Al Qaeda Suspect Is Killed in Raid By Yemeni Forces

SAN'A, Yemen — Yemeni anti-terrorism forces yesterday killed a suspected Al Qaeda member who was convicted of an attack on a French oil tanker and escaped from prison earlier this year.

Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeie was killed after anti-terrorism troops launched a dawn raid on a house in the capital San'a based on a tip, security officials said.

The forces also killed another suspected Al Qaeda member, Mohammed al-Dailami, and arrested two other suspects. One soldier was wounded in the raid, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Messrs. Rabeie and Dailami were among 23 convicts who escaped from prison in February. Mr. Rabeie, who is a Yemeni, had been sentenced to death for his involvement in the 2002 attack on the French oil tanker Limburg and for planning to kill the American ambassador to Yemen and bomb five Western embassies.

Of the 23, nine have surrendered and security forces have killed four. Ten remain at large, including Jamal al-Badawi, convicted of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the attack on the destroyer USS Cole in 2000 in which 17 American sailors were killed in the Yemeni port of Aden.

Two suicide bombers rammed an explosive-laden boat into the Limburg, killing a Bulgarian crew member and spilling 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden — an operation similar to the attack on the USS Cole two years earlier.