Yemeni Troops

"LandepNews"

Yemeni Troops

At least 35 soldiers were killed on Sunday as al-Qaeda-related fighters began an attack on governmental troops, two weeks after the country witnessed the swearing in of a new president that ended the era of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president that ruled with iron fist over the country for 33 years and was deposed at the end of months of unrest.
The new president made it an important issue of his term to fight against the al-Qaeda influence in the country, the poorest state in the Arab world. Consequently, a wave of attacks was launched in the southern volatile region of the country, in the city of Zinjibar, where the militants took a military base, and turned the heavy weapons they found there against the troops.
20 militants were reported killed in that attack that happened in a region that is closed to the oil routes. The new president Abdu Rabo Mansour Hadi made it one of his concerns engaging the al-Qaeda in the south, thus responding to the American demand that al-Qaeda influence be eliminated from Yemen. The American drones have done their share of killing of local al-Qaeda fighters.
Government is said to have sent reinforcements to the base that was taken by the militants and that eventually the army took it back. Militants, however, were able to take armed vehicles, artillery pieces, assault rifles and rockets from the stores of the base, and they used them later on the troops, causing casualties. 35 soldiers were killed and many wounded were brought to the hospital in the city of Aden.
One of the first things the new president after he took office was to fire the military commander of the southern region, but the commander refused to step down escalating tension in the zone.
An al-Qaeda attack last week on two military bases that belonged to the Republican Guard elite forces trained by the U.S. army and commanded by Saleh’s son added to the tension in the south, especially with more than two dozens troops killed on that occasion.
Zinjibar has been the site of many attacks staged by al-Qaeda related troops, that took the city several times last year. The attacks now are believed to be a form of putting pressure on the new president, and of establishing the new relations in the post-Saleh era. The militants threatened to stage a wave of attacks if the military does not leave the city.
Yemen was engulfed last year in violent confrontations that had as final goal the ouster of the president Saleh. The situation in the country contributed to the strengthening of the militants position in the south.
Saleh had to leave office at the end of a deal with the Gulf Co-operation Council, which proposed him to leave with impunity for what he did to the people of his country. The deal was refused three times by the former president, and was accepted only with assurances that the EU and the United States would not prosecute him and his former leaders of regime.
The people in the streets of Sanaa denounced the agreement and demanded that Saleh be judged for what he had done. He was subject to an assassination attempt in June and had to cure the wound in Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Saleh participated in the ceremony of taking office by Hadi, who was the only candidate for the job, in a move that was seen as different from the similar moves in Tunisia and Egypt, where democratic elections were held.

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