The Abyan Fighting
As everyone’s attention is rightly focused on the north and the Huthi conflict, the south is still hanging around. In Abyan clashes between an Islamist militia (not al-Qaeda) and security forces left, Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Haydari, a reporter for al-Wasat dead. (This report of al-Haydari’s affiliation is being disputed by the News Yemen story below.)
The clashes that started late last night have continued through this morning and the government’s representative in Khanfar claims that security forces have killed Ahmad ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Abad, who is on its wanted list.
For anyone interested in the dynamics of ‘Abyan I strongly recommend reading the News Yemen piece. This gives you a fairly good example, I believe, of the difficulties of keeping up with the news in Yemen. The story mentions a number of individuals that the government has arrested over the past little bit, some of whom are reportedly al-Qaeda members.
The piece states that one of these individuals is the leader of a local cell in Sami Dayan’s organization as well as a leader of an al-Qaeda cell. I have my doubts about linking what is going on in Ja’ar directly to AQAP and, in fact, earlier this year Dayan went on the government’s payroll under the direction of the VP, after Yemen realized that the old school leaders like al-Fadhli didn’t have that much control over these younger guys, many of whom fought in Iraq.
