Armed ambush targets director of one of Yemen prisons

Director of the Central Prison in Taiz, Colonel Mohammed Naif Mansor, survived an assassination attempt in the area of the old airport in Taiz city while was leaving from his house on Saturday afternoon, said security sources.

 The gunmen started the ambush after Colonel Mansor’s leaving his home located in Bair Basha area and sprayed his car with bullets, said the source, pointing out that the accident resulted in the injury of two of his guards, while the attackers fled.

Sources in the medical hospital of al-Rawdah confirmed the arrival of two injured people with bullet wounds in the left shoulder named Mohammed Hamdi and Hisham Anwar in addition to various shrapnel injuries in the right side of their faces.

 “We went with the Director of the Central Prison, and when we arrived to al-Houdeidah station, we heard intensive shooting in the direction of our car.

So, we rushed towards the house of the prison director, and after we got back driving from the same road, we faced an armed ambush that sprayed bullets to our car.

 I was hit and I woke up when I arrived to the hospital,” said one of the injured guards. A security source attributed the incident to a dispute over land, pointing out that armed groups are committing frequent attacks on citizens and have been looting their lands in that area.

 Local residents from the area of Bair Basha in Taiz have complained about armed gangs who they claimed are backed by officers from the military camp of Khalid who they said provide them with protection and as a result the gangs continue their provocative acts against citizens. Currently, the assassinations attempts and operations have increased and targeted heads of police stations and intelligence officers.

Last week, an officer in the Political Security (Intelligence) was killed on Monday night from wounds sustained in a bomb planted in his car in Sana’a. The Defense Ministry said Colonel Mohammed al-Qudami, 44, was killed by a bomb explosion planted in his car alongside his home located in al-Sitteen Western neighborhoods in Sana'a.

The bomb planted in the foot pedal of al-Qudami car. The side who planted the bomb in al-Qudami’s car has not been identified yet, but a security source accused “paid terrorist elements” of being behind the attack, in reference to al- Qaeda.

 For the past year over 45 high ranking security officers were killed by al-Qaeda in all parts of Yemen and mostly in southern governorates. According to Islamic groups analysts, after al-Qaeda was defeated in the Abyan and Shabwah area they went back into their assassination schemes after their open war strategy has failed in Yemen.       

Related Content

•  http://www.yemenobserver.com
•  http://www.yemenobserver.com
•  http://www.yemenobserver.com
•   http://www.yemenobserver.com
•   http://www.yemenobserver.com
•   Yemen seizes military materiel
•   Yemen: Democracy School certified as division of Defense for Children International
•   Yemen’s army shells tribal areas after pipeline sabotage
•   Sawa’a organization calls for Jewish involvement in Yemen’s National Dialogue
•   US aircraft carrying soldiers, equipment lands in Yemen