Sanaa, May 26: Angry Yemeni tribesmen attacked an oil pipeline, petrol stations and government installations on Tuesday to avenge the accidental death of a provincial official in an anti-Qaeda air raid.
Two tribesmen were killed and a policeman was wounded in the unrest, a tribal source source.
Al-Shabwan tribesmen fired rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) at the pipeline passing over their land in Marib province, east of the capital, “to avenge the death of the secretary general of Marib provincial council, Jaber Ali al-Shabwani,” a tribal source said.
The 450-kilometre (280-mile) pipeline connects the Safer oil field in Marib with Al-Salif port on the Red Sea. It was hit by rocket fire and began leaking oil, the tribal source said.
Two petrol stations in the region were also attacked with RPGs by tribesmen and set ablaze, witnesses said.
Elsewhere, armed tribesmen opened fire on several army positions, sparking clashes, witnesses and tribal sources said, without any immediate report of further casualties.
Earlier, dozens of armed tribesmen surrounded the main administrative building in the town of Marib but were repulsed by the military, a security source said.
Two tribesmen were killed and a policeman wounded in clashes in the town, before calm was restored, a second tribal source said.
Shabwani and four of his bodyguards were killed in the Yemeni air strike which targeted a wanted Al-Qaeda suspect on Monday night, according to security sources.
The suspect, named as Mohammed Said bin Jardan, was wounded but managed to escape, they 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 that was hit in the air strike for talks.
The high security council — Yemen’s highest security authority — expressed regret over Shabwani’s death.
“The high security council regrets (that) the targeting of an Al-Qaeda partisan in Wadi Obeida in Marib province … caused the death of Sheikh Jaber Ali al-Shabwani,” it said in a statement, quoted by the state Saba news agency.
The council offered its “condolences and sympathy to the family of (Shabwani) and his companions.”
But it added that it “will remain committed to fighting terrorism and will pursue members of Al-Qaeda, which has damaged the interests of the nation and its citizens.”
It vowed not to allow Yemen to turn into “a safe haven for any terrorist members at any time or place or under any circumstances,” and urged citizens “to report the presence of any terrorist or extremist elements.”
President Ali Abdullah Saleh has called for the formation of a committee to investigation the events in Marib, it said.
—Agencies