al Qaeda threatens to turn Yemen into Iraq

and bellyaches about Abu Ghraib

An alleged Al Qaida leader threatened on Wednesday to make Yemen like Iraq if the Yemeni government did not release Al Qaida men and stop hunting them down.

The Yemeni government arrested about 50 young men, including students from Quran memorisation schools, during last June, said an official in the alleged military wing of Al Qaida in Yemen. “If you want to make Abu Ghraib in the prison of the political security [intelligence], then we will make Yemen second Iraq,” threatened the man, who was identified as Abu Yahya, in a statement published by the interdependent Al Wasat weekly. Abu Yahya said that the military wing of Al Qaida in Yemen will reply in the appropriate time to such “irresponsible actions and arbitrary detentions”.

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