Prominent Yemeni leader assassinated in armed ambush in Hadramout
Unknown gunmen assassinated a prominent Yemeni leader on Saturday in an armed ambush on the Al-Abr road in Hadramout governorate, eastern Yemen.
A local source said that armed assailants ambushed Osama Abdelkarim Mohsen Al-Radafani, a commander in the Nation’s Shield Forces, on the Al-Abr road in Hadramout, killing him along with several of his escorts.
According to the source, Al-Radafani was returning from the Al-Karama positions in the town of Al-Rayyan, in Al-Jawf governorate, after responding to the call of tribal groups mobilized against the Houthi militias.
Al-Radafani was one of the leading figures of the Salafist movement and commanded the Fourth Brigade of the Second Division of the Nation’s Shield Forces.
In a statement, the Nation’s Shield Forces strongly condemned what they described as this “cowardly crime,” considering it a criminal attack on the security and stability of society. The statement stressed the importance of pursuing those responsible for the assassination and bringing them to justice in order to strengthen the rule of law and safeguard the security of the nation and its citizens.
On July 17, eleven soldiers from the Yemeni Nation’s Shield Forces were killed or wounded in an armed attack carried out by unidentified assailants in the town of Rama, located in the desert of Wadi Hadramout.
On April 11, unknown gunmen also assassinated Lieutenant Colonel Faraj Tarech Shaqir Al-Aghbari Al-Sobaihi, an officer in the military police affiliated with the Yemeni Nation’s Shield Forces, in a separate armed ambush. Five of his accompanying soldiers were injured in the attack, which took place on the Al-Abr road in Hadramout.
Hadramout is home to active Houthi cells, as well as networks linked to Al-Qaeda, in addition to arms and drug smuggling groups. These organizations have repeatedly carried out terrorist operations using improvised explosive devices and armed ambushes, targeting prominent figures opposed to the Iranian-backed Houthi militias.
