SANAA, 26 June 2003 — Yemeni troops yesterday killed some 10 militants and arrested dozens of others in an offensive in a southern mountainous region, a police source here said. Police forces and anti-terror units launched an assault on the hide-outs of terrorists in Jabal Hatat, 120 km northwest of the port city of Aden, the source told AFP.
There was no immediate official confirmation of the casualty figures. According to official sources contacted by Arab News, six militants and a soldier were confirmed dead and five militants were injured. An unspecified number of militants were arrested.
However, close to 10 terrorists were killed and dozens more were arrested, the source told AFP, adding that other members of the group “are being pursued by government forces.”
The violence followed an assault by Yemeni troops early yesterday on the hideouts of Islamic militants in remote areas in the south of the country. They also pushed into mountainous terrain in search for armed groups blamed for attacking a military medical convoy over the weekend.
Special forces, supported by helicopters, fired missiles and artillery shells in the Hatat district of Abyan province, almost 380 km south of the capital Sanaa, and launched a manhunt for the suspected militants.
The wanted militants are accused of opening fire at a convoy of military medical team on Saturday. Six medics and a driver were injured in the ambush. Since then, the government has deployed troops and helicopters in the Hatat area.
Military officials said they faced no resistance from the presumed militant hide-outs hit by the government forces’ fire yesterday, adding that the suspects might be changing their hide-outs and taking advantage of the ruggedness of the area.
“Special forces launched a raid after four hours of bombardment in the morning,” a senior military official told Arab News.
“More troops were deployed in the afternoon to completely seal off the area and prevent them from escaping,” the official said by phone from Abyan.
The senior military official added that the attack was launched following a siege on Monday and after mediation led by tribal elders failed to convince the militants to surrender and avert the attack.
“They prefer to indulge in a fight with the Yemeni troops,” a clansman told The Associated Press. The armed extremists “refused to hand themselves over to the authorities, preferring to fight the government forces,” according to one mediator.
He put at “around 50” the number of people hidden out in the remote region.
Earlier, the militants were said to have offered to surrender in exchange for the handover of “the killers” of Qaed Salim Sinan Al-Harethi, the top lieutenant in Yemen of Osama Bin Laden.
Al-Harethi was killed last year by a missile from a US Predator drone that struck his car. It was not clear whether the militants sought the Americans involved with the drone or Yemeni informants.
Defense Minister Gen. Abdullah Ali Eleiwah along with Interior Deputy Minister Gen. Mutahhar Al-Mesir and regional army commanders are overseeing the operations.
The wanted militants were reported to belong to group calling itself the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, a branch of the Islamic Jihad movement.
The Yemeni government has always insisted that the Aden-Abyan group, which was founded in 1998 mainly by Yemeni and Arab veterans of the 1980s anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan, was eradicated after its leader Abul-Hassan Al-Mihdar was executed in 1999.
When established in 1998, the group called in a statement for “a complete implementation” of the Shariah in the conservative country.
In December of the same year, Al-Mihdar and a handful of his followers kidnapped 16 western tourists in Abyan. Four of the hostages were killed in a botched attempt by police to free them.
