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| Arabia |
| UAE troops free British hostage in Yemen |
| 2015-08-24 |
| [ARABNEWS] The United Arab Emirates said Sunday that its military freed a British hostage who was kidnapped 18 months ago by Al-Qaeda in Yemen, which has expanded its reach amid fighting between Iranian catspaws and their opponents. A statement carried by the UAE's official WAM news agency identified the British hostage as Robert Douglas Semple, 64, who was working as a petroleum engineer in the Yemeni province of Hadramawt when he was kidnapped in February 2014. The statement did not say where Semple had been held in Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic... or provide any details on the rescue. Yemeni security officials contacted by The News Agency that Dare Not be Named said they were not aware of any Yemeni forces assisting in the operation and did not have details about how Semple was released, suggesting his handover may have been negotiated among local rustics before the involvement of Emirati forces. Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch, known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000... , has been consolidating its control in Hadramawt, the country's largest province, where Semple was kidnapped. The group captured a large weapons depot, an airport, an oil terminal and the area's main military base in April, and it controls the thriving provincial capital, Mukalla. On Saturday, Yemeni security officials told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that Al-Qaeda snuffies also seized control of areas in and around the southern port city of Aden, where the rebels had recently been driven out by an array of fighters backed by Saudi-led |
| Posted by:Fred |