Yemeni journalist freed, says held by intelligence

SANAA (Reuters) - A Yemeni journalist who was snatched off the streets by armed men said on Monday he had been briefly held and interrogated about al Qaeda by the intelligence services, not kidnapped as his colleagues had feared.

Abdulelah Shai was outside a restaurant in Sanaa on Sunday evening when three armed men jumped out of a car and forced him into the vehicle which then sped off, Yemeni journalist Kamal Sharaf, who was with Shai at the time, had told Reuters.

Shai said the men were intelligence agents who held him for questioning before letting him go at dawn on Monday.

"I was taken to the Political Security Organisation and I was interrogated for six hours for comments I made on Al Jazeera television on the activities of al Qaeda in Yemen," Shai told Reuters.

Shai, a freelance journalist, has made numerous appearances in international media as an expert on al Qaeda and is often described as having a close relationship with members of the militant group.

Yemen, which borders top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, leapt to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemen-based regional al Qaeda wing claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound airliner in December.

Earlier this year, a Shai interview with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim preacher who is on the run and wanted dead or alive by Washington, was published on the website of Al Jazeera television.

U.S. authorities say Awlaki was added to the CIA's hit list after he became "operational" in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound passenger plane on Christmas Day.

Earlier on Sunday, al Qaeda claimed responsibility for an attack last month on the southern headquarters of a Yemeni intelligence agency in which 11 people died, saying it was a response to a state crackdown on its members.

(Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; Editing by Peter Graff)