Firefights between Yemeni army forces and Al Qaeda fighters killed at least seven people on Friday in the country’s capital of Sana’a, as violence spread to Yemen’s presidential palace on the same day as an assassination attempt almost claimed the life of its defense minister, Major General Muhammad Nasir Ahmad.
Reuters described Sana’a as being “in lockdown” in the aftermath of the violence, which the outlet described as having been done in response to government efforts to scale back militant activity:
Suspected al Qaeda-linked gunmen attacked Yemen’s presidential palace on Friday and tried to kill the defense minister in his car, selecting high profile targets in apparent reprisal for the army’s biggest push against militants in nearly two years.
Recent days had seen Yemeni troops storm a major compound operated by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a key goal in the ongoing military campaign.
Fears of reprisals to the offensive had led the United States to suspend operations at its Sana’a embassy, and the missions of other Western countries at least limited their operations. Yemeni officials have struggled to put down at least two insurgencies, one in the country’s south driven by AQAP and another involving Shiite secessionists stationed largely out of the north. The central government and Western officials have linked Iran to both.
Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in late March blasted Tehran for providing assistance to Shiite separatists, after security officials captured a weapons-filled boat bound for the Sunni country loaded with Katyusha rockets, anti-aircraft missiles, RPG launchers and Iranian-made night-vision goggles.
Links between Iran and AQAP, meanwhile, have been publicly known for years. Suspicions grounded in a now-notorious cable from bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, thanking Iran for its “vision” in infiltrating Yemen, were subsequently deepened in 2009 when reports emerged that Zawahiri had a channel to Iranian Qods Force commander Qassem Suleimani:
Osama bin Laden’s son coordinated communications between al Qaeda’s second-in-command and Iran’s Qods Force, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Sa’ad bin Laden facilitated communications between Ayman al Zawahiri and Qods Force, the notorious special operations branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, in September 2008 after the deadly attack on the US embassy in Yemen.
Gulf leaders have since at least 2012 been open in condemning a range of Iranian efforts they insist are aimed at destabilizing Arab states. Wikileaks cables published years ago had already disclosed that the Saudis urged the U.S. in 2008 to launch attacks against Iranian nuclear infrastructure, and in July 2010 the UAE’s ambassador to Washington publicly made the case that “a cost-benefit analysis” argued in favor of military action against Iran.
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