Al Qaeda released Saudi diplomat for ransom and release of detainees

By Nasser Arrabyee,12/08/2012

Al Qaeda released a Saudi diplomat after about five months of abduction for ransom and releasing prisoners from Saudi and Yemeni prisons, said sources familiar with the negations on Sunday. 

The Saudi diplomat Abdullah Al Khalidi was handed from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to the tribal mediator Mohammed Ali Al Mansab late Saturday, the sources said. 

The tribal leader Al Mansab is supposed to hand the diplomat Al Khalidi to Jallal Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi, son of President Hadi who was involved in the negations, on Sunday, the sources said. 

The ransom given to AQAP was 10 million US dollars in addition to the five women who were released from Saudi prisons on July 23, 2012. About detainees were released from Yemeni prisons earlier this month. 

Al Qaeda  kidnapped Al Khalidi on March 28, 2012 , from Aden and demanded ransom and the release of 8 women from Saudi prisons and  release of all Yemeni detainees in Yemeni prisons.

The sources expected that President Hadi would take Al Khalidi with him tomorrow Monday to Saudi Arabia where he is invited to  attend an Islamic conference and meet the Saudi leadership who sponsored the transition deal that solved the Yemeni crisis. 

Meanwhile, two tribes from Lawdar in the southern province of Abyan, accused the ex-jihadist Tarik Al Fadhli and and 20 other names from the same province of destroying their town Lawdar. 
The tribesmen from the two tribes, Al Awadhel and Al Nakheen, demanded the authorities to arrest the those as saboteurs and put them on trial.

The tribesman men warned the families and relatives of those 20 men from providing any shelter or any kind of support.