Govt assures safety of Filipinos in Yemen

Filipinos in Yemen have been assured of their safety by the government in the wake of the growing tension there resulting from it being identified as a staging area of al-Qaeda terrorist attacks. “[President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo] has a standing order through the [Department of Foreign Affairs] to ensure the safety and security of Filipinos in the said country," Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said in his weekly briefing in Malacañang. The government’s actions would be similar to those taken during the Gulf War in the 1990s, Ermita said. Last week, the United States and the United Kingdom closed their embassies in Yemen for two days following the growing threat being posed by al-Qaeda there. The Yemen government, which sent thousand of troops this week to remote provinces where al-Qaeda has set up strongholds, has been angered by suggestions the state is too weakened to handle the fight against terrorists. Yemen is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaeda terrorist group has been blamed for at least two attacks on American presence in Yemen, one in 2000 and the other in 2008. In October 2000, 17 American sailors were killed in a suicide bombing attack on US Navy destroyer USS Cole while it was harbored in the Yemeni port of Aden. In September 2008, 10 people were killed when two car bombs exploded outside the US Embassy compound in Sana. - with AP/KBK, GMANews.TV