Sanaa, January 18: Yemen’s interior minister has said government forces will continue to strike Al-Qaeda targets as long the nation’s security is under threat, the official Saba news agency reported on Monday.
“These strikes will not be the last as long as terrorist elements target state security and stability and institutions,” Major General Mutahar Rashad al-Masri, quoted by Saba, told a weekend conference on the security situation in Yemen and challenges facing its security services.
The minister said Al-Qaeda had suffered heavy losses, including the death of a number of its leaders, and Yemen’s own security services were able to deal with all challenges.
The government said it killed six senior members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula last Friday.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) denied that six of its leaders were killed in a Yemeni air strike last week, according to a statement published by a US monitoring group on Monday.
“None of the fighters were killed in that unjust and insidious raid; rather, some brothers were slightly wounded,” the Qaeda group said in a statement on forums, SITE Intelligence Group reported.
Sanaa said on Saturday that AQAP military boss Qassem al-Rimi died in Friday’s missile strike, along with Ayed al-Shabwani, Ammar al-Waili, Saleh al-Tais, Egyptian Ibrahim Mohammed Saleh al-Banna and an unidentified sixth person.
“The agent Yemeni government seeks through these pretenses to prove a false victory, which it presents as gifts to (US President Barack) Obama and (British Prime Minister Gordon) Brown and their allies in the London Conference, claiming that it has the capability to eliminate the fighters in the Arabian Peninsula,” AQAP said.
Yemen on Saturday also announced the arrest of another three suspected Al-Qaeda members near the border with Saudi Arabia, following the capture earlier this month of three militants believed to be behind threats in Sanaa that caused embassies to close for several days.
The government in Sanaa “wants to avoid a foreign military intervention targeting Al-Qaeda,” said Adel al-Ahmadi, a Yemeni specialist on the group.
“Yemen is trying to say that it can accomplish the mission on its own, and just needs logistical assistance… and political support to consolidate its regime in the face of local adversaries.”
—Agencies