Sana’a: Yemen’s army shelling killed eight people, including a pregnant woman, her two children, and two boys, in the restive province of Dhale during the past 24 hours, local residents told Gulf News. The father of the two children is in a critical condition in an ICU of a local hospital.
Tension in the province has risen high since last month when artillery shells killed 20 mourners in Sanah area, Dhale province.
“The army began randomly shelling the areas of Jalilah, Samah and the city of Dhale on Friday evening. A shell went off in a small house owned by a poor family,” said Ali Naji Saeed, a local activist.
The shell killed the woman, two daughters and seriously injured the father. “The unconscious father does know that his family is dead.”
In addition to the family, five people, including a child and a boy, were killed in the same places.
“The pouring shells are fired from Brigade 33 in the Dhale city and Al Jarba’a military camp outside the city,” Rayed Al Jihafi, a journalist, told Gulf News.
But other local sources said that the army was targeting pro-secession militants who killed on Friday two soldiers in an ambush on a water tanker truck. Local security officials could not be reached for comment.
The latest round of raids in Dhale province have intensified since December 28 when an army tank shelled a funeral tent attended by the separatist Southern Movement at a school, killing 20 people including children.
Relatives accused soldiers commanded by brigadier general Abdullah Dhaba’an, the commander of Brigade 33, of triggering the shell. Yemen president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi tried to defuse tension by immediately forming an inquiry committee to probe the incident. The committee has not revealed findings.
Justification
A week after the tragic incident, the commander of Brigade 33, told a local newspaper that he ordered the deployment of the attack that fired the shell in order to protect oil, water and food supplies that came under armed attacks by secessionists.
“They [secessionists] seized two petrol and water tankers, killed some of my soldiers, and held others hostage and maimed 15,” Dhaba’an said an interview with Al Sharea daily.
Dhaba’an said that the armed men stationed on the top of the school, where the targeted tent was erected, and began firing at his soldiers.
Also in the south, unknown motor-borne assailants gunned down on Saturday an intelligence employee in the capital of Lahj province, local sources said.
Local residents said that the attackers opened fire on Basim Mohammad Thabet, who works in the province’s intelligence, killing him in the scene.
Several intelligence and security officers have been assassinated in many provinces in Yemen since early this month. The government usually blamed the county’s Al Qaida affiliates for the attack.
US drone crashed
An unmanned aircraft used by the US to target Al Qaida operatives in the country crashed on Thursday in a village area in the eastern province of Mahra, interior ministry said.
Rarely touching upon drone missions in the country, the ministry said for the first time in a statement on its official website that the drone smashed into a mountain, 50km from the district of Hat. The ministry said that police found two unexploded missiles in the scene.
The US drone programme in Yemen is veiled in secrecy and local official media hardly ever mention the daily flights of US predators.
