Pakistani tribal villagers view damage caused by airstrikes in the northwestern village of Damadola, near the Afghan border in Pakistan, where 17 people killed, in this Jan 14, 2006 file photo. Villagers whose homes were destroyed in a U.S airstrike targeting al-Qaida's number 2 Ayman al-Zawahri denied that he was ever there, as thousands marched in three separate protests against the attack. One mob set fire to the office of a U.S.-funded aid group. Al-Zawahri has decided to take a more prominent public role than has bin Laden, releasing dozens of written and recorded Internet messages, including a video this month urging Muslims to support Iraqi insurgents.

Yemen ? A Yemeni member of al-Qaida, one of 23 who escaped from a prison here earlier this year, has surrendered to authorities, security officials said Sunday.

Khaled Mohammed Abdullah al-Batati turned himself in during the past two days, a security source said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Al-Batati was the eighth to turn himself in from the group that broke out of a heavily guarded Yemeni prison in February.

Arrested in a crackdown last year, Al-Batati was sentenced by a Yemeni court to three years in prison in May 2005 for plotting to attack the British and Italian embassies and the French cultural center in the capital, San’a.

The prisoners escaped on Feb. 3 through a 180-yard tunnel that ended inside a mosque. Among those at large is a militant convicted in the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Aden’s harbor.

Tribal leaders and Muslim clerics were mediating between authorities and those who remain at large to get them to surrender.