Yemen 'foils al Qaida terror plot'
Yemen says it has foiled plots by al Qaida to take over key cities and attack strategic ports and gas facilities amid heightened anti-terror tension in the country.
Al Qaida planned to target the cities of Mukalla and Bawzeer, then send militants disguised as Yemeni troops to attack two strategic oil ports in the impoverished country on the Arabian Peninsula, a government spokesmani said.
Other militants would also try to sabotage pipelines to “create panic among Yemeni army and Yemeni security services,” he said, adding that authorities managed to foil the plots in the past 48 hours.
His remarks came hours after Washington apparently stepped up its drone strikes in Yemen in the covert fight against militants from al-Qaida’s branch, which is considered the most active of the terrorist network.
Yemen has emerged as the focus of a possible attack that has led the US to shut down temporarily 19 diplomatic posts in the Middle East and Africa. American and British workers from embassies in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa also have been evacuated.
Washington has been backing a campaign by Yemen’s military to uproot al Qaida militants and their radical allies who had taken over a string of southern cities and towns. The militants have largely been driven into the mountains and countryside, and Yemeni intelligence officials say the current threat may be retaliation for that offensive.
Security checkpoints have been set up across Sanaa, searching cars and individuals. The Yemeni army has surrounded foreign installations, government offices and the airport with tanks and troops in the capital as well as the strategic Bab al-Mandeb straits at the entrance to the Red Sea in the southern Arabian Peninsula. Top government officials, along with military and security commanders, were told to stay vigilant and limit their movements.
The terrorist network’s Yemeni offshoot, known as al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, has been bolstering its operations for the past few years after key Saudi operatives fled there following a major crackdown in their homeland.
The group overran entire towns and villages in 2011, taking advantage of a security lapse during nationwide protests that eventually ousted Yemen’s longtime ruler, Ali Abdullah Saleh. Backed by the US military, Yemen’s army was able to regain control of the southern region, but al Qaida militants continue to launch deadly attacks on security forces.
