SANA’A: A suspected US drone strike killed an Al Qaeda commander in central Yemen, a security source said yesterday.
“Shawki Al Baadani, alias Khawlan Al Sanaani and also Abu Maissara Al Hanki, was left dead by a drone raid” that killed 20 Al Qaeda fighters this week in the region of Rada, the source said.
The source said that Baadani was among the most wanted leaders of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, seen by the United States as the jihadist network’s deadliest branch.
Baadani was suspected to have been the brains behind a 2012 bomb attack on an army parade which killed nearly 100 soldiers in the capital Sana’a. The attack was later claimed by Al Qaeda.
Arms to Beirut early next year: Paris
PARIS: France will begin shipping arms to the Lebanese army in the first quarter of next year, a defence ministry source in Paris said yesterday, as part of a $3bn deal financed by Saudi Arabia. The shipment will consist of combat and transport helicopters, armoured vehicles, anti-tank missiles and heavy artillery, the source added.
The deliveries will last around three years but French military will train their Lebanese counterparts in using the equipment over a 10-year period, the source said.
The deal, inked on Tuesday in Riyadh, comes as the poorly equipped Lebanese army battles jihadists, including Islamic State militants, both across its porous border with Syria and in its second city Tripoli.
Egypt defends rights record at UN
GENEVA: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi’s government defended its human rights record against Western and regional critics at a United Nations hearing yesterday, declaring that personal freedoms were among its prime concerns.
At a review before the UN Human Rights Council that all member states must go through every four years, Turkey and Tunisia said basic rights had been cut back in Egypt since the army’s overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013 following mass protests against his rule.Agencies
