Al-Qaeda-linked militants temporarily seized parts of a provincial capital in southern Yemen on Wednesday, the latest in a series of brazen attacks by extremists taking advantage of the turmoil in the poor Arab nation.
The increasingly bold fighters are expanding their reach after wounded Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh left Yemen for Saudi Arabia and cast the country into deeper chaos. Their gains in a nearly lawless region of southern Yemen lend urgency to US efforts to bolster military capabilities that can be used to strike at the terrorist network.
Yemen is at the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, close to the Gulf’s vast oil fields and strategic shipping lanes in the Arabian and Red seas. It is home to one of the most active al-Qaeda branches, which has been linked to several nearly successful attacks on US targets, including the plot to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in December 2009. The group also put sophisticated bombs into US-addressed parcels that made it onto cargo flights.
Yemen is also home to US-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, whom the US has put on a kill-or-capture list. Washington accuses him of inspiring attacks on the US, including the 2009 shooting at a military base in Texas that killed 13 people.
Saleh left Yemen for treatment of wounds he suffered in a rocket attack on his compound in Yemen’s capital, Sana‘a. The president, who is nearly 70, was quoted by the Saudi media on Wednesday as saying he was “in good health and steadily improving.”
Yemen’s leader of nearly 33 years, Saleh has held onto power in the face of massive protests demanding his ouster since February. Some of his top aides, military commanders, Cabinet ministers and diplomats have defected to the protesters’ side in recent months. This month, troops loyal to him fought rival tribesmen in the streets of the capital, with both sides using rockets, mortars and artillery.
The turmoil has created a vacuum in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest nation, threatening to cause the country to unravel.
Up to 200 militants from the al-Qaeda-linked group Ansar al-Sharia, or supporters of Islamic Shariah laws, launched a surprise dawn attack on Houta, capital of southern Lahj Province, killing one soldier and wounding three before taking control of several neighborhoods, according to security officials.
They held them for nearly 12 hours, forcing stores to close and residents to stay home. They pulled out in late afternoon, taking new positions in farmlands just outside the city’s southern outskirts.
It was not clear why they withdrew, but some residents said the incursion appeared to be a show of force by the militants.
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