ADEN // Security forces in Aden smashed an Al Qaeda cell as the militants were preparing to detonate a car bomb in the Yemeni city.
The three extremists were arrested on Sunday, including a leader of Al Qaeda in Aden nicknamed Abodi, who is accused of planning and carrying out a series of bombings and assassinations of several military and security leaders in the city.
The cell was planning to explode a vehicle in a busy street of the city’s Al Mansoura district when they were captured after a firefight, said Abdul Rahman Al Naqeeb, a police spokesman.
He said Abodi admitted they were planting the bomb to “stop the military operation against Al Qaeda in Abyan” province. Yemeni forces and a Saudi-led coalition, including the UAE, have this week been fighting to clear Al Qaeda fighters from the major cities of Abyan which neighbours Aden to the north-east.
Extremist groups have taken advantage of Yemen’s civil war to try and seize territory.
The mostly Arab coalition entered the conflict in March 2015 to support the internationally recognised president after he was driven from the capital, Sanaa, by Houthi rebels and their allies.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia rewarded its troops involved in the Yemen conflict with a month’s extra salary.
King Salman “ordered paying a month’s salary to active participants at the front lines” of the Yemen operation, the Saudi Press Agency said.
Dozens of Saudi troops have died along the border or on the Yemeni battlefield since the kingdom launched coalition operations in Yemen.
Coalition jets struck targets around Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa for the first time in three months last week.
The bombing came after increased ceasefire violations by the rebels and suspension of the United Nations-brokered talks in Kuwait.
The coalition said on Monday it would conduct an independent probe into allegations that air strikes killed 10 children at a Yemen school at the weekend.
Charity Medecins Sans Frontieres also said an air strike hit a hospital in rebel-held Hajja province on Monday killing at least six people
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
*With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse
