SANA'A: Yemeni military, political and tribal leaders from Abyan governorate met with President Abdurabo Mansour Hadi on Monday and urged him to reinforce troops in Abyan to wipe out Al-Qaeda from their areas. This meeting came hours after Al-Qaeda killed and captured dozens of Yemeni troops in Zinjibar of Abyan on Monday in surprise raids against military positions. The leaders expressed, during the meeting with Hadi, their willingness to form local committees to fight beside the army with the aim of defeating al-Qaeda and enabling the displaced persons to return homes. Among leaders who meet with Hadi Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Al-Shadadi, the lawmaker Ali Ashaal, the Culture Minister Abdullah Awbal, and assistant of the Interior Minister Hussein Haitham. The leaders conveyed a memo from the locals of Abyan to President Hadi in which they directly accused the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh of assisting Al-Qaeda in taking control in Zinjibar and displacing thousands of people. This fierce attack of Al-Qaeda against the Yemen army came after a US drone killed an Al-Qaeda leader, Fahad Al-Qasa'a on Sunday. Al-Qasa'a who was killed in Al-Saeed district, 60 kilometers east of Shabwa's capital, Ataq was designated as number three on America's most-wanted list. Hadi vowed in a meeting with military leaders on Saturday to defeat Al-Qaeda and reorganize Yemen's divided military. Yemen's military made progress in fighting Al-Qaeda during the past two months as dozens of Al-Qaeda operatives were killed by the military who was backed by local tribesmen. Gerald Feierstein, the US ambassador to Yemen had hailed progress made by the Yemeni army against Al-Qaeda attributing that progress to changes made by President Abdurabu Mansour Hadi in the military's leadership.
