Yemen says Qaeda plotted to take hostages YEMEN says it has foiled an al-Qaeda plot to storm a Western-run oil terminal and seize a provincial capital, as a terror alert kept US Middle East missions closed. The jihadist network's feared Yemeni affiliate planned to assault the Canadian-run Mina al-Dhaba oil terminal on the Arabian Sea coast and take staff hostage, including Western expatriates, government spokesman Rajeh Badi said on Wednesday. A nearby export facility for oil derivatives was targeted too, Badi said. Al-Qaeda also plotted to seize the nearby Hadramawt provincial capital Al-Mukalla, a port city of some 100,000 people, and the Ghayl Bawazeer area to its north, where they briefly declared an Islamic emirate earlier this year, Badi said. "If they were to fail in seizing control of the facilities, the plan was to take foreign experts away as hostages," he said. The attack was planned for Monday, which coincided with the 27th day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and was the second day of a mass closure of US missions across the Middle East and North Africa. Both Washington and London pulled diplomatic personnel out of Sanaa on Tuesday citing intelligence reports of an imminent attack by the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The United States took the unusual step of closing some 25 diplomatic missions in the Muslim world on Sunday, and then extending the closure for a week at 19 of them, in response to what it said was a credible and imminent threat of a major Al-Qaeda attack. An intercepted conference call between al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and top operatives was the trigger for the closures, online journal The Daily Beast reported on Wednesday, citing US intelligence sources. It said more than 20 al-Qaeda operatives from across the globe were on the call, including representatives of Nigeria's Boko Haram, the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda in Iraq as well as AQAP. While the closures span cities across the Arab world, the focus of concern has been Yemen, where Washington has been fighting a drone war against AQAP militants for several years. Tribal sources said a US drone killed seven suspected jihadists in Shabwa province, to the west of Hadramawt, on Wednesday, the second such strike in as many days. The early-morning attack in the town of Nasab destroyed two vehicles, the sources said. It was the fifth US drone strike in Yemen since July 28. At least 24 suspected al-Qaeda militants have been killed. On August 1, President Barack Obama hosted his Yemeni counterpart Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi for White House talks on their joint struggle against the jihadists. AQAP is seen as the global Islamist militant network's most capable franchise following the decimation of Al-Qaeda's core leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years.