Al-Qaeda fighting alongside Saudi mercenaries against Yemeni forces

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): The leader of Al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen announced the group's terrorists have fought alongside Saudi-led military coalition troops and Saudi militants loyal to Yemen's former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi against the Yemeni Army and fighters from the popular Ansarullah resistance movement.

“Our role in fighting the Houthis is apparent, and no one can deny it,” Al-Mayadeen television news network quoted Khalid Saeed Batarfi, the current emir of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as saying.

He added that the AQAP terrorists have fought within the ranks of Saudi troops and mercenaries against the Yemeni Army and their allied Popular Committees on 11 fronts.

The remarks come as Yemen’s Interior Ministry has confirmed that the Al-Qaeda terrorists are fighting alongside Saudi-backed militants in Yemen's strategic Ma’rib province, as Yemeni forces are pressing ahead with an offensive to liberate the city.

Yemen’s Deputy Interior Minister Major General Abdul Majeed Al-Murtadha annnounced in a statement carried by Al-Masirah television network earlier this year that devices and equipment owned by Al-Qaeda were found in the Central province of Al-Bayda after the Yemeni military managed to clear terrorists from there, which were linked to foreign intelligence services.

Murtadha stated the elimination of Al-Qaeda in Al-Bayda by the Yemeni Armed Forces and allied fighters from the Popular Committees ruffled feathers in Washington, and that is why Washington has been calling on the Yemeni forces to halt their offensive on the city.

Yemeni forces have also intercepted and shot down another US-built Boeing Insitu ScanEagle spy drone belonging to the invading Saudi-led alliance amid the Saudi intensified spying flights over the Yemen’s oil-producing province of Ma’rib.

Spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, said in a post published on his Twitter page on Saturday that Yemeni air defense units used a “suitable” domestically-developed surface-to-air missile to shoot down the American unmanned aerial vehicle as it was carrying out hostile acts over the Al-Jubah district.

He noted that further details about the operation and its footage will be released in the near future.

The Boeing Insitu ScanEagle is a long-endurance, low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing, and is used for reconnaissance.

On November 9, the Yemeni army forces and their allies shot down a Saudi ScanEagle reconnaissance drone as the aircraft was flying over the same district of Ma’rib province.

Also, Yemeni armed forces, backed by allied fighters from the Popular Committees, shot down another Saudi-led US ScanEagle reconnaissance drone on September 27 as it was on a spying mission over the Medghal district of the same Yemeni province.

At least four Yemeni civilians, including three children, have been killed in new airstrikes by Saudi-led coalition forces in the west of the war-ravaged country.

Yemen’s Arabic-language Al-Masirah television network reported the attacks on Friday. Saudi warplanes hit the Tuhayta district in the Western province of Hudaydah. Two people were also reportedly wounded in the bombardment.

Saudi Arabia and some of its regional allies, backed by the US and other Western powers, have been engaged in their devastating war on Yemen since March 2015 to reinstall Yemen’s former president, a staunch ally of Riyadh, and eliminate the popular Ansarullah movement.

The war, which Riyadh had claimed would last only a few weeks, has failed to achieve its goals, but pushed Yemen to the brink of starvation and famine, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, and destroyed the impoverished state’s infrastructure.

The United Nations has described the war on Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

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