Sana’a: Yemeni troops have stormed a military base overrun by suspected Al Qaida militants, and a senior officer said that the government had regained control of the compound after a three-day standoff.
All soldiers reportedly taken hostage by the militants at the beginning of the siege have survived. Maj. Gen. Mohsin Nasser told the Associated Press that all the militants were killed in the operation on Wednesday, which followed three hours of intense clashes.
“The armed forces have successfully completed the assault on the headquarters of the 2nd military region at Mukalla and have thoroughly cleansed it of terrorist elements”, a defence ministry source was quoted as saying by the official Saba news agency.
“All terrorists who were in the building were annihilated,” the statement added.
Mukalla is the capital of the southeastern province of Hadramaut and is a major port city.
A military source told AFP that the army had fired on the building with artillery, without giving a number of casualties.
Al Qaida has recently intensified its attacks in southern Yemen.
On September 20, suspected Al Qaida fighters killed at least 56 soldiers and police in coordinated dawn attacks in neighbouring Shabwa province.
The gunmen had planted explosives and deployed snipers to keep security forces away, officials say.
At least 10 soldiers and security agents have been killed since the start of the standoff at the base in the eastern province of Hadramaut.
The militants, dressed in fatigues and riding in military trucks, overran the base on Monday and took an unknown number of soldiers hostage. The military sent in reinforcements and surrounded the building.
Nasser said the militants had refused to surrender, forcing authorities to storm the building.
The brazen attack and the standoff underscored Al Qaida’s ability to stage ambitious attacks that exploit lax security in Yemen.
Meanwhile, a Yemeni national security court opened an investigation into three former top military officials including a nephew of the former president for alleged negligence in connection to a 2012 suicide attack on a military parade that killed more than 90 conscripts, security officials said.
The court also sentenced five militants to up to ten years in prison for their role in the bombing in the capital Sanaa.
The court said the senior officials, including the nephew of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, were not present during the attack. The court said this was evidence they were implicated in the attack, the officials said.
Separately, officials say suspected Al Qaida militants killed four soldiers in an attack on a military checkpoint in the southern Hadramawt province.
