Dubai: Yemeni army troops backed by air support from the Saudi-led coalition on Saturday morning launched a big military assault on Al Qaida-controlled regions in the southern province of Abyan, senior army official and residents said.
The assault is part of a large military plan prepared by the coalition and Yemeni army officers to clear the large south from Al Qaida- and Daesh- linked fighters.
Major General Ahmad Sayef Al Yafae, the commander of the Aden-based 4th Military Region, told Gulf News that as many as 35 Al Qaida fighters were killed and 60 others were injured in the first hours of the fighting and his forces had regained control of the city of Kawd and many other small scattered regions in the province. By Saturday afternoon, the army troops had reached the edges of Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province.
“We are stationed near 22 May Stadium on the outskirt of Zinjibar,” Al Yafae said adding that the coalitions’ helicopters had destroyed three cars that had been rigged up to carry out bombings.
At least three government soldiers were killed in the assault.
Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as Aqap, is the most active branch of Al Qaida in the world. It has exploited the confusion reigning as a result of the government’s fight to assert its authority in the face of the Al Houthi militia takeover to take control of many areas in Yemen, mainly in the south.
Al Qaida cashed in on the security vacuum and stormed many cities including the city of Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout province, the Zinjibar and Jaar regions in Shabwa, and Azzan city in Shawa.
Al Yafae said army soldiers battling Al Qaida had been trained by UAE officers in military camps in Aden. “Those forces who fight Al Qaida and others who secure Aden and Bab Al Mandab were trained by the UAE officers.”
Immediately after the coalition-backed Yemeni forces booted Al Houthis out of the south in August last year, Yemeni President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi issued a decree ordering that resistance fighters be merged with the armed forces in a bid to curb proliferation of armed groups.
To achieve that objective, the coalition established a number of military camps mainly in the strategic port city of Aden to prepare those fighters to join the army and security forces.
Nearly a year after the beginning of the programme, thousands of trained forces have already restored peace to the city of Aden and pushed Al Qaida out of their strongholds in the southern province of Lahj.
In Zinjibar, residents told Gulf News on Saturday that the city’s streets are almost empty except the odd Al Qaida fighters, adding that coalition warplanes and helicopters have launched sorties to pave the way for the advancing troops.
“People preferred to stay indoors fearing possible clashes in the city,” an witnesses said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
Officials in the province of Hadramout refuse give a precise date for the beginning of the military operation to drive Al Qaida out of the port city of Mukalla, Yemen’s fifth largest city, but are saying that the operation is in the offing.
