The Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) will provide a 8 million loan to Yemen to help support reforms in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, it said on Wednesday. Financial aid from abroad, which has been slow to arrive, has become a lifeline for Yemen, where the eco**my and government finances have been hit hard by a nationwide fight against al Qaeda militants. The AMF loan, signed by Yemen's finance minister in Saudi Arabia, aims to support Sanaa's eco**mic reform programme throughout 2014 and 2015, the AMF said in a statement. An agreement was also signed for Yemen to receive the second and final $57 million tranche of a loan agreed in 2013, the Abu Dhabi-based lender said.