Yemeni forces backed by the UAE have driven Al-Qaeda militants from a southern district that is the birthplace of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, security sources said Thursday.
Wadea is located in Abyan province, which for months was a no-go zone for pro-government troops and where Al-Qaeda fighters fled after a similar offensive in the neighboring province of Shabwa last month.
Seven suspected Al-Qaeda members were arrested during the Wadea operation, which began on Wednesday, including an alleged explosives expert known as Abu Abdallah, according to the sources.
Other sources said the terrorists had not put up a fierce resistance, but withdrew — a now familiar pattern for Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
“Most of the organization’s leaders fled ... and headed toward the nearby Muhafid district,” the sources said, referring to an Al-Qaeda stronghold on the edge of Abyan province.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, seen by the US as the network’s most dangerous branch, has exploited years of conflict between the government and Houthi militias to expand its presence in Yemen, particularly in southern provinces.
Around 100 UAE troops have been killed in the conflict.
Separately, a Saudi pilot was killed in Yemen while providing air support for an operation against Al-Qaeda militants, a Saudi-led coalition backing the government said on Thursday.
The Saudi Royal Air Force plane crashed in the southern province of Abyan on Wednesday night “due to a technical failure,” coalition spokesman Col. Turki Al-Maliki told the Saudi Press Agency.
Meanwhile, UN humanitarian coordinator Jamie McGoldrick said in Aden that the UN is in the process of expanding its role in southern Yemen.
“We are bringing in more internationals to be based here and also to go to the provinces to support the humanitarian needs in those places,” McGoldrick told reporters at Aden airport.
The coordinator said he met Yemen’s prime minister to discuss the humanitarian situation and logistics during his visit to the city.
“We expressed the need for the ministries here and elsewhere to be functioning properly, for budgets to be given to them so they can do their work,” said McGoldrick.
“The UN and the international community cannot replace these ministries. We’re only here for the emergency side of things,” he said, highlighting the country’s cholera epidemic and food security.
McGoldrick said he met with officials from the Arab coalition.
“We visited the Emirati base and met with the coalition forces — the Emiratis and the Saudis — and we had a chat about the current situation and our expansion plans and what their own activities look like,” he said, without elaborating.