27 Killed as Yemen Launches Major Anti-Qaida Offensive

إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية W460

Suspected al-Qaida militants killed 15 Yemeni soldiers in an ambush Tuesday as the army launched a ground offensive against their remaining strongholds in the south, medical and security sources said.

Twelve militants were also killed when the ambush in Shabwa province sparked a firefight, tribal sources said.

Ten soldiers were also wounded and 15 captured, medics and an officer said.

The ground offensive, which was launched just hours before the opening of a donors' conference in London, seeks to capitalize on al-Qaida losses in a blistering U.S.-backed air offensive last week in which nearly 60 suspected militants were killed.

Commanders are seeking to expel the jihadists from a series of smaller towns and hill districts in Abyan and Shabwa provinces where they retained a presence after a 2012 offensive in which the army recaptured the major towns.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula -- a merger of the network's Yemeni and Saudi branches -- is regarded by Washington as its most dangerous and has been subjected to an intensifying drone war this year.

The jihadists took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of the south and east, from which the army has struggled to evict them, despite backing from militia recruited among the local tribes.

The militants ambushed the army convoy near al-Saeed, one of several towns in Shabwa province where troops backed by militiamen advanced overnight, an officer said.

The attackers, armed with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades, seized a troop carrier and captured 15 soldiers inside, and also destroyed three other vehicles, he added.

The army sent "massive" reinforcements to the area, another officer said.

It was a major setback to an operation launched amid great fanfare ahead of the Friends of Yemen meeting of donor governments keen to bolster security in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country where al-Qaida attacks have spread even to the capital.

Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed has traveled to the south to oversee the offensive which "will not stop until these areas are purged of al-Qaida militants," an official said.

In the capital, President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi said that extra "security measures" had been taken over fears of al-Qaida reprisals.

Just Monday, a German diplomat was wounded in an abortive kidnap attempt in the embassy district of Sanaa.

National Security chief Ali al-Ahmadi said the Supreme Security Committee had decided to "eradicate all forms of security problems" that had emerged during the 11-month uprising that forced Saleh to quit in February 2012.

"This strategic aim shall not be abandoned until security and stability are restored," state media quoted him as telling a security meeting in Ataq.

Militia commander Hussein al-Wuhayshi said there was an "official decision to uproot al-Qaida from Abyan and Shabwa."

The ground offensive in the two provinces came after intense U.S. and Yemeni air strikes on suspected al-Qaida targets on April 20 and 21 which officials described as "unprecedented."

Air strikes on Abyan province killed 55 suspected militants, while three more were killed in Shabwa.

A drone strike in Baida province further north killed 10 suspected militants and three civilians.

But DNA analysis of bodies recovered after the strikes showed that no leading members of al-Qaida were among the dead, a security official told AFP.

AQAP leader Nassir al-Wuhayshi pledged in a rare video last month to attack Western "crusaders... everywhere in the world".

The video, which showed Wuhayshi addressing militants, could have been shot in the al-Kur mountain range, which stretches between Abyan, Shabwa and Baida provinces, and is an AQAP stronghold, according to tribal sources.

Washington has kept up its drone war in Yemen despite mounting criticism of the civilian toll. 

It says its use of the unmanned aircraft allows it to target jihadists without sending soldiers into lawless areas where local authorities have little or no control.

Comments 0