Yemen’s defense minister narrowly escaped assassination on Tuesday when a powerful car bomb ripped through his motorcade as it traveled in the nation’s capital, killing at least 13 people in an attack that bore the hallmarks of al-Qaeda.
The bombing came a day after Yemeni authorities announced the killing of the No. 2 leader of the militant group’s Yemeni branch — which is al-Qaeda’s most active — in an apparent US airstrike.
0POPULAR OFFICIAL
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the mid-morning blast in Sana’a, but al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch is believed to be behind at least five other failed assassination attempts against the minister, Major General Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, who has recently won national acclaim as a seasoned and popular commander in the fight against al-Qaeda militants.
Hours after the attack, Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur al-Hadi fired the chiefs of national security and military intelligence, as well as the stepbrother of ousted Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ali Saleh al-Ahmar. Al-Ahmar was the director of the office of the supreme commander of the armed forces, a position from which he wielded vast power.
The bombing appeared to be in the vein of a string of attacks blamed on al-Qaeda since the terror network suffered a series of setbacks at the hands of US-backed government troops. The offensive has dislodged the group from a large swath of southern Yemen it had occupied for more than a year.
BRUTAL ATTACKS
The battlefield defeats came as many residents in the south turned against the militants, mostly out of anger over their brutality or because of the disruptions caused by fighting with government forces.
Al-Qaeda responded to the defeats by staging brutal attacks that cost them even more local support. In recent months, it has attacked mourners at funerals, targeted troops praying in mosques and sent a suicide bomber to a military parade rehearsal.
Tuesday’s bombing hit the last vehicle in Ahmed’s three-car convoy as it was traveling through the neighborhood of al-Izaa, according to Yemeni security officials. The blast left the car a charred hulk of twisted metal, with burnt bodies strapped inside, and blew out the windows of storefronts and scorched a nearby building. Pools of blood stained the pavement as hundreds of soldiers and onlookers converged on the site.
Eight of the minister’s security guards and five civilian bystanders were killed, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
“This is awful,” said Mohamed El-Mehdi, who works in the area. “The people and children are unable to grasp what happened.”
Some of the five civilians killed were the owners of nearby shops, he added.
Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni branch is seen by Washington as the world’s most active, planning and carrying out attacks against targets in both Yemen and the US, including the failed attempt by an al-Qaeda operative to detonate an underwear bomb aboard a flight bound for Detroit on Dec. 25, 2009.
SUICIDE BOMBERS
Earlier this year, nearly 100 Yemeni soldiers were killed and at least 200 wounded when an al-Qaeda suicide bomber blew himself up at the parade rehearsal in May. Al-Qaeda said at the time it was targeting Ahmed, who was not hurt in the attack.
Earlier this month, a suicide attacker driving an explosives-laden car blew himself up in the southern city of Aden next to the minister’s passing convoy. Ahmed escaped that attack unscathed as well. There was no claim of responsibility, but Yemeni military forces were battling al-Qaeda militants there at the time.
A month earlier, the minister’s convoy also came under attack in the southern province of Abyan, which was an al-Qaeda stronghold at the time.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
A South Korean judge who last week more than doubled former South Korean first lady Kim Keon-hee’s prison sentence was found dead yesterday, police said. Shin Jong-o was found unconscious at about 1am at the Seoul High Court building, an investigator at the Seocho District Police Station in Seoul said. Shin was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, he said. “There is no sign of foul play in the death,” the investigator added. Local media reported that Shin had left a suicide note, but the investigator said there was none. On Tuesday last week, Shin presided over 53-year-old Kim’s appeal trial, finding her guilty
RSS