Special to WorldTribune.com

CAIRO — Yemen has been investigating Al Qaida’s infiltration of the Gulf Arab military.

Yemeni sources said intelligence agencies were interrogating military officers as well as Islamists in wake of an Al Qaida suicide bombing at the Defense Ministry that killed nearly 60 people last month.

The sources said the attack pointed to evidence that officers allowed Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula access to the ministry complex.

“The investigation has reached the senior level of the military,” a source said.

On Dec. 27, 2013, a Yemeni daily reported that the investigation concluded that at least one senior military official was involved in the AQAP attack. The newspaper, Al Sharea, asserted that AQAP was also believed to be working with an unidentified “powerful tribal leader.”

The sources said AQAP succeeded in reaching the ministry despite intense security. They said the suicide bombing, based on the interrogation of 12 suspects, was believed to have targeted Yemeni President Abbed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who nearly every week visited the hospital in the ministry complex.

“The men [suspects] admitted in the investigation that the target of the attack was Hadi,” another source said.

The AQAP bombing marked one of a series of major strikes of Yemeni
military and security facilities. The sources said AQAP has recruited
soldiers to provide intelligence on military and police targets,
particularly in southeastern Yemen.

AQAP has followed the Defense Ministry attack with similar operations in
Yemen. On Dec. 31, 2013, Al Qaida sent a suicide car bomber to security
headquarters in Aden, in which t least three soldiers were killed.

Al Sharea said investigators of the ministry attack were interrogating
Brig. Gen. Abbed Rabbo Al Qushibi, commander of the Special Forces Command.
The newspaper said the investigation also included two brigade commanders
and a range of lower-ranking officers regarding their response to the AQAP
assault.

“The level of disorganization by security forces was high and raised
questions of whether some of them were complicit,” the second source said.

  Abbed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemeni interrogators press military for answers on Al Qaida infiltration, Yemenis Defense Ministry