‘Yemen’s Al Qaeda arm losing ability to attack’

paris — Al Qaeda’s Yemeni arm is losing its ability to export militancy overseas after sustained military pressure on its operations, and Daesh and Shia militants are instead Riyadh’s main internal concern, Saudi Arabian officials said on Wednesday.

The Saudi interior ministry’s chief security spokesman Mansour Al Turki told reporters in Paris that he had no specific information on what prompted the new curbs — which also affect Saudi Arabian Airlines — but he suggested there may be a link to Al Qaeda in Yemen.

“The US has said they raided Al Qaeda people in Yemen and they were able to gather some information, but I don’t know whether they found something linked to this,” he said. Asked whether they believed Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) had the capacity to project operations overseas with innovative

They don’t have the power to export their activities Abdullah Alshehri, senior counter-terrorism official

bomb designs, including embedding them inside computers, however, the officials said the group had been severely constrained by fighting on multiple fronts.

“They don’t have the power to export their activities,” said Abdullah Alshehri, a senior counter-terrorism official from the interior ministry.

“It is fighting Daesh, which is trying to take its place. It is not getting new fighters and after the (Saudi-led) Desert Storm operation it is also fighting the legitimate government and the Houthi (rebels),” he said. —