Aden: Yemeni troops killed 13 militants in a raid on a house outside the southern city of Al Mukalla on Sunday in which two soldiers also died, the army said, extending a struggle to restore security in the area ruled until last month by Al Qaida.
“Special forces and the army gained complete control over the site backed up by helicopters from the Arab coalition, which dealt with groups of terrorists spread around the area who were fleeing,” an army statement said.
“A search confirmed that these fighters were about to carry out a surprise terrorist attack on some military command centres at dawn this morning.” Before being forced out, Al Qaida militants took advantage of more than a year of war between Iran-allied Al Houthi forces and Yemeni government forces to carve out a mini-state stretching across much of the Arabian Peninsula country’s southern coast, including Al Mukalla.
The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia trained and funded Yemeni forces for months and backed up their liberation of Al Mukalla on April 25 with air strikes.
Militants in Yemen’s branch of Daesh have carried out a series of suicide attacks on all parties to Yemen’s tangled conflict, killing 25 police recruits in a bombing outside Al Mukalla last week.
