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Anti-terror Yemeni troops capture senior al-Qaida commander

Xinhua, March 28, 2017 Adjust font size:

Newly-trained Yemeni forces captured a senior commander of the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch in southeastern Yemen early Tuesday, a government official told Xinhua.

The forces launched an anti-terror military operation and stormed a house in a mountainous village of Hadramout province, sparking short clashes with terrorists there, the official said on condition of anonymity.

During the raid, the Yemeni counter-terrorism soldiers succeeded in capturing the senior commander of the terrorist group, identified as Abu Ali al-Sayari, a Saudi national of Yemeni origin, the source said.

Three other al-Qaida operatives were captured, and five terrorists engaged in the fighting were killed at the scene, said the official.

A Yemeni intelligence officer confirmed the capture and described the arrested man as the second most senior leader in al-Qaida's terrorist network in Hadramout province, and called the arrest a "critical victory made by the newly-trained forces in the war against terrorist groups."

The intelligence source said that the second-highest leader of al-Qaida in Hadramout "committed several crimes including the slaughtering of Yemeni soldiers kidnapped by terrorists in 2014."

The al-Qaida militant group that lost several of its commanders in recent U.S. airstrikes has yet to make comments.

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

The Yemen-based Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), also known locally as "Ansar al-Sharia," emerged in January 2009, and has claimed responsibility for a number of terrorist attacks against Yemen's army and governmental institutions.

The AQAP and the Islamic State-linked terrorists took advantage of the security vacuum and ongoing civil war to expand their influence and seize more territories in southern Yemen.

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

Over 10,000 people have been killed in ground battles and airstrikes since then, many of them civilians. Endit