Sanaa, Nov 29: Yemen slammed a "false" press report that its defense ministry was smuggling US weapons to Saudi militants, accusing it of undermining its cooperation in the global war on terror, an official said.
The "false" report "aimed to mislead world opinion over Yemen's serious and decisive position in fighting terror and undermining the growing relations between Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United States," the official Saba news agency quoted an interior ministry official as saying.
"Yemen will not succumb to any form of blackmail irrespective of its nature and source," Saba reported the source as saying.
The London-based Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat said that some US officials "doubt the truth of announcements made by Sanaa regarding anti-terror operations," adding that "some US weapons sold to the Yemeni government were smuggled to Saudi terrorists".
But the Yemeni official stood by Sanaa's record in the war on terror, saying that the arrest of the country's top al-Qaeda leader, Mohamed Hamdi al-Ahdal, was announced "just four hours" after Tuesday's sting operation to nab him.
Bureau Report