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Al-Qaida claims killing of 27 Republican Guards in twin attacks in southeast Yemen

13 March 2012 18:46 (UTC +04:00)

The Yemen-based al-Qaida wing said it killed 27 Republican Guards and captured a soldier in twin attacks on a troops’ outpost in Yemen’s southeastern province of al-Bayda on Tuesday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"Mujahedeen (holy warriors) carried out on Tuesday dawn a suicide car bomb attack on a Republican Guards’ outpost at al- Areef area in the outskirts of al-Bayda’s central city, killing 27 troops," the statement said.

"Following the car bomb attack, we (militants) raided the troops’ site and its military checkpoint, capturing one soldier, while two others managed to flee, and we seized light and medium weapons, as well as we set ablaze an armored vehicle and three pick-up military cars," it said.

"The twin operations came in response to the U.S. air strikes on the provinces of al-Bayda and Abyan," they said in the statement, adding that they lost three al-Qaida fighters, as well as the car bomber, while another one was injured.

Earlier in the day, a local security official told Xinhua anonymously that a suicide car bomber targeted the Republican Guards’ outpost in the outskirts of al-Bayda’s provincial capital city on Tuesday early morning, killing at least nine troops and injuring up to 13 others. The official blamed the attack on al- Qaida.

The attack was the second of its kind targeting the same Republican Guards camp at al-Areef area in less than 10 days.

On March 3, a car bomb attack, reportedly mounted by an al- Qaida wing, killed nobody in the military camp.

Recently, the Yemeni air force and U.S. drones have raided several hideouts of the terrorist group on the outskirts of al- Bayda’s central city, killing at least 20 al-Qaida militants, according to government officials.

Al-Bayda, some 170 km southeast of the capital Sanaa, has witnessed over the past two months remarkable progress in the government’s operations against Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Islamic Law), a local arm of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula ( AQAP).

Since late January 2011 when protests erupted against then Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, the AQAP has been working to bolster their presence in the country’s remote regions.

The government’s elite troops have recently come under a string of deadly attacks by the AQAP, which has vowed to target the Republican Guards for their "crimes against anti-government protesters."

The group has claimed responsibility for the killing of nearly 30 Republican Guards in the southeastern province of Hadramout in a similar suicide car bomb attack on the day when Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was sworn in as new Yemeni president.

The swearing-in took place following the Feb. 23 presidential election that eased Saleh, who had ruled the country for 33 years, from power after more than one year of deadly protests.