| Hadi clips wings of Saleh’s son |
SANAA Yemen’s President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi ordered the restructuring of some military units on Monday, aiming to curb the powers of a son of former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh and stabilise a country where Saleh’s legacy still looms large.
State-owned news agency Saba said late on Monday that the president issued decrees transferring the command of some Republican Guards’ units to a newly formed force called the Presidential Protective Forces under his authority.
Other units from the elite Republican Guards, which is led by Brigadier General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, the ex-president’s son, were placed under different regional command.
The president’s decrees also incorporated some army units led by dissident General Ali Mohsen Al Ahmar into the new presidential force or under regional command.
Ahmar welcomed the decrees and called them “brave and patriotic decisions”, Saba said, adding that the moves restore unity to the armed forces and improve discipline.
General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose feared troops have remained loyal to the former president, has yet to announce his reaction to the move.
In the latest fighting, security forces killed five foreign militants and a local fighter in an attack on Al Qaeda target in the southern Al Baydah province overnight, a Yemeni security source said.
The army backed by militiamen “raided a house where Al Qaeda militants were hiding” in Jaar, prompting a firefight in which “two militants were killed and three others were arrested,” Mohsen Bin Jamila, an official in the region, said.
One of those arrested died of his wounds, he said later.
Abdullatif Al Sayed, who leads the militiamen known as the Popular Resistance Committees, was wounded during the early morning clashes, the official said.
Closer to Sanaa in Bayda province, two drones targeted Al Qaeda positions, killing two other militants among them a local leader of the network identified as Abu Osama Al Maaribi, tribal sources said.
Agencies
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