AL-ASHRAF VILLAGE, Yemen, 2 October 2006 — Yemeni anti-terrorism forces killed two suspected Al-Qaeda operatives in two raids at a village north of the capital Sanaa yesterday.
The first raid took place in the Al-Ashraf village, about 40 km northeast of the capital Sanaa where the suspected member of Al-Qaeda Mohammed Al-Dailami was hiding.
Dailami was convicted in 2004 of taking part in plotting the October 2002 attack against the French oil tanker, Limburg, off Yemeni southern coasts. He was handed a five-year jail sentence.
“They (the troops) began the attack from a helicopter at around 10 a.m. as Mohammed (Al-Dailami) was sleeping,” a relative of Al-Dailami, told Arab News as he stood on the blood-stained floor of the suspect’s raided room.
“They opened a hail of fire into this room,” said the man, who asked not to be named. “After he died, tens of troops stormed the house and took his body away,” he said.
An Interior Ministry statement said that in the second raid, Fawaz Al-Rabyee, who was convicted to death in 2004 over leading a 14-member group linked to Al-Qaeda, was killed.
Rabyee, who was wanted by US authorities over suspected links to Osama Bin Laden, was linked to a spate of attacks.
The Interior Ministry statement said Al-Rabyee‘s house was stormed after he refused to give himself up to security forces besieging the house.
“The terrorist (Fawaz) Al-Rabyee refused to surrender and began to open fire and threw grenades at policemen...who were forced to fight back,” the statement said.
“The confrontation led to the killing of Al-Rabyee,” it added.
A third suspect, described as an Al-Rabyee aide, was arrested and was being interrogated.
