Yemen steps up operations
Officials say suspected al-Qaida militant killed
SAN’A, Yemen – Yemeni security forces killed a suspected militant who was on a government list of wanted al-Qaida figures, and arrested four others in a raid on a house in a remote mountainous province, the region’s governor said Wednesday.
Elsewhere in Shabwa province, suspected al-Qaida fighters ambushed a patrol before dawn Wednesday, killing two members of the security forces and wounding four others, officials said.
The gunmen attacked the security forces’ patrol on a winding mountain road at Nakaba, south of the provincial capital Ataq, the security officials said.
The violence comes as Yemen has stepped up its operations against al-Qaida with help from the United States, which has increased funding and training of the Yemeni security forces. Washington says al-Qaida’s offshoot in the Arabian Peninsula country has become a global threat after it allegedly plotted the Christmas Day attempt to bomb a U.S. passenger jet.
Shabwa province is one of several where hundreds of al-Qaida fighters are believed to have gained refuge, some protected by tribes disenchanted with the central government.
Shabwa’s governor, Ali Ahmadi, identified the slain militant as Abdullah Mihzar, a native of the province who was on a government list of wanted al-Qaida figures. Ahmadi told reporters he was killed in a raid on a house Tuesday night.
Security forces surrounded the house in the mountainous region of Maysaa, about 230 miles southeast of the capital, San’a, and exchanged fire with about 20 militants inside, security officials said.
During the fighting, Mihzar was killed, four others were arrested, but the rest escaped, the officials said.
A Yemen government official said Mihzar was an al-Qaida operative and a leader of a local terrorist cell in Shabwa. He headed a terrorist cell that recently threatened to bomb mixed-gender schools and called for a gender segregated school system. He also said he was planning to build a training base in the mountains of Shabwa similar to the one targeted in Abyan on Dec. 17.
The Yemen government added Mihzar to the most wanted terrorist list on March 30, 2009.