Kenny Hughes

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior al Qaeda leader detained in Afghanistan (news - web sites) provided U.S. officials with information about an alleged plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

The newspaper cited Bush administration officials as saying the alleged truck bomb plot led to last week's decisions to close the embassy consular office and tighten security around the facility.

Officials told the Post the information was provided by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi during an interrogation at the U.S. military base in Kandahar. The most senior member of the al Qaeda network held by the United States, al-Libi is a former head of training camps in Afghanistan and a close associate of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The Post said officials were not certain about the accuracy of al-Libi's information, but authorities took it seriously enough to issue a ``credible threat'' warning and order the consular office closed. The Yemeni government also increased police security around the embassy, officials told the newspaper.

Yemen has become an increasing focus of U.S. efforts to pursue al Qaeda members outside Afghanistan. The Post said at least seven Yemenis are among the first 150 prisoners from Afghanistan transferred to the U.S. Navy (news - web sites) base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The report also said ``a significant number'' of the 250 prisoners in U.S. custody in Afghanistan were from Yemen.

Yemen's port of Aden was the site of the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole (news - web sites), in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 others wounded. The United States has blamed the destroyer attack on the al Qaeda network.