Yemen's security forces on Tuesday detained a top al Qaeda suspect who had evaded arrest despite heading the Arab state's wanted list for nearly two years.

The official Yemeni news agency, Saba, said Mohammad Hamdi al-Ahdal, also known as Abu Asem al-Macci, surrendered to police after they surrounded a house in the capital, Sanaa, where the Islamic militant had been hiding.

In Washington, a U.S. counterterrorism official said Ahdal had been among the top 20 to 25 al Qaeda leaders still at large and called his capture a significant development.

"He was a key al Qaeda facilitator in Yemen," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He was believed to be involved in planning terrorist operations."

The official said Ahdal also had an important financial role in moving al Qaeda money around.

Ahdal had significant combat experience in Afghanistan in 1980s and in Bosnia in 1990s, and also had a lot of contacts in al Qaeda, the official added.

Authorities in Yemen, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's ancestral home, named Ahdal in December 2001 as one of two top suspects belonging to the network.

The other wanted man, key al Qaeda suspect Ali Qaed Senyan al-Harthi, was killed by a missile fired by an unmanned CIA plane that blew up a car he was traveling in eastern Yemen a year ago.

Harthi and his aide, Ahdal, were key suspects in the 2000 bombing of the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen's Aden harbor, which killed 17 American sailors.

Yemen's state media have said Ahdal is a Saudi-born Yemeni activist who had been involved in conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. Diplomats said he was long protected by powerful tribal leaders in rugged mountain regions.

Yemen has worked closely with the U.S. war on terror to shed its image in the West as a haven for Muslim militants.

Other attacks on Western targets in Yemen include the 2002 bombing of the French supertanker Limburg.

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