Al-Qaeda terrorist members take control over Mahfad city in Abyan
ABYAN, Jan. 16 (YPA) – The city of al-Mahfad in Abyan province, southern Yemen, has reportedly fallen to the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, without any resistance from the UAE occupation’s so-called Security Belt forces, only three days after the terrorist organization deployed its fighters in the city. Yemen Press Agency reporter said late on Tuesday.
According to the reporter, the commander of the UAE-backed militias, Mounir Yafia’ae, and the commander of the occupation’s First Support Brigade, survived an assassination operation in Mahfad city on Tuesday, as three of his escorts were injured in an armed attack.
According to information from the Modi district in Abyan province, violent clashes broke out between the Security Bel militias and what is believed to be al-Qaeda affiliated groups in the district.
Earlier, on Saturday, a report was published by YPA in which eyewitnesses said that al-Qaeda operatives were moving freely inside the city of al-Mahfad, and that those elements had created checkpoints in the city amid a suspicious silence by the UAE occupation militias. UAE and Saudi occupation forces have often been suspected of facilitating terrorist activity in the areas of Yemen under their control.
Observers believe that the return of al-Qaeda’s control over al-Mahfad district in Abyan province does not deviate from the blatant act of extortion, in which terrorist organizations are allowed to control a number of cities and carry out terrorist acts in the occupied areas with permission of Saudi-led coalition troops.
International media reports have already revealed that the Saudi-led coalition’s states are supplying funds and weapons to terrorist organizations in Yemen.
In an interview aired last Tuesday, the leader of the Shabwanian elite forces, an anti-occupation movement in the province of Shabwa, has said that terrorist organizations are carrying out their attacks with weapons provided by the invading coalition countries.
E.M