Qaeda member who Prince Muhammad Bin Naif, Assistant Minister of Interior for Security Affairs, spoke to in a telephone call believed to have prompted the explosion at his home on Aug. 27 was the second man in the ranks of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Saeed Al-Shehri, Al-Watan newspaper reported Monday. According to information received by Al-Watan, the call was made to a location in the Yemeni region of Marib, confirming the existence of Al-Qaeda members in the area. Al-Shehri is listed as number 31 on the Ministry of Interior's list of 85 persons wanted in connection with acts of terrorism published in February of this year. Known by the alias “Abu Safyan Al-Azadi”, Al-Shehri entered Yemen around nine months ago and was followed soon after by his wife Wafa and her children. The return to the Kingdom of Wafa and her children was a subject of discussion in a telephone conversation between Prince Muhammad and Abdullah Asiri as part of conditions for Asiri's repatriation. Asiri died in the explosion of a suicide bomb at the Prince's home in Jeddah as the call to Al-Shehri was in progress. On Sept. 1 it was reported that three suspected members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had been arrested in Marib over the course of the previous week. “The security services are investigating the three detained to discover their links with the terrorist organization and whether they have been involved in terrorist acts,” Governor of Marib Naji Al-Zayedi told Okaz newspaper. Al-Zayedi said that there had been a presence in the region of leading members of Al-Qaeda, headed by Yemeni Nasser Al-Wuheishi, alias “Abu Basir”, and large numbers of followers, among them Yemenis, Saudis, Libyans, Moroccans, Egyptians and Algerians. “The tightening of security, however, has forced them to flee to other areas,” Al-Zayedi said, indicating their movements as conducted between the regions of Marib, Shabwa, Abyan and Al-Jouf. Al-Zayed said the three arrests followed the “between 30 and 40” suspects who had been detained the previous month.
