Sana’a: Yemen’s air force killed five suspected Al Qaeda militants in a raid yesterday on a convoy carrying weapons and ammunition, a local government official said.
The assault comes as part of a major anti-Qaeda offensive launched on April 29.
“A three-truck convoy belonging to Al Qaeda was targeted by the Yemeni air force in Bayhan, a road linking Shabwa and Marib” provinces, the official said.
“The cargo caught fire and five Al Qaeda militants were killed,” the source said.
Witnesses added that shortly after the raid, a Yemeni helicopter landed at the site of the blast and arrested a tribesman who was searching for undamaged weapons in the rubble.
State media yesterday said Yemeni tribesmen had freed a German whom they kidnapped in the capital in January. Rudiger Schwidt, who is in his 60s, reportedly has lung cancer.
He was seized by tribesmen demanding the release of two relatives jailed by the Yemeni authorities.
He was freed after President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi authorised the release of one of the two detainees, sources said.
AFP
