Qaeda could target ships in key waterway: Yemen FM

SANAA, Feb 23, 2010 (AFP) - Al-Qaeda could target ships in the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait between Yemen and Somalia but could never completely control it, Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi was quoted on Tuesday as saying.
"All Al-Qaeda can do is to threaten ships by attacking them with missiles or capturing them in international waters, like the pirates" from Somalia, Kurbi said in an interview with the ruling party's Al-Mithaq weekly.
"But Al-Qaeda could never, as it has threatened to do, take control of the Bab al-Mandab or international shipping lanes."That's why these (threats) are worrying. We take them seriously, and in Yemen we have to prepare for possible sea or land attacks, as countries such as Britain, the United States and others are doing," he said.He was commenting on threats made on February 8 by Said al-Shihri, the number two of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), that the group aimed to take over the strategic waterway linking the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.Shihri also called for cooperation between AQAP and the Somali militant group Al-Shebab.At the time the interior ministry in Sanaa said Al-Qaeda threats "do not frighten the security forces" and they "reflect the isolation and despair of terrorist elements in Yemen."Regional analysts also scoffed at AQAP's ability to carry out its threat to control the key link used by 30 percent of world trade and which also connects the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.Al-Mithaq quoted Kurbi as denying press reports that Yemen has reached a deal with Washington that would allow US access to its strategic Socotra island in the Indian Ocean.Socotra lies about 250 kilometres (150 miles) off the Horn of Africa and 1,000 kilometres from Aden, the main port in south Yemen.