Yemen Warns of Secret Extremist Schools

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 16, 2005

Filed at 8:40 p.m. ET

SAN`A, Yemen (AP) -- Underground religious schools that promote extremist forms of Islam are drawing more than 300,000 young students across Yemen, the country's prime minister said Saturday.

Prime Minister Abdul-Kader Bajammal warned that the religious education promoting the ideas of Wahhabism, a strict form of Islam, ''will bring a disaster to Yemen and this generation.'' He promised to eliminate the underground schools, which he estimated numbered about 4,000 and drew about 330,000 students.