SANAA, 10 July 2003 — Yemeni police have captured three alleged members of the outlawed Aden-Abyan Islamic Army guerilla group, whose mountainous strongholds were stormed by the army last month in a major offensive that left six militants and an army officer killed, police sources told Arab News yesterday.
The sources said two men were arrested on Tuesday at a military checkpoint in Jaar city of the province of Abyan, almost 380 kilometers south of the capital Sanaa. Abyan’s rugged mountainous area of Hatat was bombarded and raided by military forces last month.
The army fired artillery shells and missiles into mountainous hide-outs in Hatat, where armed Islamists took refuge after attacking a military medical team traveling in the area.
The leader of the group, Khaled Abdul-Nabi, 39, was reportedly among the six suspects killed in the military sweep.
Police sources in Abyan contacted by Arab News identified the two arrested suspects as Ali Muhammad Al-Raawi and Fahim Salim As-Sarji.
They are being held in the central prison of the southern province.
The third, Nasser Semna, was arrested yesterday in the nearby port city of Aden, police officials added.
Senior government officials told Arab News that security authorities stepped up efforts this week to track down fugitive militants after reports that armed extremists have been regrouping in Abyan’s mountains. The three arrests brought to 24 the number of captured suspected militants.
Hatat was known as a safe haven for militants belonging to the Islamic Movement of Jihad, of which the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army is an offshoot.
The Islamic Army is a small group of Yemeni veterans of the 1980s Afghanistan war, that Yemeni authorities maintain it was dismantled since its leader Abul-Hassan Al-Mihdar was executed in 1999.
