Aden: A tribal leader suspected of links to Al Qaida’s active Yemeni wing returned to his home in southern Yemen on Monday, triggering an armed standoff between his supporters and militiamen allied to the government, tribal sources said.
Tarek Al Fadli, who was raised in Saudi Arabia and fought in Afghanistan, leads a major tribe in the restive Abyan province and had taken refuge in the mountains over the summer after a US military-backed onslaught drove militants linked to Al Qaida from southern towns.
The standoff highlights the challenges facing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in trying to assert state authority following last year’s uprising in Yemen.
After president Ali Abdullah Saleh finally bowed to popular revolt and stepped down in February, the US-backed Yemeni military swept into the south and wrested back a number of towns from Al Qaida-linked militants, sometimes after heavy fighting.
“The return of Fadli to his house triggered protests from those allied to the army who surrounded his house and asked him to go back where he came from,” a source allied to the government told Reuters.
Protesters asked the government to intervene to get him out of the town, the source said, adding that a security committee would meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter.
A source close to Fadli told Reuters that he was at his home in Zinjibar and that no one had the right to force him out.
The US military has intensified a campaign of missile strikes on suspected Islamist militants in recent months, often using pilotless drones.
Yemen’s Gulf neighbours and Washington are concerned that Al Qaida and other Islamist fighters operating there could pose a threat to Saudi Arabia and to nearby oil shipping channels.
Hadi, praised by the US. ambassador in Sanaa as being more effective against Al Qaida than his predecessor, was quoted as saying during a trip to the United States in September that he personally approved every attack.
While Washington usually avoids comment on the strikes in Yemen, the British-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which tracks US operations, says as many as 56 civilians have been killed this year by drones.
