Arab Al Qaeda Cell Group Arrested In The Wealthy Gulf state “UAE”

According to Sky News an Arab members of an al Qaeda cell allegedly plotting attacks in the United Arab Emirates have been arrested.

Authorities in the Gulf State said the seven were various Arab nationalities and had been recruiting, financing and providing logistical support to the terror organisation.

State news agency WAM also reported that the group had sought to expand their activities to other countries in the region.

"The cell was planning actions that would target the country's security and the safety of its citizens and residents, and was carrying out recruitment, and promoting the actions of al Qaeda," WAM said.

"It was also supplying it [al Qaeda] with money and providing logistical support and seeking to expand its activities to some regional countries."

The gang will be questioned and put on trial, the statement added.

The US-allied UAE is a federation of seven emirates and a major trading hub that has supported Western efforts to counter militancy in the region.

Its population, estimated at over eight million, comprises nearly 90% foreigners lured by work opportunities in the wealthy country.

It has been spared any attack by al Qaeda and other insurgency groups but some of its emirates have seen a rise in Islamist sentiment in recent years.

In December, the UAE said it had arrested a cell of UAE and Saudi Arabian members of a "deviant group" which was planning to carry out militant attacks in both countries and other states.

The phrase "the deviant group" is often used by authorities in Saudi Arabia to describe al Qaeda members.

Diplomats in the region have said the December arrests were related mostly to Islamist activity in Yemen.

There was no immediate word whether they were related to the arrests on Thursday.

In 2010, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a merger of al Qaeda's Yemeni and Saudi branches, said it was behind a plot to send two parcel bombs to the US.

The bombs were intercepted in Britain and the UAE emirate of Dubai.

The US has poured aid into Yemen to stem the threat of attacks from AQAP and to try to prevent any spillover of violence into Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter.

In August 2012, Saudi authorities arrested a group of suspected al Qaeda-linked militants - mostly Yemeni nationals - in Riyadh.