ADEN: Al-Qaeda in Yemen has labeled the rival Daesh group “deviant” and distanced itself from a Daesh-claimed suicide attack in Aden last week that killed dozens of soldiers.
“We explicitly declare that we were not involved in any way in this operation,” Ansar Al-Sharia, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, said in a statement received Thursday by AFP.
The Dec. 10 attack in Aden targeted a crowd of soldiers gathered to collect their monthly pay at a barracks in Al-Sawlaban near the southern city’s international airport.
The attack left 48 soldiers dead and 29 wounded, a health department chief said.
“At the request of the Ba Kazem tribe, which lost many of its sons in the attack, we are issuing this statement to prevent anyone trying to... sow discord between the tribes and their sons, the warriors of Ansar Al-Sharia,” the group said.
“We see Daesh as a deviant group... that has shown its enmity toward Ansar Al-Sharia and other Islamic groups,” it said.
The statement stressed that Al-Qaeda has repeatedly said it is determined to fight “Americans and their allies” while avoiding “the shedding of any Muslim blood.”
Al-Qaeda and Daesh have exploited a conflict between the Yemeni government — backed by a Saudi-led coalition — and Iran-backed Houthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa, to bolster their presence across much of the south.
The rival militants have carried out a spate of attacks in Aden, Yemen’s second city and headquarters of the internationally recognized government whose forces retook the southern port from the Houthis last year.
Yemen Al-Qaeda flays ‘deviant’ Daesh rivals
Yemen Al-Qaeda flays ‘deviant’ Daesh rivals
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
