SANAA, Oct 18, (Agencies): Yemen sentenced to death an al-Qaeda bomb maker on Monday who told the judge the “demise” of the country was in the hands of militants whose southern hideouts are being targeted by air raids.
Saleh al-Shawish was arrested in January and prosecutors said he specialised in explosives while training with jihadist militants in Afghanistan.
Yemen is trying to quell a resurgent branch of al-Qaeda in the country, which has increased its attacks on both Western and government targets in the Arabian Peninsula state, neighbour to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.
Shawish confessed to his involvement in al-Qaeda during the court sessions, the judge said in his sentencing, including attacks on oil installations, military bases and checkpoints.

His indictment said he specialised in building bombs and preparing suicide bombers.
“He belonged to al-Qaeda and caused the death of a number of innocent people and damaged Yemen’s status and its economic interests,” the judge said. “The punishment for this is the death penalty.”
Shawish, from Yemen’s eastern province of Hadramout, rejected an appeal and told the judge: “God willing your demise is in our hands, starting in Abyan.”
The security forces are trying to root out the militants hiding in the mountains of the Mudiyah district of Abyan.
Six suspected al-Qaeda members have been killed in three days of clashes and air raids, a local official said Monday.
Yemeni aircraft bombed al-Qaeda positions on Sunday after militants ambushed a tank column, killing four soldiers. The shelling also killed four civilians, taking the death toll to 14.
Security forces have intermittently clashed in recent months with militants in Abyan, along the Arabian sea coast.

The government, under pressure to resolve domestic conflicts in order to focus on al-Qaeda, is also trying to cement a truce with Shi’ite rebels to end a northern civil war that raged on and off since 2004, and end separatist rebellion in the south.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which has Yemeni and Saudi members as well as other nationalities, rose to the forefront of Western security concerns after claiming a failed US plane bombing in December.
Occasional missile strikes to bolster a US backed crackdown on al-Qaeda have sometimes killed civilians as well as militants.
Yemen denies US forces are directly involved, but al-Qaeda messages in recent months have accused the government of a growing partnership with the American military against them, vowing attacks on state and foreign targets.
France urged spouses and children of its citizens last week to leave following a rocket attack targeting a British diplomat in Sanaa and the death of a Frenchman after a security guard at a site of Austrian oil and gas firm OMV opened fire.
On Friday, the US embassy warned nationals of a “high security threat level in Yemen due to terrorist activities.”

Australia raised its travel warning for Yemen to its highest possible level while the British embassy said it was “closed to the public because of the security situation.”
Earlier this month, a rocket wounded an embassy staffer in the second attack on a British diplomatic vehicle in the capital in six months.
Last Wednesday, France advised the partners and children of its nationals in Yemen to leave the country because of the deteriorating security situation.
A French contractor working for Austrian energy group OMV was shot dead at the company’s compound in the Yemeni capital on Oct 6, the same day the British embassy car was hit.
Reinforcements were also deployed around police headquarters and other security installations in Sanaa on Monday, an AFP correspondent said.
“Those measures were taken based on information on attacks,” a security official said.
The United States has stepped up its military assistance to Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in the face of fears that it has become a major base for the network’s worldwide operations.