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.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number