Al-Qaeda gunmen attack Yemen army; one soldier killed, two others wounded

Aden: A soldier was killed and two others were wounded in an Al-Qaeda attack on Monday on a checkpoint in Yemen’s Hadramawt province that also left three assailants dead, the army said. “A soldier was martyred and two soldiers were wounded in an attack by Al-Qaeda gunmen on our checkpoint near the Dowen military camp,” said Major General Faraj al-Bahsani, a regional commander. [caption id=“attachment_3550805” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. AFP[/caption] Three of the assailants were shot dead and two injured in an exchange of gunfire that followed the attack in the southeastern province, Bahsani told AFP. Al-Qaeda extremists remain active in the vast region of Hadramawt, where a number of leaders of Yemen’s Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are based. Since January, the United States has intensified its controversial air attacks on AQAP, which it considers the global terror network’s most dangerous branch. Al-Qaeda has flourished in Yemen as the country’s deadly two-year-old civil conflict shows no sign of waning. More than 8,000 people have been killed and 40,000 wounded since an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia joined the Yemen war in 2015, according to the UN’s World Health Organization. The coalition is allied with the UN-recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, whose forces are battling Iran-backed Huthi rebels for control of the impoverished country. Along with Sanaa, the Shiite rebels still control most of the north and the Red Sea coastline, including the key port of Hodeida. The UN has warned Yemen is at risk of famine, with 17 million people facing dire food shortages. The country has also been hit by a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 780 people.