Two days after the security forces confirmed they had managed to arrest and detain, Omar Salem a top al-Qaeda leader in the south-eastern province of Hadhramawt, officials in the southern province of Abyan said they suspected terror militants to have exerted their revenge on an army checkpoint.
Unknown armed men attacked one of Abyan many military checkpoints in Ahwar, killing two soldiers and a bystander; three other people were also injured in the clashes.
A local official told the press, “Suspected al-Qaeda gunmen shot dead on Thursday two soldiers and a civilian in an attack on an army checkpoint in the southern province of Abyan.” He added, “The assailants opened fire at a checkpoint in the Ahwar area, and sped away in their car.”
While no group claimed responsibility for the attack, local officials have already warned that all evidences so far point to the terror group.
"The attackers who are suspected of belonging to Al-Qaeda, managed to escape," an official was quoted by AFP as saying on Thursday.
It is important to note that Ahwar has already once before suffered an al-Qaeda attack. Earlier this month (October) a car bomb claimed the lives of six soldiers and injured another 17.
Back in 2012, al-Qaeda managed to use the power vacuum which 2011 uprising created to expand its zone of influence and seize large swathes of lands in restive Abyan. While the coalition has since then successfully regained control of the situation, having freed all areas from al-Qaeda’s yoke, militants have attempted several comebacks, always testing the military resolve and the strength of the state counter-terror policy.