Yemeni security authorities were not aware of terrorist links of the Nigerian man who tried to blow up a US plane on orders from Yemen"s branch of al-Qaeda days after he left the Arab country, dpa quoted a Yemeni minister as saying today. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, visited Yemen twice in between 2004 and 2009 to study Arabic, Information Minister Hassan al-Lawzi said in a press conference. "Yemen has not received any information about this person and he was not on any list of terrorists submitted (by the United States) to the Yemeni authorities," al-Lawzi said. The minister said Abdulmutallab stayed in Yemen for several months in late 2004 and early 2005 and returned in last August to spend three months studying Arabic in a Sana"a institute before he left the country days before he attempted to ignite explosives on the Detroit- bound airliner. The al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula group claimed responsibility for the plot, saying it was in retaliation for the US assistance to Yemeni authorities in the air raids that killed 64 of its members in Yemen earlier this month. "If Yemen had been informed that he was on terror lists in the United States, he could have not entered the country," the Yemeni minister said. He said the government instructed all embassies abroad on Tuesday not to issue visas from now on for people who want to study Arabic or Islamic Sharia in Yemen without a prior approval from the Interior Ministry.
