UAE-backed Yemeni forces seize Al Qaeda stronghold in Azzan
Elite security forces in Yemen backed by the Arab coalition on Friday liberated one of the largest strongholds of the Al Qaeda militant group in the country.
The military has announced an operation called Black Mountains intended to deal more blows to the group.
Soldiers recaptured the area of Rafadh Al Rays in the Azzan area south-east of Shabwa province, Col Mohammed Al Buhar, commander of the elite forces in Shabwa, told The National.
The operation included two strikes by the Arab coalition air forces, which killed several Al Qaeda militants, and two more were arrested in the “fierce confrontations”, Col Al Buhar said.
“Our forces stormed Rafadh Al Rays as a part of a military plan to clean Shabwa province of Al Qaeda presence,” he said.
“This military operation comes as an extension to the previous operations to liberate the areas of Al Hawta and Al Said, in addition to the rural areas to the south-east of Shabwa on the border with Abyan province.”
Yesterday, the Yemeni military announced an operation against Al Qaeda in the neighbouring province of Hadramawt, under the directive of Maj Gen Faraj Al Bohsoni, the region’s governor.
It began after the group had been “expelled from the entire coastline of the Hadramawt governorate”, which neighbours Shabwa, and its aim was to “chase them into the mountainous areas”, state news agency Wam reported.
Al Qaeda’s strongest arm, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is active in Yemen and has carried out deadly bomb and shooting attacks in recent years, particularly in the country’s southern regions and against the pro-government military.
Yemeni security forces said they killed a senior ISIS commander yesterday in a gun battle in Aden. The death of Saleh Al Bakshi is a significant setback for the extremist group in the country. An Aden police spokesman confirmed Al Bakshi’s death to
The National.
Counter-terrorism forces surrounded Al Bakshi in a building, the Aden police said on its Facebook page, when he and fellow militants refused to surrender.
He was known as “Prince” for the Aden region of the militant group.
The extremist group has killed hundreds of security troops over the three years it has operated in the southern regions of Yemen.
The US is assisting the internationally recognised government of President Abdrabu Mansur Hadi in its battle to defeat the militant groups, tripling its air strikes in the country last year against Al Qaeda.
But while the US and its allies have managed to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the threat from the group and its extremist rival in Yemen remains.
The civil war that has engulfed the country since the Iran-backed Houthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa in March 2015 has created a vacuum in Yemen that Al Qaeda and ISIS have been able to exploit to increase their influence.
One of the deadliest attacks in the civil war came in March 2015 when ISIS attacked two Shiite mosques in Sanaa, killing 142 people.
While ISIS has conducted high-profile attacks, Al Qaeda managed to take control of large areas of the country’s south, including the city of Al Mukalla, Yemen’s fifth largest.
It has carried out attacks on security forces in the south and has used the country as a planning base for international plots.
Its bomb-maker Ibrahim Al Asiri remains at large and one of the most wanted extremists in the world.
Our forces stormed Rafadh Al Rays as a part of a military plan to clean Shabwa province of Al Qaeda presence COL MOHAMMED AL BUHAR Commander, elite forces, Shabwa