SANAA, March 19 (Reuters) - The poor Arabian Peninsula country of Yemen, racked by al Qaeda militancy, offered a cash reward on Thursday for information leading to the arrest of 12 men it said were preparing new attacks.

The weekly newspaper September 26, published by the Defence Ministry, printed photographs of the 12 Yemenis aged between 18 and 29, with an Interior Ministry statement asking them to give themselves up and appealing to citizens for information in exchange for an unspecified sum of money.

"They were being prepared to carry out terrorist and destructive acts," it said, describing them as al Qaeda members.

Four Korean tourist were killed this week an attack that the government has blamed on al Qaeda and said it was carried out by a suicide bomber trained in Somalia.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber blew himself up near Sanaa airport in an apparent attempt to target a convoy of South Koreans who had arrived to investigate tourist deaths.

The bombings took place after calls by al Qaeda leaders to target non-Muslim foreigners in the Arabian Peninsula and are likely to hit the poverty-stricken country's fledgling tourist industry.

Violence in Yemen has affected foreign firms developing its oil and gas sector, while attacks on foreigners including kidnappings by tribesmen have hit tourism, diplomats say.

Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has for years been battling al Qaeda and similar groups. (Reporting by Mohamed Sudam; writing by Andrew Hammond; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

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