(AFP PHOTO / HO / YEMENI MINISTRY OF DEFENCE)
AFP – The Yemeni army on Saturday killed a top Al-Qaeda operative with Chechen links as it pressed an offensive against jihadist hideouts in the restive south, the defence ministry said.
Abu Islam al-Shishani was the second foreign jihadist to be killed this week since the military launched its latest offensive on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
News of his death came as officials blamed AQAP for a suicide bombing at an intelligence post that wounded two guards, and after gunmen killed an army officer in Aden.
AQAP, regarded by the United States as the global jihadist network’s most dangerous franchise, has been the target of an intensifying drone war this year that has killed dozens.
On Friday, AQAP leader Qassem al-Rimi threatened to strike back at any party involved in the drone campaign, and denied that foreigners made up the bulk of the group’s jihadists.
Shishani was killed “during military operations … against terrorist elements in Abyan” province, said a statement posted on defence ministry website 26sep.net.
He had reportedly fought against Russian forces in Chechnya before moving to Yemen to join AQAP, a merger of the network’s Yemeni and Saudi branches.
On Friday, the defence minister announced that local jihadist commander Abu Muslim al-Uzbeki had been killed in clashes, also in Abyan province.
A security official said Uzbeki travelled in 2011 from Uzbekistan to Yemen, where he was named an AQAP leader in Abyan.
The army’s ground offensive backed by warplanes is aimed at clearing the jihadists from their remaining strongholds in villages and smaller towns of Abyan and neighbouring Shabwa province.
But the security forces have also experienced several setbacks since the operation began.
On Tuesday, jihadists ambushed a military convoy, killing 15 soldiers and capturing 15, three of whom were later executed.
As the operation gained pace, with officials reporting around 30 suspected militants and more than 24 soldiers killed this week, the military came under attack elsewhere in the south.
On Friday, gunmen shot dead an army officer as he came out of a grocery shop in Aden, the capital of southern Yemen which has seen a spike in attacks on security forces.
And on Saturday a suicide bomber attacked a military intelligence post in Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt province, wounding two guards.
A security official said the guards had opened fire on the car driven by an “Al-Qaeda suicide bomber” as it approached the gate but he still managed to blow himself up at the entrance.
AQAP chief Rimi vowed in a video posted online Friday that his group would attack “any establishment, ministry, camp or barracks” involved in the drone campaign.
The United States alone operates drones in Yemen, and Rimi said the jihadists will go after anyone “acting as an intermediary with the Americans”.
President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi has defended the use of drones, despite criticism from rights groups who deplore civilian casualties.
Rimi also denied as a “lie” Hadi’s claim that 70% of AQAP’s fighters were foreigners, insisting that the majority are Yemeni.
The jihadists took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power to seize large swathes of southern and eastern Yemen.
The army recaptured several major towns in 2012 but has struggled to reassert control in rural areas, despite backing from militia recruited among the local tribes.
