Sana’a: Yemeni security forces were on high alert yesterday for more Al Qaeda reprisals over an offensive against them, after militants killed five presidential guards and ambushed the defence minister’s convoy.
The interior ministry said security in Sana’a had been boosted, particularly around government installations and embassies.
It said new checkpoints had been set up around the city to “block all terrorist acts” and that security forces were working “around the clock... to preserve security in the capital”.
There were also fears of reprisals in the central province of Baida, one of three where the army has been pursuing an offensive against jihadists since April 29.
On Friday, suspected Al Qaeda militants attacked the presidential palace, killing five guards and triggering a fierce gunfight as they hit back because of the government offensive.
President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi was not in the palace when gunmen attacked a checkpoint outside the compound, a security source said.
Sana’a has been on alert for days, and tensions rose after the army said troops had entered Azzan, a jihadist bastion in southern Shabwa province, prompting the United States to close its Sana’a embassy on Thursday.
On Friday, Defence Minister Mohamed Nasser Ahmad and two senior security officers escaped unscathed when gunmen ambushed their convoy as they returned from a tour of the south.
Also on Friday, the US State Department said that two US embassy officers shot dead two armed civilians who tried to kidnap them last month in Sana’a, and were removed from Yemen shortly afterwards.
The New York Times said a lieutenant colonel with the elite US Joint Special Operations Command and a Central Intelligence Agency officer were involved in the April 24 shooting.
At the time, Yemen’s defence ministry indicated a foreigner had shot dead two gunmen who had tried to abduct him.
Officials yesterday said the situation was relatively calm in Shabwa and Abyan, but state news agency Saba reported that “seven terrorists” had been killed in the two provinces.
A tribal source said that as government forces close in on AQAP strongholds in Shabwa and Abyan, the militants had taken refuge in Al Kur, a mountainous area linking them and Baida.
Late on Friday, Baida Governor Ahmed Al Shaddadi issued a statement in which he did not rule out that those elements, as well as “sleeper cells in Baida might commit acts of vengeance”.
He urged residents to cooperate and “denounce all suspect movements by... those who had fled fighting in Abyan and Shabwa”.
AFP
