Yemen has freed a German man arrested with seven other foreigners for allegedly having links with al Qaeda and smuggling weapons to extremist in Somalia, a security source said on Saturday.
"The German national was freed following interrogation of the group of eight foreigners, which showed that he was not involved with the rest in the smuggling of weapons to Somalia," the source told AFP.
He said the unnamed man was freed on Thursday.
The other suspects are four Australians, a Dane, a Briton and a Somali, another security source said.
A Yemeni official said last week that the men "were arrested in two flats in Sanaa on October 14 on suspicion of affiliation to al Qaeda and smuggling weapons to the Islamic courts militia in Somalia."
Initial interrogation of the foreigners, who had been in the Yemeni capital ostensibly to study Arabic, "showed their involvement in smuggling arms to Somalia" from Yemen, he said.
The source who spoke to AFP on Saturday declined to give details about the investigations, saying only that they were "continuing".
Yemen, site of a number of terror attacks in recent years, has since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States worked with Washington to clamp down on suspected al Qaeda sympathisers.
Islamic militias and government forces in Somalia are currently girding for an all-out war after a third round of peace talks collapsed in Khartoum earlier this week.