Dubai police say foil arms smuggling to Yemen

Dubai police say foil arms smuggling to Yemen

16,000 items of weaponry worth 16 million dirhams ($4.36 million) said to be intercepted.

March 24, 2011 4:18 by Reuters

Dubai police said on Thursday they had foiled an attempt to smuggle weapons into Yemen, where protesters have been trying for weeks to end President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 32-year rule.

Dubai police chief Dahi Khalfan Tamim said in a statement his forces had intercepted 16,000 items of weaponry worth 16 million dirhams ($4.36 million), but gave no details.

Tamim said six people were arrested in the operation, five from Arab countries and one from Turkey. He said the shipment was on its way to Yemen from Turkey.

He did not say who was to have received the weapons in Yemen, an Arabian Peninsula state where al Qaeda militants have set up a base and used it in attempts to stage attacks in Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Yemen, which sits on a major shipping lane and borders oil giant Saudi Arabia, is the second most heavily armed country in the world in per capita terms. Around half its 23 million people own a gun. (Writing by Erika Solomon, editing by Tim Pearce)