Al Mukalla: Security services in Yemen’s port city of Aden on Saturday rounded up seven suspected Daesh operatives, including a westerner, in a raid on a house, security official said.
Munir Mahmoud Al Mashali, the commander of Aden-based Emergency Forces, told Gulf News that the militants were arrested in Aden’s Mansoura district and local detectives are questioning them to find links to deadly suicide bombings that have recently rocked Aden. “We have arrested seven militants, including a westerner. Initial investigation showed that these are linked to Daesh and ready to plot attacks in the city.”
The security official did not elaborate on the nationality of the westerner. A shadowy branch of Daesh has recently claimed responsibility for a string of deadly attacks on security forces and government facilities, including a suicide bombing that killed at least 36 army recruits in Aden on May 23.
Until the last couple of months, the city’s Mansoura had become a hiding place for Al Qaida and Daesh militants who used the district as a starting point for their daily hit and run shootings and suicide bombings.
Following the graduation of thousands of highly trained forces prepared by the Saudi-led coalition, security authorities in Aden cracked down on these militant groups and managed to capture some of their leaders and forced others to flee to neighbouring provinces. In April, government forces backed by the coalition’s warplanes booted Al Qaida and Daesh out of the coastal regions of Hadramout, including Al Mukalla and Lahj province.
Here in Mukalla, army officers said on Saturday that they had got rid of almost 40 tonnes of explosive materials, ammunition and shells found hidden in houses after the defeat of Al Qaida.
Intense fighting
Fighting continues on many fronts in northern Yemen despite some uplifting news reports that delegations of warring factions in Kuwait were close to approving an agreement to swap prisoners before Ramadan. Tribal leaders in Nehim frontlines, outside the capital, said on Saturday that government forces engaged in deadly clashes with Al Houthis, who were trying to drive government forces from their closest point to the capital. The fighting claimed the lives of several fighters on both sides, those leaders said.
