The hunt is on in Yemen for a teenage boy suspected of having been recruited as a suicide bomber by al Qaeda.

The 16-year-old from northern Yemen is believed to be heading for one of five foreign targets in the key southern port city of Aden, sources close to Yemeni security officials said.

Several members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - the wing of al Qaeda that operates in Yemen and Saudi Arabia - have entered Yemen in the past few days, officials believe.

They think that a senior terrorist is still hiding in Abyan, a Yemeni province in southern Yemen.

Abyan is the former home of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, a group of Islamic militants who were active in the late 1990s and are believed to have been involved in the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden in 2000, which left 17 American sailors dead.