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The Yemeni army took control of the important al-Qaeda stronghold Azzan in the Shabwa province as its offensive against them entered its tenth day on Thursday. The army’s offensive had begun on April 29th in the country’s central and southern provinces, where US drone strikes have killed several al-Qaeda suspects in the last month.
In its statement, the Defense Ministry, quoting a military official, said that “armed and security forces have entered Azzan”. In Shabwa, a local government official confirmed that “army forces have entered Azzan without resistance” from al-Qaeda fighters, who “withdrew” to the nearby mountainous region Al-Koor. The official also said that “an agreement was reached between local tribal dignitaries and al-Qaeda, allowing militants to withdraw without fighting in order to spare the city bloodshed and destruction”.
The Defense Ministry in its statement added that the extremists were being forced back by the security forces. “Security and stability are gradually returning to regions which have been cleansed of terrorists” in Maifaa, it said. The army had claimed to kill several suspected militants in Maifaa, also in the Shabwa province, and Mahfad, in the Abyan province, on Sunday. On Wednesday, the army had claimed that three local al-Qaeda leaders were killed in an offensive. After the latest attacks, 75 militants and 24 soldiers have died in the army’s mission to remove the AQAP forces from the region.
The Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has been linked to numerous failed terror plots in the US. The AQAP had taken advantage of an uprising in 2011 which forced seasoned leader Ali Abdullah Saleh to give up his power, after which the AQAP seized large swathes of eastern and southern Yemen. The army recaptured many towns in 2012, but has struggled to do the same in rural parts of the country, despite the support of local militia. Recently, its leader Nasser al-Wuhayshi made a rare video appearance, in which he promised to attack “Western crusaders”, wherever they might be.
