国际英语新闻：Alleged al-Qaida commander surrenders to Yemeni authorities: official

SANAA, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- An alleged leader of the Yemen-based al-Qaida regional wing turned himself into the security authorities in the northeast of the country, the Yemeni Defense Ministry reported on Saturday.

"Jumaan Sufian, a leader of the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) gave himself up to the security apparatuses in al- Jouf province, northeast of the capital Sanaa," the ministry said on its website.

The ministry's website 26sep.net did not provide the specific date of Sufian's surrender, giving no further details on the circumstances that led to his surrender.

Moreover, the ministry said that a number of al-Qaida militants had surrendered themselves to the authorities, including commander Hamza Ali Saleh Alzziani, who turned in himself on July 6 to the local authorities in the province of Marib, northeast of Sanaa.

The Yemen-based AQAP has carried out a series of deadly attacks on the country's security facilities and western interests in southern Yemen over the past two months, leaving dozens of people dead.

On Aug. 13, a senior Yemeni intelligence official was gunned down in Yemen's southern province of Lahj, and initial investigations showed that "the attack bore the hallmarks of al- Qaida," a provincial councilman and police official told Xinhua.

On July 29, the AQAP claimed in a statement obtained by Xinhua that it was preparing to form an army of 12,000 fighters in Yemen' s south in order to fight against Yemeni security and intelligence agents there.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida network leader Osama bin Laden, has intensified security operations and air raids against terrorist groups, after the Yemen-based al-Qaida wing claimed responsibility for a failed Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. passenger plane bound for Detroit last year.