RIYADH, Sept 21: Yemen has expelled over 1,000 Arab and other foreigners from the country in recent days, a Ministry of Interior information revealed.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden, has often been termed as a hot bed of extremism. The USS Cole was also attacked on the shores of Yemen — which claimed lives of a number of US servicemen.

Yemen also extradited last week eight Saudi nationals. Those extradited include Bandar Abdul Rahman Al-Ghamdi, one of the alleged planner of the May 12 Riyadh bombings. He was among the 19 wanted militants listed in a Saudi warrant issued almost a week before the bombings in Riyadh. Identities of the other seven extradited to Riyadh were not revealed.

Under a security agreement between the two countries, Saudi Arabia in August handed over four suspects to Yemen, two of whom were linked to the bombing of the French oil supertanker, the Limburg, off the coast of Yemen. The 1055 foreigners expelled in recent days included 558 Somalis, 110 Ethiopians, 94 Sudanese, 14 Syrians, 10 Libyans and 24 Indians.