Dozens of al Qaeda terrorists militants have taken a small town about 105 miles southeast of Sanaa, witnesses said on Sunday. They said the terrorists militants entered the town of Radda in al-Baydah province on Saturday night without much resistance from a small contingent of police and seized an ancient citadel and mosque.
The capture of Radda expands terrorist militant control outside of the province of Abyan, where they have taken over several towns since an uprising against the Saleh regime began early last year that culminated with a power transfer deal in November.
Residents in Radda, with a population of 60,000, said the group was led by Tareq al-Dahab, a suspected terrorist militant who had been handed over by Syria to Yemen recently while trying to sneak into Iraq. Dahab is the brother-in-law of a U.S.-born Muslim cleric linked to al Qaeda who was killed in an air strike last year.
Yahia Abu Usba, deputy head of the Yemeni Socialist Party, said that the security forces appeared to have done very little to stop the terrorists militants from entering the town and warned that al Qaeda wanted to strike at the oil-rich Maarib Province next, bringing it closer to Sanaa. |