Yemen's interior ministry managed on Saturday to identify an al-Qaeda suicide bomber, who detonated his explosives-packed vehicle on the passing convoy of Yemeni Defense Minister Maj. Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, who survived the attack late September in the southern port city of Aden.

The country's interior ministry quoted a senior security official in Aden province as saying that the 17-year-old buy, who was killed in the blast, identified as the Yemeni national Abdul Rahman Abdu Aziz al-Doarde, an Aden's native and a member of al- Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

The investigations revealed that al-Doarde has stayed for two years in Abyan province, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa and one of AQAP's key strongholds, where the army forces have been battling the terrorists for more than three months, the ministry said, adding that five suspected al-Qaeda members involved in the assassination bid against the defense minister were arrested also in Aden.

Yemen's embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced Saturday that he is willing to leave power in the next few days after nine months of mass protests against his 33-year rule.

The country has seen sporadic violence after Saleh returned from Saudi Arabia, where he was recuperating from serious wounds inflected in an explosion in his presidential mansion early June.

Fears mounted that al-Qaeda's regional wing may exploit the political upheaval in expanding its foothold and take control over the southern and eastern parts of the country.