Sanaa welcomes British call for Yemen terror conference

Yemen welcomed Saturday calls by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for a high-level international meeting in London in late January to focus on extremism in the poor Gulf state, DPA reported.

The conference was on the "right track to rally international support for development, poverty reduction and counter-terrorism in Yemen," the official SABA news agency said.

Quoting a Website allied with the ruling party in Yemen, SABA said "poverty and soaring unemployment in the developing world (are the) main factors (causing) extremism," and were used to attract youngsters to militant groups.

Brown's announcement from London came in response to the failed attempt by a 23-year old Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to blow up a US airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day.

Abdulmutallab later said he received training in Yemen, and the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has claimed credit for the attack on December 25.

In the 1990s, Yemen welcomed Arab fighters who had battled Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda has set up bases in the country's south over the past decade, launching attacks against Western targets.

The Yemen meeting called by Brown is to come on January 28, coinciding with the same date already set for the international conference on Afghanistan to be hosted by Britain.