considered to have very close relations to the regional official for al-Qaida organization in the Gulf region. Abdul Rahim al-Nashiri was arrested by the American authorities in October 2002 on charges of blowing up the American warship "USS Cole." It is also believed that al-Mu'yad was raising donations for the Palestinians Islamic resistance movement ( Hamas).

The German intelligence arrested the two men on Friday in a hotel near Frankfurt International airport.