Al-Qaeda in southern Yemen..a history of terrorism dating back to the 1990s
English - Wednesday 28 September 2022 الساعة 09:16 am
Abyan, NewsYemen, Private:
The biography of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, began from the point of the return of the "Afghan Arabs" in the eighties of the last century, as the return of the elements of Islamic groups - most of them from the Brotherhood - from Afghanistan to the country, contributed, along with several factors, to He made Yemeni lands fertile soil for the organization, which later turned it into a base for its regional and international operations.
On the ground, the organization appeared in the Abyan governorate in southern Yemen in 1997, and carried out its first operations in December 1998, when it kidnapped 16 foreign tourists, and killed four of them while the Yemeni army forces attempted to free the hostages.
Al-Qaeda's activity expanded in some southern governorates, with the beginning of the conflict between Yemeni political forces, and it became very active in Abyan governorate in 2007.
In 2008, it carried out a number of terrorist operations in Abyan governorate, and its first operations targeted a security checkpoint belonging to the emergency forces in the city of Al-Ain, east of Zinjibar, the capital of the governorate, killing all members of the security point.
He also carried out other operations against the security and military forces in the same governorate in 2008 and 2009, most notably his attack on some security headquarters in the city of Lawdar, and the execution of all soldiers, in addition to assassinations of officers in the Political Security Service.
In 2011, al-Qaeda overthrew a number of Abyan governorate directorates, including Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan. After that, press reports accused the Islah Brotherhood and its military wing commander, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, of handing over the southern province to al-Qaeda.
Al-Qaeda displaced all the people of Zanzibar, Jaar and Khanfar, from their areas, and the people were displaced to the city of Aden and the neighboring provinces.
After the fall of Zanzibar, the pace of terrorist operations increased in all Abyan districts, prompting the people of Lawdar to form popular committees to protect the province's largest cities from al-Qaeda.
During the year 2011 AD, al-Qaeda carried out suicide attacks on the headquarters of the Popular Committees, Blouder, in which dozens of the people of the district were killed, and the leader of the Popular Committees, Tawfiq Hoss, was killed with an explosive device planted by terrorist elements in front of his house.
In April 2011, al-Qaeda launched an attack on the city of Lawdar to bring it down, and was able to control the battalion at the entrances to the city, but the popular committees, with support from the tribes, succeeded in confronting al-Qaeda and breaking the attack.
Months before that, al-Qaeda targeted the Abyan tribes at the entrances to the city of Zanzibar and executed dozens of members of the Al-Fadl tribes. It also attacked the Nakha`yin tribes with a car bomb, in Arqoub. Dozens of the tribesmen were martyred and wounded in the suicide attack.
The organization failed to bring down a loader despite repeated attacks from several sides, and indiscriminate shelling with heavy and medium weapons, and the Popular Committees won, in the battle that lasted for nearly forty days.
The People's Committees were formed in Jaar under the leadership of Abdul Latif al-Sayed, the current commander of the Security Belt Forces in Abyan Governorate, coinciding with the formation of committees in the city of Lawdar.
Al-Sayyid and his popular committees were subjected to suicide terrorist attacks after the purification of Abyan from al-Qaeda, and his brother was killed along with a group of committee members and other citizens, with an explosive device that was planted in a mourning tent in Jaar.
Terrorist operations declined after the purification of Abyan from Ansar al-Sharia, the wing of al-Qaeda in Yemen, and the People’s Committees succeeded in securing the governorate’s directorates between 2012, 2013 and 2014.
After his defeat in Abyan province, al-Qaeda resorted to planting explosive devices on the roads and booby-trapping cars and motorcycles, to target the points and headquarters of the committees to intimidate them.
And in the year 2015 AD, the popular committees in Abyan disintegrated, after the Houthi militia, the arm of Iran, entered the south, which led to the chaos of the security situation in the province, and the return of terrorist groups again.
After the liberation of the southern provinces in 2015 and the beginning of 2016, al-Qaeda carried out revenge operations in Abyan province, and carried out assassinations of leaders and members of the popular committees.
Dozens of tribal figures in the central region were assassinated during that period, and the house of the leader of the popular committees, Abdul Latif al-Sayed Bajaar, was blown up, and one of his relatives, Ali al-Sayed, was executed.
At the end of 2016, the Security Belt launched a security campaign to cleanse the Abyan governorate of terrorist groups. Al-Qaeda targeted a number of sites with car bombs and explosive devices.
Abyan lost nearly thirty martyrs on the day of Arafa of the year 2016 AD in a suicide bombing attack that targeted a security belt site in the vicinity of Al-Wadiah Court, followed by terrorist operations in the city of Al-Ain, Mudiyah and Al-Mahfad.
In 2017, the security campaign of the Security Belt Forces, led by the martyr Abu Al-Yamamah and Brigadier General Abdul Latif Al-Sayed, succeeded in stabilizing the security situation in Abyan governorate, after a campaign of raids on Al-Qaeda strongholds in the governorate.
Terrorist groups moved in August 2019, coinciding with the conflict in the south between the STC and the former authority, and carried out terrorist operations against the Security Belt forces in the Al-Mahfad district, and a few days later they executed five soldiers from the Security Belt in Al-Quoz Junction in the Mudiyah District.
During the last three years, al-Qaeda's operations in Abyan governorate focused on targeting members and leaders of the Security Belt, where more than twenty assassinations of individuals and leaders in the Security Belt in Abyan were recorded.
Among the leaders who were martyred at the hands of al-Qaeda, the deputy belt commander Fahd Gharamah, the commander of the Mudiyah belt, Basir al-Salihi, and the leader of the al-Mahfad belt, al-Kazmi.
Arrows of the East.. a watershed operation
In June of this year, the terrorist groups executed five soldiers from Abyan, who belong to the Third Brigade of Presidential Protection in the Ahwar region.
The organization is still targeting Abyan and its soldiers until the moment, as it launched a terrorist operation early this month in Ahwar, which resulted in the martyrdom of 21 southern anti-terrorist forces, and the injury of five other soldiers.
The southern forces launched Operation Arrows of the East to purify Abyan governorate from terrorist groups and outgoing elements.
Camp Omaran, east of the city of Mudiyah, one of the largest camps of Al-Qaeda, became completely in the hands of the southern forces after purging it of terrorist elements, who fled towards Al-Mahfad and Hatib in Shabwa.
The southern forces confirmed that, after securing Mudiya, they would move to the Al-Mahfad district to cleanse the last strongholds of terrorism in Abyan governorate and announce the success of Operation Arrows al-Sharq.
