"Saudi security forces stormed the home of al-Metiq and arrested him along with his wife and children in the city of Buraidah, Saudi Arabia. They also arrested Om Rabab, who was also known as Hailah al-Qaseer, a female preacher who was on Saudi Interior Ministry's wanted list in the same city," according to the statement.

"We will not let this attack by Saudi Interior Ministry passes without taking revenge for the honor of our Muslim brothers and sisters," the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula vowed in their statement.

"And we ask God to help us to free our jailed Muslim sisters and brothers who were detained at the Saudi prisons," they said.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida network leader Osama bin Laden, has intensified security operations and air raids against terrorist groups, after the Yemen-based al-Qaida wing claimed responsibility for a botched Christmas Day attempt to blow up a US passenger plane bound for Detroit in December.

Last Monday, a Yemeni suicide bomber carried out a botched assassination attempt targeting British envoy to Yemen Tim Torlot. The attack only left the bomber dead and three passersby injured while the diplomat and his escorts survived unscathed.

Yemen's Defense Ministry said on Sunday that its security forces killed more than 35 al-Qaida militants in pre-emptive raids across the country and captured dozens of suspected extremists over the past weeks.

On August 28, 2008, Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi deputy interior minister who heads Saudi Arabia's anti-terrorism campaign, survived a failed suicide assassination attack that later Yemen- based al-Qaida militancy claimed responsibility.