"Al-Qaeda" returns to the "postal raids" in Hadramout to face its financial crisis
English - Saturday 29 October 2022 الساعة 03:31 pm
Shibam, NewsYemen, Private:
With every financial crisis faced by Al-Qaeda in Yemen, the armed robbery of the government post offices, which includes the salaries of state employees, Or banking companies and governmental and private banks comes to the fore.
During the past two days, the Shibam Directorate in the Hadhramaut Valley, which is under the control of the Brotherhood, recorded a robbery of a government post office in the Al-Hawtah region. Millions of riyals in the office were looted, a day before the salaries of government employees and retirees were paid in the Directorate.
Al-Hawtah is the same area that witnessed a heinous massacre carried out by Al-Qaeda, which slaughtered 15 soldiers of the Yemeni army on August 9, 2014. Through the operation, the organization announced its strong presence in the Hadramawt Valley regions.
The government authorities in the district of Shibam were very discreet, and they were content to hold the office's guard responsible for the looting of millions of riyals, without moving and playing their role in the investigation and follow-up of the elements who carried out the robbery.
Operation details
Local sources confirmed to NewsYemen that masked elements suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda intercepted the office guard, who was on his way to his house after the end of his shift, and forced him at gunpoint to return to the post office and opened it to take the money allocated as salaries for government employees.
The sources pointed out that the looted funds are many, and the Shibam Postal authorities and security services refuse to disclose their value, explaining that the Postal Administration informed the security services of the incident and exposed it to looting without any significant movement to control the cell executing the operation or even track them.
The sources indicated to NewsYemen that the implementing elements received information about the presence of employee salaries, which were transferred secretly from the Central Bank in the city of Seiyun in preparation for disbursing them to government employees as well as retirees.
The return of burglaries to the province
The robbery of the post office brought to mind previous operations against post offices at the hands of al-Qaeda members, during which tens of millions were looted, which were harnessed to financially strengthen the organization, whether in recruiting more elements or financing their terrorist operations.
The first robbery incident was recorded on January 26, 2011, when terrorist elements cut off a car carrying the salaries of employees and retirees that was on its way from the central bank in Mukalla to the Al-Shahr district. Who was also killed in the process.
On January 21, 2015, cars flying Al-Qaeda flags launched an attack on the International Bank of Yemen in Mukalla, and 15 million Yemeni riyals were looted, and not a month passed until the same elements returned again to the same bank in a second robbery, in which 50 million riyals were looted.
Robbery with a Houthi cover
The Houthi invasion of the capital, Sanaa, on September 21, 2014, and their declaration of control over it represented the opportunity and appropriate atmosphere for al-Qaeda to start its movements and search for large sources of funding that cover its activities for years.
Only a month after the Houthi invasion of Sanaa, specifically on October 29, 2014, the organization carried out a direct invasion targeting the post office of the Hami district in Hadramout, during which it looted about 12 million riyals. The attack was preceded by a failed operation on the Seiyun Post Office, the center of Wadi Hadramout, the aim of which was to loot 35 million employees' salaries for the month of May of the same year.
The organization took advantage of the Houthis’ declaration of war in late March 2015, to carry out a surprise operation in early April on the headquarters of the Central Bank in the city of Mukalla, in a robbery that was described as the largest in the organization’s history, as the organization controlled more than 17 billion riyals along with a cash reserve of hard currency in addition to its acquisition On the revenues of the Hadhramaut coast directorates for a full year.
Although the Houthi militias were raising the slogan of fighting al-Qaeda and ISIS at the beginning of the crisis at the end of March 2015, they remarkably ignored any military movements towards Hadhramaut Governorate, which was openly under the control of al-Qaeda.
Observers said that what happened at the beginning of the war was a wealth-sharing agreement between the Houthi militia and al-Qaeda, and this was evident in the aftermath of the fall of Mukalla and the coast of Hadramawt, where the Houthi militias continued to ignore what al-Qaeda was doing in Mukalla and looted the huge revenues they were reaping from the port of Mukalla and the rest of the administrations. Other government agencies that the organization later exploited in money laundering operations and the creation of fixed sources of funding for it.
Financial tightening on the organization
The terrorist organization was subjected to a severe suffocation in the sources of funding, especially after reducing the influence of the Brotherhood’s Islah party, which controlled legitimacy since 2011 until the signing of the Riyadh Agreement and the formation of the Presidential Leadership Council, or through international restrictions on the organization’s allies and funders in Qatar and Turkey.
Add to this the intense security campaigns that affected the main strongholds of the organization in Shabwa and Abyan, in which it incurred significant financial losses, and prompted it to return to the old methods represented in the process of robbery of the salaries of employees in post offices and the money of depositors in banks as they are large sources of funding that will cover the expenses of their displaced members and to carry out simple operations during Next period.
Observers confirmed that the terrorist organization was actually exposed to a financial crisis after many of the funding provided to it by the Brotherhood stopped after they were able to impose their control over the Yemeni government and hand over power after former President Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi took over the reins of power in 2012. For this reason, the organization resorted to adopting different methods of In order to obtain funding for survival, the most important operations were theft of government funds, especially those located in post offices, as these government facilities are the easiest because there is no great security protection in them.
A reminder of the most important bank robberies and robberies
August 17, 2009, robbery of a car belonging to the Arab Bank (Aden branch), and an amount of 100 million Yemeni riyals was looted.
March 31, 2010 , the Zanzibar-Shaqra road in Abyan governorate was cut off for the salaries of education and health employees in the Lauder district, and an amount of 80 million riyals was looted.
September 25, 2010, the robbery of a payroll car belonging to Al-Mahalla Post on the main street in the Saber area, Lahj governorate, with 175 million riyals from the salaries of retirees on board.
February 2, 2013, robbery of a post office car in Al-Dhalea, and looting about (20) million riyals.
October 23, 2014, robbery of salaries of cleaners in Lahj, estimated at 12 million riyals.
March 10, 2015, Al-Qaeda elements attacked the Al-Hawtah Post Office in Lahj, with the aim of looting it, but the operation failed.
March 21, 2015, the robbery of the headquarters of the National Bank of Yemen and the Central Bank in the city of Al-Houta, and looting hundreds of millions of Yemeni riyals, along with a large amount of hard currency.
November 22, 2015, the robbery of the Yemen International Bank branch in the Mansoura district, Aden, and looting 70 million riyals.
