Yemenis on trial for fighting US forces in Iraq

SANAA, June 3 (Reuters) Twenty-three Yemenis went on trial today charged with forming an armed group that planned to go to Iraq and fight US-led forces there.

The public prosecutor told the court the defendants were also accused of forging documents and receiving training in the use of weapons.

If found guilty, they each face a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail. The trial was adjourned until next week.

In February, a Yemeni state security court began a separate trial of 14 Yemeni men accused of attempting to kidnap Americans to negotiate the release of prisoners.

The men denied the charges and said they had been planning to travel to Iraq and fight a holy war against US-led forces there.

They admitted to forging documents and receiving training in the use of weapons and making bombs.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Saudi-born al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, joined the US-led war on terrorism after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

Iraq's al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has urged Muslims in countries neighbouring Iraq and in Yemen to join the insurgency against US forces and Baghdad's government.

REUTERS SHB VV1759