ADEN, Yemen, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified assailants blew up a gas pipeline early on Saturday after an airstrike by the Yemeni air force killed senior al-Qaida members in the southeastern province of Shabwa, security officials said.
Anonymous assailants carried out the violent attack in Belhaf area, some 130 km away from the provincial capital of Attaq, after the killing of senior al-Qaida militants in an air strike, a local security official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
An outbreak of flames raised up from the gas pipeline which runs from the oil fields of Marib province to a local exporting port in Shabwa, he said.
Meanwhile, Yemen's defense ministry said Saturday in a brief statement posted on its website that Ibrahim Mohammed Saleh al- Banna, an Egyptian national, along with six al-Qaida members were killed in an air strike in Azzan town in Shabwa province.
The ministry quoted a security official as saying that "the terrorist Ibrahim al-Banna, media affairs official of the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and one of the most wanted people internationally and locally for planning to carry out terrorist attacks internally and abroad, was killed in a Yemeni air raid."
"Six other senior terrorists accompanying al-Banna were also killed in the successful operation," the official added.
Shabwa, some 458 km southeast of the capital Sanaa, is considered to be another stronghold of hundreds of al-Qaida militants.
Although U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, one of AQAP's prominent leaders in Yemen, was killed in a U.S. drone strike late September, analysts and experts on Islamic militant groups say al- Qaida's influence in the country will not be greatly affected.
Militants of the AQAP are apparently taking advantage of the country's nearly nine months of political turmoil in expanding their military operations and control in the lawless southern and eastern parts of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment