Al Qaeda financier arrested, airstrikes on Al Qaeda hideouts, after attack on reinforcement troops

By Nasser Arrabyee/16/10/2010

A Yemeni accused of financing Al Qaeda activities in Yemen was arrested in Sana’a air port on Friday October 15th, as he returned from Saudi Arabia, said the Yemen’s ministry of interior in a statement on Saturday.

The ministry said the 33-year old Saleh Al Raimi was in the blacklist and wanted for security for his financing Al Qaeda in Yemen.

The arrest came as the government’s open war against Al Qaeda intensified.
Two soldiers at least were killed when Al Qaeda militants fired RPGs on reinforcement troops on their way to a mountainous area south of Yemen where a group of Al Qaeda militants are hiding, local sources said Saturday.

Three vehicles and two tanks were damaged when about 30 Al Qaeda militants attacked the military campaign in the area of Khadeer on their way to Mudia , the sources said.

Late afternoon Saturday, the fighter jets started to bomb the areas where Al Qaeda militants positioning in the mountainous area between Lawdar and Mudia, especially Al Dahma and Slamia.
Last Thursday, the governor and security director of Abyan survived an assassination attempt only hours after the security director of Mudia was killed.
Population of the close villages where airstrikes were implemented have started to displace to safer places as the fighting intensifies, the sources said.

The security sources confirmed that Al Qaeda militants attacked the reinforcement troops but denied the damage of vehicles and tanks. The security sources said that a car bomb driven by a terrorist went off before the campaign arrived to the place of explosion. The suicide bomber killed himself and the car was destroyed, said the security sources.

Separately, two intelligence officers were injured when they failed to defuse a bomb which was put in a parking car belonging to one of them in the city of Zunjubar.

The colonel Abaid Ali Mubarak, director of the political security in Ahwar district and when his colleagues were taken to hospital after they failed to defuse the bomb which was put in his car, local sources said.