ADEN: Gunmen believed to be linked to Al Qaeda killed four soldiers and an officer at a checkpoint yesterday in southeastern Yemen, a local official said. Two other soldiers were wounded in the attack on the checkpoint outside al-Qatan, one of the largest cities in Hadramout province, the official said.
The Yemeni Interior Ministry said on its website that “terrorist elements” attacked a checkpoint operated by soldiers, causing deaths and injuries, but gave no specific figures. “Forces from the 37th Armoured Brigade are pursuing the perpetrators of this cowardly terrorist attack,” the ministry said in a statement.
Six soldiers, 10 suspected militants and a 10-year-old boy died earlier this week in a coordinated attack by a suicide bomber and militant fighters on the headquarters of the army’s Fourth Division in Aden, which controls southern Yemen. Yemen is struggling to restore state authority in the Western-allied country, where one of the most active branches of Al Qaeda has exploited political turmoil that began in 2011.
Egypt bars Lebanese man over petition
CAIRO: Egypt has barred entry to a Lebanese activist who wanted to deliver a petition against a court’s death sentences for 529 alleged rioters, an official with the activist’s group said yesterday.
Wissam Tarif, a member of the US-based Avaaz human rights organisation, was detained at Cairo airport for several hours and put on a flight back to Lebanon, said the group’s spokesman Sam Barratt. A court in southern Egypt sentenced 529 people to death last month for deadly rioting, after a perfunctory trial.
The sentences are likely to be overturned on appeal because the court did not even bother confirming the presence of the defendants at the start of the trial, legal experts say.
Muhammad Qutb passes away
Jeddah: Muhammad Qutb, the brother of Muslim Brotherhood leader in Egypt Sayyid Qutb, passed away in a hospital in Makkah yesterday at the age of 95. Muhammad Qutb was born in the Upper Egyptian village of Musha near Asyut in 1919.
He was arrested alongside his elder brother Sayyid in 1965 when they were accused of plotting to overthrow the secular regime. Although his brother was executed a year later, Muhammad’s life was spared.
His writings are well-known in the Arab world. His best known books are Ignorance in the Twentieth Century and Islam: the Misunderstood Religion.
Agencies
