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Saudi-led warplanes strike al-Qaida hideouts in Yemen

Xinhua, July 23, 2016 Adjust font size:

Hideouts of the Yemen-based al-Qaida offshoot were struck by Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen's southern province of Abyan on Saturday, local residents told Xinhua.

According to Abyan-based residents warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition struck al-Qaida-held positions in and around Abyan with several missiles after hours of hovering over the province's airspace.

They said that loud explosions heard in Abyan's provincial capital of Zinjibar city which is held by scores of al-Qaida members.

A source of the Fourth Regional Military Command based confirmed to Xinhua saying that "the airstrikes successfully targeted al-Qaida training sites in Abyan and left many terrorists killed."

He added that large Yemeni-Saudi military preparations are ongoing to launch a new anti-terror offensive to flush out al-Qaida militants from Abyan province during the upcoming days.

Yemeni security forces newly trained by the Saudi-led Arab coalition launched anti-terror offensives and kicked al-Qaida militants out from several the southern cities controlled by the Gulf-backed government during the past months.

The troops and allied pro-governmet tribal militias, known as Southern Resistance, supported by UAE armored vehicles successfully manged to recapture many government facilities from the al-Qaida extremists in Aden, Lahj, and Hadramout provinces.

Last December, gunmen of the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) took full control over two strategic towns in neighboring southern Abyan province, about 45 kilometres from Aden, where Yemen's internationally recognized government has based itself.

Yemen, an impoverished Arab country, has been gripped by one of the most active regional al-Qaida insurgencies in the Middle East.

The AQAP, also known locally as Ansar al-Sharia, emerged in January 2009. It had claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks on Yemen's army and government institutions.

It took advantage of the current security vacuum and the ongoing civil war to expand its influence and seize more territories in Yemen's southern part.

Security in Yemen has deteriorated since March 2015, when war broke out between the Shiite Houthi group, supported by former President Ali Abdullash Saleh, and the government backed by a Saudi-led Arab coalition.

More than 6,400 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, half of them civilians. Endit