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| Arabia |
| Five Civilians Killed as Yemen Battles 'Qaida' |
| 2014-05-23 |
| [An Nahar] A shell smashed into a vehicle and killed five civilians on Thursday during festivities between Yemen's army and Al-Qaeda suspects in the country's restive south, witnesses said. The incident occurred near Al-Saeed, an Al-Qaeda stronghold in Shabwa province, destroying the vehicle and killing all five people on board, the same sources said. They identified the victims as members of the powerful Shabwa-based Awaliq tribe, from which U.S.-born Al-Qaeda holy man Anwar al-Awlaqi, killed in a U.S. air strike in September 2011, hails. One witness said the "echo of the sound made by the shelling came from an army position", as another spoke of a "mistake" by troops. A tribal source also said "the army is responsible for firing at the car". But a military official denied the accusations, and blamed Al-Qaeda. "Al-Qaeda elements wanted to attack an army vehicle but their shells hit a civilian car," he told AFP. "Al-Qaeda and its allies are blaming the armed forces in order to impede the offensive" launched by the army on April 29 against jihadist strongholds in Shabwa and neighboring 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... . |
| Posted by:Fred |