Suspected Al-Qaeda rebels ambushed an army vehicle and killed five soldiers near the Yemeni town of Marib, east of the capital Sanaa, on Friday, a security official told AFP. “The vehicle was ambushed with an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) and all five soldiers inside died,” the official said. “Al-Qaeda is suspected of carrying out this attack.”
The Saudi and Yemeni Al-Qaeda branches merged in January 2009 to form the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Four days after US forces killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a commando raid on his hideout in Pakistan, a US drone targeted US-Yemeni cleric and terror suspect Anwar al-Awlaqi who narrowly escaped in southern Yemen.
Yemen has come under intense pressure to crack down on jihadists’ local franchise since a Christmas 2009 attempt to blow up a US airliner that was claimed by AQAP. Washington has expressed fears that Al-Qaeda could take advantage of a prolonged political crisis in Yemen, bin Laden’s ancestral homeland, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh has faced mass protests since late January calling for him to step down.
