AL-MUKALLA: Heavy clashes between suspected Al-Qaeda militants and Yemeni security forces in the province of Dhale have left 10 people, including two officers and seven militants, dead, local officials and media reports said.

A local security official told Arab News that fighting erupted on Friday evening inside the headquarters of the government’s Security Belt forces, north of Dhale city, after a group of arrested Al-Qaeda militants refused to lay down their arms and began shooting at security forces.

“The forces that arrested those militants made a mistake by not disarming them immediately after arresting them and allowed them to carry weapons till they reached the headquarters,” the security official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

When security forces asked the militants to hand over weapons to be allowed to enter the building, they began throwing grenades and opened fire with machine guns, triggering heavy clashes and explosions.

Waled Saleh Hasan Al-Dhami, deputy commander of the Security Belt in Dhale, and Mohammed Yahiya Al-Shubaji, commander of a counterterrorism unit, were among those killed.

Another soldier died along with seven militants, while at least six troops were wounded in the fighting, the official said.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, also known as AQAP, has been significantly weakened during the past six years after local military and security forces, trained and armed by the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen, pushed them out of their major havens and strongholds, and killed and arrested dozens of fighters.

The militants’ deadly attacks have largely decreased and their attempts to return to southern provinces have been foiled.

Separately, the UN Yemen envoy, Hans Grundberg, welcomed the coalition’s release of Houthi war prisoners announced on Friday and urged the Yemeni parties to step up efforts to achieve another prisoner swap that could see hundreds of Yemeni rejoin their families.

“Last month, the parties agreed through my office on another exchange of detainees. I urge the parties to agree on the details of the release so that Yemeni families may be reunited as soon as possible,” the UN official said tweeted.

“This will be an important step toward fulfilling commitments made in Stockholm to release all conflict-related detainees.”

In a goodwill gesture to pave the way for an end to the war, the coalition said on Friday that it was releasing 163 Houthi war prisoners, including foreign nationals, and transporting them to Aden and Sanaa in cooperation with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The internationally recognized government of Yemen agreed to receive most of the freed prisoners in Aden after the Houthis refused to recognize them as their prisoners.

CAIRO: Egypt’s military said Saturday at least 11 troops, including an officer, have been killed in a militant attack in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula.

The military said in a statement that the militants attacked a water pumping station Saturday east of the Suez Canal. It did not give further details on the location.

The statement said security forces clashes with the attacking militants. It says at least five other troops were wounded in the attack. Troops were pursuing the the militants in an isolated area in Sinai, it added.

No group claimed responsibility for Saturday’s ambush, one of the deadliest attacks against Egyptian security forces in recent years.

Saudi Arabia condemned and denounced the attack.

The Kingdom affirmed its support for Egypt in the face of all threats to its security and stability, the foreign ministry announced on Saturday.

The ministry added it appreciated the role of the Egyptian armed forces in confronting attacks by terrorist organizations.

Last week, suspected militants blew up a natural gas pipeline in Northern Sinai’s town of Bir El-Abd, causing a fire but no casualties.

Egypt has been battling a Daesh-led insurgency in the Sinai since 2013. The militants have carried out scores of attacks, mainly targeting security forces and Christians.

The pace of militant attacks in Sinai’s main theater of operations and elsewhere has slowed to a trickle since February 2018, when the military launched a massive operation in Sinai as well as parts of the Nile Delta and deserts along the country’s western border with Libya.

The fight against militants in Sinai has largely taken place hidden from the public eye, with journalists, non-residents and outside observers barred from the area. The conflict has also been kept at a distance from tourist resorts at the southern end of the peninsula.

* With AP

KHARTOUM: Sudanese security forces killed a protester when an armored vehicle ran over him during the latest rally against last year’s military coup, medics said.

The unidentified protester was killed by the “vehicle belonging to the coup forces during rallies in Khartoum” headed toward the presidential palace, said the Central Committee of Sudan Doctors, a pro-democracy group of medics.

Anti-coup demonstrators routinely target the palace, where the ruling Sovereign Council is based along the Nile River.

The demonstrator’s death brings to 95 the toll from the crackdown on anti-coup protests since the October military takeover led by army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, the doctors’ committee said.

Regular rallies have taken place against Sudan’s latest coup, which derailed a political transition period set in motion after the 2019 ouster of longtime autocrat Omar Al-Bashir.

The military power grab drew wide international condemnation, including the suspension of vital aid, and upended a transition to civilian rule in one of the world’s poorest countries.

The UN, along with the African Union and regional bloc IGAD, have been pushing to facilitate Sudanese-led talks to resolve the crisis.

Senior officials from the US, UK and other Western countries have urged Sudanese factions to participate in the UN-AU-IGAD process and warned against any delay, according to an April 29 EU statement.

“They underscored that international financial support for the Sudanese government, including debt relief, could only follow establishment of a credible civilian government,” it said.

Otherwise, “Sudan might lose billions of dollars in development assistance from the World Bank, and that Sudan’s IMF program and $19 billion in associated debt relief would be imperiled,” it noted.

Last month, Sudanese authorities released several anti-coup civilian leaders arrested in the crackdown.

Burhan has pledged to free political detainees to set the stage for talks among Sudanese factions.

RABAT: Moroccan police said on Friday they had arrested a suspected Daesh member, in cooperation with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, who was implicated in plotting “acts of terrorism.”
The announcement came ahead of the opening next Wednesday in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh of a conference of member countries in the US-led coalition against Daesh.
The suspect, based in the kingdom’s northeastern Berkane region, was implicated in the “preparation of a terrorist plot aimed at delivering a serious blow to public order,” Morocco’s counterterrorism police, the Central Office of Judicial Research, said in a statement.
“The outlines of his terrorist conspiracy were unmasked on the basis of research and technical investigation carried out jointly with the FBI,” it added.

This operation “is further evidence of the persistent dangers of the terrorist threat that hangs” over Morocco and “the importance of bilateral cooperation … with the United States in the fight against terrorism.”
The suspect, a 37-year-old engineer, “ran a closed user group dedicated to extremist goals and projects and aimed at recruiting and drawing in sympathisers,” the statement said.
His objective was to carry out attacks against Moroccan and foreign dignitaries on Moroccan soil, it alleged.
Morocco has been spared the extremist violence that has shaken other Middle East and North African countries in recent years but the security services regularly report arrests of suspects in operations targeting militant cells.
Since 2002, the police say they have arrested more than 3,500 suspects in terrorism-linked cases.

BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities said one person died on Friday of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever as cases of the virus spread to the country’s north.

Iraq has registered at least six deaths from around 20 cases of the illness, also known as Congo fever, since early April, according to health ministry figures.

Health authorities in Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, announced the province’s first death from the illness on Friday.

The deceased was a butcher who had failed to follow health regulations, health official Ziad Khalaf said.

The disease is tick-borne and causes severe hemorrhaging, according to the World Health Organization.

People are generally infected through contact with the blood of infected animals, often after slaughtering livestock.

It can also be transmitted between humans through “close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected persons,” according to the WHO.

The disease has a high fatality rate of between 10 and 40 percent of all cases.

Kirkuk authorities have prohibited the transport of cattle to or from the province.

Nineveh province, also in northern Iraq, registered its first case on Thursday, while central Babil province recorded one death on April 29.

Most of the cases have been in Dhi Qar, a poor largely rural southern province known for rearing cattle, sheep and goats, all of which are potential carriers of the disease.

Health Ministry spokesman Seif Al-Badr said on Friday that the country was not “in a state of epidemic.”

He said cases were “limited” but acknowledged that the infection rate was “higher than the previous year.”

Most of those infected have been cattle farmers and abattoir workers, according to the Health mMinistry.

The WHO says Congo fever is endemic in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Balkans.