[AnNahar] Yemeni warplanes on Thursday targeted al-Qaeda positions in the southern province of Shabwa, causing "huge losses," as part of an offensive launched in late April, a military front man said.The front man, quoted by official news agency Saba, said the raids on al-Qaeda turbans inflicted "huge losses in human life and armaments."
The warplanes struck al-Qaeda positions in Azzan, Jul al-Rida and al-Saeed, south of the town of Ataq, and residents fled the region, a military source told Agence La Belle France Presse.
On Wednesday, suspected al-Qaeda gunnies launched deadly counter-attacks on two army positions in Jul al-Rida and Azzan, which the military said it retook from turbans a week ago.
The army says it has inflicted heavy losses on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), seen by the U.S. as the network's deadliest franchise, since it launched its offensive on April 29.
The campaign is focused on Shabwa and Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an
Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
, another southern province.
AQAP took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it...
from power to seize large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.
The army recaptured several major towns in 2012 but has struggled to reassert control in rural areas.