Officials in the south-eastern province of Hadhramawt have confirmed on Monday that unknown armed men attacked a military-manned checkpoint east of the regional capital of Mukalla. Saba (news state agency) already reported that an estimated 20 men had already died in the violent clashes, a number which could substantially grow higher as the military will work to assess its losses and identify the dead.
“Twenty soldiers were killed in the armed attack on an army checkpoint near Reida, 135 kilometres east of the provincial capital Mukalla in the south,” Saba wrote.
Although al-Qaeda has not, as yet claimed responsibility for Monday attack, military experts have already noted that the ambush against the military very much bore the hallmarks of the terror group.
In typical al-Qaeda fashion, armed militants were seen by eye witnesses travelling on board several vehicles as they approached the checkpoint,.
“The attackers would appear to be in al-Qaeda,” a military source was quoted by Agence France Presse as saying late this Monday morning.
Whether or not related to Washington’s insistence to carry on with its drone campaign program in Yemen in search of elusive al-Qaeda terrorists, the terror group has quite dramatically increased the intensity and frequency of its attacks in Yemen southern territories, where it knows the central government has less traction and influence.
Al Qaeda attacks over the past two months have been concentrated in Yemen restive southern province, reinforcing fears that Islamists will once again attempt to carve a state within the state, in an area which stands somewhat beyond state control, as it did back in 2012 in the southern province of Abyan.