Yemen militias hold suspects over attack on commander

Yemeni army-linked militiamen captured three Al-Qaeda suspects allegedly involved in a bid to assassinate their commander, a member of the Popular Resistance Committees told AFP Sunday. "We stormed a house in Jaar where Al-Qaeda militants involved in the attack on our leader Abdel Latif Sayed were hiding," said the source, adding that three suspects were captured. Sayed, the commander for reserve forces fighting Al-Qaeda alongside the Yemeni army, was wounded Saturday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in front of his car in the main southern city of Aden. It was the fifth assassination attempt on Sayed. The reserve forces, called Popular Resistance Committees, were involved in an all-out army offensive which drove Al-Qaeda militants from towns in Abyan province in mid-June. Al-Qaeda took advantage of the weakness of Yemen's central government in 2011 during mass protests against now ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh to expand its presence in the east and south of the impoverished country.