Two al-Qaida leaders dead: Yemeni forces

DUBAI / SANAA - Yemeni security sources said their forces had killed two al-Qaida leaders in the south during an offensive in the flashpoint Abyan province as it seeks to regain areas seized by Islamist militants.

Violence has gripped Yemen since February when protests erupted calling for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule.

With Saleh convalescing in Riyadh after a bomb blast on his palace, Abyan has seen a rising challenge from militants, prompting fears in the West and neighboring Saudi Arabia that al-Qaida's Yemen wing is exploiting the security vacuum.

The Yemeni Defense Ministry website 26Sep.net said its forces killed Ayedh al-Shabwani and Awad Mohammed al-Shabwani in fierce fighting on Wednesday.

But opposition groups and security analysts were sceptical, saying the government wanted to show it has the upper hand in Abyan, which has seen daily bloodshed since militants seized the city of Jaar in March and provincial capital Zinjibar in May.

Ali Dahmas, an opposition figure from Abyan who had fled the south in recent weeks, said he thought the government was hiding how strong the militants were.

"These (announcements) are just painkillers, they are just an attempt to please the United States. But then the battle will just move to another city," he said.

Yemen previously reported the killing of Ayedh al-Shabwani in an air raid in January 2010, and in 2009 said it killed someone named Awad al-Shabwani.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula denied the deaths of both men at that time.

A government official, who declined to be named, acknowledged that critics had grounds to be sceptical. "They have a right to some doubts because there has been a lack of precision in some past information given, but our media announces the news as we receive it from the area," he said.

In recent weeks, security sources in Abyan have reported dozens of militants killed by the army, including at least two other leaders of al-Qaida's Yemen wing.

The group has yet to confirm the death of any of its leaders, but often takes weeks to make announcements online.

Reuters

(China Daily 07/23/2011 page8)