SANAA: Yemeni security forces killed an Al-Qaeda kingpin in Shabwa province in intensive operations against the group, an official said on Wednesday.
“Abdullah Al-Mehdar, identified as leader of an Al-Qaeda cell in Shabwa, was killed late Tuesday night by security forces that had besieged the house he hid in,” provincial Gov. Ali Hassan Al-Ahmadi told reporters. Al-Mehdar was the leader of an Al-Qaeda cell in the Al-Houta district of Shabwa province, 600 km east of Sanaa. Security forces were hunting for the remaining members of the cell, Al-Ahmadi said.
The Al-Qaeda branch in Yemen claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas Day attack on a US airliner, with the United States accusing the group of training the alleged perpetrator, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Al-Ahmadi said on Tuesday that security forces had arrested four Al-Qaeda suspects, two of them wounded in a firefight.
A tribal source said that 18 suspects in the same area managed to escape a police raid and fled to a neighboring mountain.
Separately, two policemen were killed and four wounded in an ambush by unknown gunmen in the Al-Nuqbah area of Shabwa province, Al-Ahmadi said.
The governor announced on Sunday that dozens of Al-Qaeda fighters, who have fled Afghanistan, were hiding in Shabwa. Among them are the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) Nasser Al-Wahishi, his number two, Saeed Ali Al-Shehri, and radical US-Yemeni cleric Anwar Al-Awlaqi, he added.
Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Karubi said on Wednesday only economic rescue of the impoverished country could ensure long-term success of Yemen’s fight against Al-Qaeda.
“Our security agencies are capable of tackling terrorist threats,” Karubi said, adding that anti-terrorism and coastguard units needed outside support in training, equipment and exchange of intelligence.
“However, a security or military solution is not sufficient. So the international community has to pay more attention to the economic and development needs of Yemen and this is the concrete approach for tackling terrorism,” Karubi said.
Yemen insists it can win the war against the militants without US military intervention, but analysts doubt it can tackle the militants on its own.
Yemen is under pressure to rein in the extremists, with the United States and Britain announcing plans to fund the country’s counterterrorism unit. But US President Barack Obama has said he has “no intention” of sending American troops to Yemen, or to Somalia, in the Horn of Africa just across the Bab Al-Mandab strait.
On Tuesday, Karubi renewed an offer to talk to Al-Qaeda loyalists provided they lay down their arms but warned that the government would hunt them down if they spurn the offer. But a Foreign Ministry official said on Wednesday that the terms of Karubi’s offer had been misunderstood and that dialogue with militants would only take place through the government’s program to rehabilitate penitent rebels.
“This would be within the framework of the rehabilitation program for those who have been led astray, to stress the government’s wish to open the door to those elements to return to reason,” the official said.
