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| Arabia |
| Gunmen Briefly Seize Yemen Airport In Deadly Assault |
| 2014-06-27 |
| [AnNahar] Suspected Al-Qaeda gunnies stormed and briefly seized an airport in Yemen's southeastern Hadramawt province Thursday, just as a civilian airliner was landing, but the airfield was retaken by the army, officials said. Three soldiers were killed in the attack on Sayun airport, while another five died in a simultaneous suicide kaboom at a nearby military headquarters, the officials said. Troops retook the airport, killing six gunnies and freeing hostages taken seized from the control tower, a security official said. Four gunnies were captured, and others fled. Attackers bumped off the three soldiers at the entrance to the airport, which is also used by the air force, before capturing parts of the facility, including the control tower, a security official said. The assault took place as a Yemen Airways plane landed, a military official said. Troops scrambled armored vehicles to confront the gunnies and evacuate the flight's passengers in army buses through the northern gate of the airport, the official said. Sayun is the main town in the Hadramawt valley, a jihadist stronghold in the province's interior. Hadramawt's rugged terrain provides hideouts for gunnies of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered by Washington as the jihadist network's most dangerous affiliate. On May 24, gunnies launched a massive pre-dawn assault on Sayun, in which they attacked police and army bases and public buildings with jacket wallahs, rocket-launchers and heavy machineguns. Before withdrawing, they also ransacked the main post office and two banks. Scores of gunnies and 15 soldiers and police were killed. President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi fired Sayun army commander General Mohammed Somali over that attack, replacing him with one of his own loyalists, General Ahmed Ali Hadi. He had ordered security forces on high alert nationwide, including in the capital, after the army launched a ground offensive against Al-Qaeda in late April in two southern provinces further west -- Abyan ...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues... and Shabwa. The operation aims to expel the gunnies from smaller towns and villages in the two provinces that escaped a previous sweep in 2012. Hadi has vowed to press the offensive until jihadists are eradicated from all of Yemen's territory. Taking advantage of a collapse of central authority during a 2011 uprising that forced Hadi's predecessor, veteran strongman President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , from power, Al-Qaeda seized swathes of the south and east. Although government forces have captured several major towns, analysts say the army's gains may have been the result of a tactical retreat by Al-Qaeda in coordination with Yemen's powerful tribes. The army says 500 Al-Qaeda gunnies have been killed in its latest operation, while 40 soldiers have died. Al-Qaeda has launched a spate of spectacular attacks on army headquarters around the country in recent months. In December, it assaulted the defense ministry in the heart of the capital, killing 56 people. An April attack on army headquarters in the main southern city of Aden left at least 20 people dead. AQAP has also been targeted in an intensifying drone war this year. The United States is the only country operating drones over Yemen, but U.S. officials rarely acknowledge the covert operations. Around 60 suspected jihadists were killed in a wave of strikes against AQAP bases and training camps in mid-April. The drone program has been defended by both the White House and Hadi, but has been sharply criticized by human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... groups for its civilian toll. |
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