A key suspected attacker in a Friday mosque fire in Yemen's Amran was arrested on Saturday, the official Saba news agency reported.

The man, named as Hamid al-Shumi, was arrested by security forces because of being suspected of involvement in the mosque attack, during which worshippers were sprayed with petrol and set on fire, local district governor Taha Abdallah Hajer was quoted as saying.

The suspect was being interrogated to try to find out reasons behind the attack, Hajer said.

Unidentified men struck at the al-Ameriyah Mosque in Amran, some 60 km north of the Yemeni capital Sanaa, during Muslim Friday prayers.

They locked the doors of the mosque, poured gasoline on the worshippers and set fire to the building, wounding some 30 people, eight of them seriously, according to media reports.

Amran, a predominantly Shiite district in Yemen, a poor tribal country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, has witnessed at least three such attacks since 2001 when a man opened fire on worshippers, killing three.

In 2003, a bomb also exploded in a mosque, killing one man and wounding 50.

Source: Xinhua