Prison guards detained over Yemen jailbreak

Sanaa/Washington: Yemen has detained a number of prison warders for alleged collusion in the escape of 23 Al Qaida prisoners, a security official said on Thursday.

US-allied ships have been deployed off the coast in case the escapees tried to flee in boats.

A Yemeni official involved in the inquiry into the February 3 escape said 'many' warders had been suspended and detained since investigators began interrogating staff at the military detention centre in Sanaa on Monday.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the press, refused to give the number of staff that had been suspended, but said they had passed information and tools to the prisoners taking part in the escape.

The 23 Al Qaida prisoners, who were kept in the same cell, broke out through a tunnel 180 metres long that surfaced in a mosque. The fugitives include a man convicted of the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbour and another convicted of the 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg.

The official said security forces have detained more than 80 people in connection with the breakout. They include the prison warders, relatives of the fugitives and members of Islamist groups. The forces have also set up checkpoints around the country to search for the fugitives.

The Al Qaida prison escape in Yemen was of "enormous concern" to the United States and Saudi Arabia also faces a threat due to the jail break, a White House security official said on Thursday.

US Navy ships are helping patrol the international waters off the coast of Yemen to capture the escapees if they flee by sea.

The United States also is working with Saudi Arabia, which had turned over to Yemen a number of those who have now escaped, Frances Townsend, White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser said. "And so our allies in Saudi Arabia face as great, if not a greater, threat by virtue of this escape than we do," Frances Town-send said.

The Navy ships are part of Combined Task Force 150, which routinely patrols the waters in the area.

"Ships from CTF 150 are monitoring international waters along the coast of Yemen in an attempt to either block possible maritime escape routes or capture the suspected terrorists if they make an attempt," the Pentagon statement said.