Yemeni troops and armor have pushed Al-Qaeda militants out of main cities in Shabwa, residents said on Friday, regaining government control over the southern province for the first time in years. They said Al-Qaeda terrorists withdrew to the mountains without a fight as armored vehicles from the government army and a new force known as the Elite Shabwa Forces rolled into the provincial capital Ataq, and other towns and cities from Thursday morning.
UAE news agency WAM said on Thursday the advance had been backed by the US and the UAE but it did not specify what support they had provided. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has taken advantage of the conflict pitting the government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi against the Houthi movement to try to widen its control and influence in Yemen.
The Shabwa operation marked the first time in years that government-backed forces had controlled all districts in the province, where Yemen’s biggest gas project, a $4.5 billion Total-led plant, is based. The terminal stopped operating after foreign experts were evacuated in 2015 but the government says it plans to get the facility working again.
Large-scale ground operations by regional troops have been rare since 2015, when Al-Qaeda was driven out of the mini-state it had established in the port city of Mukalla, capital of neighboring Hadramout province. But airstrikes by US drones and aircraft against the terrorist group are frequent.
The US military carried out an airstrike in Shabwa in June that killed Abu Khattab Al-Awlaqi, one of the leaders of AQAP, along with two other terrorists. Operations against the militants are complicated by the civil war, in which the Saudi-led coalition is fighting Iran-backed Houthi fighters and troops loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh in a campaign to restore Hadi’s internationally recognized government, now based in the southern port city of Aden.
Separately, drones fired missiles at suspected Al Qaeda targets in two separate attacks in Yemen on Saturday, local sources said, in what appeared to be a third successive day of US strikes against militants in the country. Tribal sources and residents said one of the pilotless aircraft unleashed its missiles on a vehicle travelling on the outskirts of the southern city of Ahwar, killing two suspected Al Qaeda members inside.
Another fired at a crowd of suspected Al Qaeda militants in Al Saeed, in the adjacent province of Shabwa, but there were no reports on casualties in that incident. Asked to comment, a Pentagon spokeswoman said the US military had conducted additional strikes on Friday night and would provide more details on Monday.
On Friday, the military said it had carried out over 30 strikes over the previous two days in three Yemeni provinces, and did not rule out conducting more. The operations, using manned and unmanned aircraft, highlight the increasing US military focus on a group that has gained in strength by exploiting the chaos of the country’s civil war.
Local Yemeni officials and residents have said that at least nine suspected Al Qaeda members died in two separate drone strikes on Thursday. US military strategy in Yemen has become a hot political issue after a commando raid in January, authorised by President Donald Trump, resulted in the death of US Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens.