Four suspected al-Qaeda gunmen blasted their way into the intelligence headquarters of Yemen’s second-largest city and freed several detainees in the group’s most spectacular operation since a US-backed government crackdown began late last year.
The attack on Saturday on the heavily protected security complex killed 11 and further bolstered US concerns that Yemen’s weak central government may not be up to tackling an increasingly effective foe seemingly able to strike anywhere inside or outside the country.
“We were hit where we least expected it,” Yemeni Information Minister Hassan al-Lozy told the al-Arabiya news channel. “This is a serious escalation from these terrorist elements.”
US officials say insurgents, including Americans, are training in militant camps in Yemen’s vast lawless spaces and allying with powerful tribes opposed to the government of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Those concerns deepened last December, when al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the failed attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner.
In the wake of the Christmas attack, with US aid, training and intelligence, Yemen’s military and air force have struck repeatedly at al-Qaeda sites and suspected hideouts, and arrested several suspects.
In a statement, the Yemeni government said the attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda and resulted in the death of seven members of the security forces, three women and a child in the southern port city of Aden, about 320km south of the capital.
The fact that one of the most important security institutions in the country’s second-largest city could be attacked reflects the state’s weakness, said analyst Mansour Hael, hinting that the attackers must have had inside help.
“The question to ask is how these attackers were able to infiltrate such a fortified security area. This raises a number of suspicions,” he said.
The headquarters of the powerful intelligence agency is located in an upscale neighborhood of government offices overlooking the sea, flanked by the state television building and a branch of the Transport Ministry.
It was the same facility that 10 prisoners broke out of in 2003, including one involved in the plot to blow up the USS Cole in 2000, that killed 17 American sailors.
An eyewitness said the gunmen in military uniforms approached the building after parking their old sedan and a microbus at the nearby historic Crescent Hotel. The witness, who works in the building but was outside at the time of the attack, said the gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and threw hand grenades at the building’s entrance before charging inside in a hail of bullets.
In the course of the half-hour fire fight, the witness said a number of the guards threw down their weapons and fled and the attackers managed to escape with several detainees, leaving the building on fire. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Yemen’s security officials did not comment on whether any detainees were freed, only saying that nine people were injured in the attack and eight others have been detained for their suspected involvement.
Saturday’s attack follows a military campaign in eastern Yemen against suspected al-Qaeda hideouts, which prompted the movement to issue a statement on militant Web sites on Friday threatening to “set the ground on fire under the tyrants of infidelity in [President] Saleh’s regime and his US collaborators.”
An earlier statement by the local branch of al-Qaeda also urged its supporters to free the group’s members held in prisons around the region.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing