MONDAY, MAY 14, 2012
Uganda captures LRA’s commander Page 8
Gunman kills Afghan peace council member in Kabul Page 11
Grenade tossed at Yemen minister’s home Yemeni forces press assault on Qaeda bastion SANAA: Unidentified assailants hurled a hand grenade at the house of Yemen’s Information Minister Ali Al-Amrani in Sanaa, injuring one person when they opened fire as they fled the scene, the minister’s office said yesterday. Abdel-Basset Al-Qaedi, a member of the minister’s staff, said two men on a motorcycle threw the grenade at a wing of the building housing the minister’s bodyguards late on Saturday, causing no casualties. A bystander was injured in the foot during a shoot-out as the men escaped, he added. The incident underscored the fragile security situation in the country, where President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, urged on by the United States, is trying to crush Islamist militants linked to Al-Qaeda in the south. In January, gunmen opened fire on the information minister’s car in an apparent assassination attempt, and on Saturday Bulgaria’s ambassador to Yemen escaped an apparent kidnap attempt in the capital. The government has launched a new offensive against the Islamists after US officials said they thwarted a plot to bomb an airliner by Yemen’s Al-Qaeda wing. In another development, Yemen forces pressed yesterday with an assault to recapture the Al-Qaeda-held southern city of Zinjibar, advancing on two fronts amid air cover in fighting that killed six soldiers in two days, military officials said. The offensive takes place as US drones have intensified raids against Al-Qaeda militants in other parts of the country, killing 12 in two attacks on Saturday. Four soldiers were killed in overnight fighting with militants around Zinjibar bringing the total of army losses since the all-out operation was launched Saturday to six, a military official said. “The fighting continues and the army is advancing towards Zinjibar,” the capital of
the southern province of Abyan, said the official on condition of anonymity. “The death toll among soldiers has increased to six, while 18 others were wounded,” the official added. He said that government forces have made progress on the southern and eastern fronts of the city, with troops reaching the Shaddad Fort, around three kilometres (1.8 miles) east of Zinjibar, and the Zinjibar Bridge, around one kilometre (0.6 miles) from the city. Another military official said air raids yesterday targeted Zinjibar and the neighbouring town of Jaar, while the artillery continued to pound the city. The “wide offensive” began from three sides and was supported by the air force and the navy, a military official had said on Saturday, adding that Defence Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed was overseeing the operation. “ The defence minister is supervising a military plan to regain control of the city of Zinjibar and (the neighbouring town of ) Jaar from Al-Qaeda gunmen,” he said. Six fighters of the Al-Qaeda-linked Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), were also killed in the attack on Zinjibar, said a tribal source in Jaar, to where the gunmen evacuate their casualties. Air strikes on Saturday also hit Jaar, killing three Al-Qaeda gunmen and a civilian, and wounding three civilians, a tribal source said. The air raids were to pave the way for advancing ground troops, said a military official. Military units also attacked Jaar from the west, a military official said on Saturday, adding troops had reached the area of Kadama, on the outskirts of the town. The militants took advantage of a central government weakened by an Arab Spring-inspired uprising to overrun Zinjibar in May last year. They also control Jaar and other parts of the province. — Agencies
MONTERREY: Federal police on a vehicle guard one of the three forensic trucks where several bodies were placed yesterday. — AP
49 dismembered bodies dumped on Mexico road MEXICO CITY: Authorities found the dismembered bodies of at least 40 people stuffed into bags and dumped on a highway near the northern city of Monterrey in what appeared to be the latest atrocity by Mexico’s brutal drug gangs. The bodies were found in the early hours yesterday on a highway in the municipality of Cadereyta Jimenez, officials from
‘Cut Gaza power supply to boost Israel grid’ JERUSALEM: Israel should consider cutting its supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip this summer if it experiences power shortages, Israeli Environment Minister Gilad Erdan said yesterday. Erdan, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, outlined the proposal in a letter to ministers, who were scheduled to discuss the issue in their cabinet meeting. “If there are power shortages in Israel this summer, the supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip should be halted... It rep-
resents 4.5 percent of Israeli production,” the letter said. “Electricity production will be less than demand this summer,” Erdan added, in an interview with Israeli military radio yesterday. “We are looking at using production methods that are more polluting and alternative energy sources like solar but we may still have to have electricity outages.” “If we are in that situation it would be absurd for Israelis to be the first ones affected while at the same time we continue to provide electricity to Gaza,
while they are not paying,” he said, apparently referring to late payments by the Palestinian Authority for the 120 megawatts which Israel supplies to the strip. Fawzi Barhum, spokesman of the Islamist movement Hamas which controls Gaza, said Erdan’s “threats... exposed the true face of the occupation.” “What is required from the Arab countries, and Egypt in particular, is the creation of an Arab, Egyptian safety net for the residents of Gaza in light of the Zionist blackmail,” he added.—AFP
the state of Nuevo Leon said. There were at least 40 victims, an official for the state government said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The final count was still to be confirmed, the official said. A state police official said the death toll may have been as high as 49. The Nuevo Leon government official said the killings appeared
to be the work of drug cartels and that a message of the kind often favoured by the gangs had been left at the scene. But it was not clear who was responsible. The area has been notorious for slayings by the Zetas gang, who have been locked in a bloody conflict with other gangs including the Gulf cartel, their former employers. The killings follow a string of
atrocities, including 18 people who were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexicoís second-largest city, Guadalajara, on Wednesday. A week earlier, the bodies of nine people were found hanging from a bridge and 14 others found dismembered in the city of Nuevo Laredo, just across the US border from Laredo in Texas. — Reuters