Security officials in the south-eastern province of Shabwa confirmed on Sunday that five alleged terror militants were killed in an explosion in the Haban region of Shabwa while they were working on attaching explosive charges onto a vehicle.
According to preliminary reports, the bar-bomb went off prematurely, causing the death of the terror militants.
A local tribal chief told Xinhua, “About five terrorists were killed while trying to plant explosives and prepare a suicide car bomb to target and kill army forces in Shabwa province, but suddenly it exploded and killed themselves.”
Security sources explained that the men had already been identified as members of al-Qaeda Yemen. Two of the terrorists were Saudi nationals. Such discovery only served to comfort the theory that more and more Syrian Jihadists from originating from the Peninsula have chosen to join AQAP in a bid to swell the ranks of Ansar al-Shariah and assert al-Qaeda’s presence in the impoverished nation.
Considerably stronger than it was only two years ago, AQAP has proven to be a tough and elusive adversary, having managed to establish operative cells across all of Yemen provinces as to erode the state’ security apparatus and weaken its forces’ resolve.
Ever since December 2013, when al-Qaeda launched a bold attack against the Defense Ministry headquarters in the capital, Sana’a , the group has sharply increased the frequency and reach of its attacks, using sabotage and other guerrilla tactics such as suicide attacks against the government.