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Yemen says kills two Qaeda leaders, critics voice doubt

21 July 2011 23:41 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yemeni security sources said their forces had killed two al Qaeda leaders in the south during an offensive in the flashpoint Abyan province as it seeks to regain areas seized by Islamist militants, APA reports siting news.yahoo.com website.
Violence has gripped Yemen since February when protests erupted calling for an end to President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule.
With Saleh convalescing in Riyadh after a bomb blast on his palace, Abyan has seen a rising challenge from militants, prompting fears in the West and neighboring Saudi Arabia that al Qaeda’s Yemen wing is exploiting the security vacuum.
The Defense Ministry website, 26 September.net, said its forces killed Ayedh al-Shabwani and Awad Mohammed al-Shabwani in fierce fighting Wednesday.
But opposition groups and security analysts were skeptical, saying the government wanted to show it has the upper hand in Abyan, which has seen daily bloodshed since militants seized the city of Jaar in March and provincial capital Zinjibar in May.
Ali Dahmas, an opposition figure from Abyan who had fled the south in recent weeks, said he thought the government was hiding how strong the militants were.
"These (announcements) are just painkillers, they are just an attempt to please the United States. But then the battle will just move to another city," he said.
Yemen previously reported the killing of Ayedh al-Shabwani in an air raid in January 2010, and in 2009 said it killed someone named Awad al-Shabwani.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) denied the deaths of both men at that time.
A government official, who declined to be named, acknowledged that critics had grounds to be skeptical. "They have a right to some doubts because there has been a lack of precision in some past information given, but our media announces the news as we receive it from the area," he said.
In recent weeks, security sources in Abyan have reported dozens of militants killed by the army, including at least two other leaders of al Qaeda’s Yemen wing.
The group has yet to confirm the death of any of its leaders, but often takes weeks to make announcements online.
As unrest continued, a woman was killed apparently by a stray bullet and a man was stabbed to death in an altercation with Saleh loyalists holding a demonstration in the capital Sanaa.
In southern Yemen, two militants died when explosives they were placing for an attack went off early, the Defense Ministry said.