( dpa ) - A Yemeni state security court sentenced a man to five years in prison on Saturday for trying to get to Iraq to join the insurgency there.
The court convicted Bashir Mohammad Nouman of "falsifying official documents to travel to Iraq to fight against Americans."
Presiding judge, Muhssein Alwan said the court found Nouman guilty of using a forged passport to travel to Syria with the intention to join insurgents fighting US troops in Iraq.
The man was arrested in Syria and extradited to Yemen in February 2007, according to court documents.
Yemen, an impoverished on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, was the scene of a suicide attack on a US Navy destroyer in 2000. A similar attack targeted a French oil supertanker off Yemen in 2002.
Last November, a Sana'a court convicted a Yemeni man of shooting at the US embassy in Sana'a, and sentenced him to five years in prison. No one was hurt in the attack in December, 2006.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities, Yemen allied itself with the US-led "war on terror" and pursued suspected members of al-Qaeda and put scores of them on trial.