Five Al Qaeda operatives killed in clashes with tribesmen and army

By Nasser Arrabyee, 08/09/2012

Five Al Qaeda terrorists were killed and four others injured in clashes between  tribesmen loyal to the government and Al Qaeda operatives in the area of Moraib, between Shuqrah and Jaar of the southern province of Abyan, local sources said Saturday. 

The clashes started very late Saturday after the tribesmen ( known ad anti-Al Qaeda popular committees) in cooperation with the army surrounded one of Al Qaeda leaders called Nader  Al Shaddadi in the area of Moriab, the same place where Al Qaeda failed to assassinate the leader of committees, Abdul Latif Al Sayed yesterday Friday. 

The sources said one fighter from the committees was killed in the clashes of Saturday. 

Earlier on Friday, a  man  from the committtees was killed when Al Qaeda operatives failed to assassinate a tribal leader fighting against Al Qaeda in the southern province of Abyan. 

Al Qaeda operatives made an ambush in the area of Moraib, between Shuqrah and Jaar but they failed to kill Abdul Latif AlSayed, the leader of anti-Al Qaeda popular committees. Al Qaeda operatives fired at the convoy of Al Sayed at the area of Moraib, and the bodyguards fired back and forced them to escape, the sources said.

One of the bodyguards was killed however, the sources said. The tribal leader Abdul Latif Al Sayed, who defected from Al Qaeda earlier this year, was not with the convoy. Al Sayed survived many assassinations after his  defection. Last August, Al Qaeda killed and injured more 100 people in a condolence meeting in his house in Jaar. 

Meanwhile, four Al Qaeda operatives were arrested in the Yemeni capital Sanaa after an assassination of a senior intelligence officer, according to statement published by the state-run media on Friday.

The four were arrested in Musaik and Sawan, two neighborhoods famous for harboring operatives of Al Qaeda at the eastern part of Sanaa.

The four were behind the assassination of the intelligence office Yahya Badi last Thursday 30 August, 2012.

Two you people, believed to be Al Qaeda operatives, shot Badi dead while getting out from his house in Habrah area at the eastern part of Sanaa. A lot of Al Qaeda operatives found safe haven in the capital Sanaa after they were driven out from their Emirates in Abyan last June.

Security sources said on Friday that two Syrians and one Iraqi were among those eight killed and injured in a US drone attack last Wednesday at Al Hashem village in Wadi Al Ain between Sauoyn and Mukalla of the eastern province of Hudhrmout.