Yemen foils plot to blow up oil pipeline
Pipeline was hit by a bomb blast in November
Yemeni security forces have foiled an attempt to blow up an oil pipeline which was hit by a bomb blast last year, the official Saba news agency reported Sunday.
The attempt targeted the pipeline carrying oil from Safer oilfields in Marib province to the Hudeida export terminal on the Red Sea, Marib security chief Mohammad Mansour al-Ghadra told Saba.
"Security forces arrested a group of saboteurs carrying explosives," he said without specifying the date of the purported attempt.
The 155,000 barrels-per-day capacity pipeline was damaged by a bomb blast in November, part of a spate of attacks targeting oil installations in impoverished Yemen.
Al-Qaeda has been blamed for a series of attacks in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of its leader, Osama bin Laden.
The Arabian Peninsula republic, which borders oil powerhouse Saudi Arabia, produces only some 380,000 barrels of crude oil a day.
More than half of its production is exported, but it is not a member of the OPEC oil cartel.