Members of a Yemeni tribe attacked an oil pipeline with rocket-propelled grenades to avenge the death of a provincial official killed by mistake in an anti-al-Qaeda raid, a tribal source said yesterday.
Members of the al-Shabwan tribe attacked the pipeline passing over their land in Marib province, east of the capital Sana’a, “to avenge the death of the secretary general of Marib provincial council, Jaber Ali al-Shabwani,” the source said.
The 450km pipeline connects the Safer oil field in Marib with the port of al-Salif on the Red Sea.
Shabwani and four of his bodyguards were killed in the Yemeni air strike which targeted a wanted al-Qaeda suspect on Monday night, a security source said.
The suspect — Mohammed Said bin Jardan — was wounded but was able to escape, the source said.
According to a local official, Shabwani had been negotiating for the past week for bin Jardan’s surrender and had gone to the farm which was hit in the air strike for talks.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the scene of several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.
Marib is one of al-Qaeda’s Yemeni strongholds.
The group has suffered setbacks amid US pressure on Sana’a to crack down but its presence threatens to turn Yemen into a base for training and plotting attacks, a top US counterterrorism official said in September.
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to