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Aden Boils After its Governor is Assassinated, and the Government Accuses Militias Loyal to Saleh and Houthis | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Yemenis inspect the effects of the suicide attack that targeted the Governor of Aden Jaafar Mohammed Saad’s convoy yesterday in Aden’s Tawahi district (Reuters)


Aden Boils After its Governor is Assassinated, and the Government Accuses Militias Loyal to Saleh and Houthis

by | Dec 7, 2015 | Latest News, Middle East |

Aden Boils After its Governor is Assassinated, and the Government Accuses Militias Loyal to Saleh and Houthis
Yemenis inspect the effects of the suicide attack that targeted the Governor of Aden Jaafar Mohammed Saad’s convoy yesterday in Aden’s Tawahi district (Reuters)

Yemenis inspect the effects of the suicide attack that targeted the Governor of Aden Jaafar Mohammed Saad’s convoy yesterday in Aden’s Tawahi district (Reuters)

Whilst condemnations of Major General Jaafar Mohammed Saad’s assassination continued in Yemen and abroad, the finger of blame was pointed at “militias subordinate to Houthis and the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh”. Saad and 6 of his bodyguards were killed in an explosion targeting his convoy in the south of the temporary capital of the country.

The presidency has accused “criminal gangs working for the Houthi militia and Saleh that are hostile towards the people of Aden and the whole country” and that practice their “favourite hobby” of carrying out “assassinations and terrorism”. In the same vein, the spokesman for the Southern Resistance movement Ali Shayef Al-Hariri told Asharq Al-Awsat that “forces loyal to Saleh and the Houthis are the ones who carried out these terrorist attacks in Aden”. The Yemeni government dispatched “the security services quickly to identify the circumstances of the crime, catch the culprits and bring them to justice”.

In the meantime, Saudi Arabia expressed its condemnation and severe denunciation of the assassination of Aden’s governor and a number of his aides, and a source at the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that “the hand of treachery which affected the innocent people in Aden will not deter the coalition’s efforts to support the legitimate government in Yemen and to restore security and stability to the inhabited areas of this country”.

The assassination of General Saad came a day after the UN’s Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed visited Aden and held talks with President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. They discussed political operations and consultations between conflicting parties in Yemen which are due to take place in the middle of this month. The governor of Aden had assured a number of leaders of civil society organisations in a meeting on Saturday that Aden would see pleasant surprises in 2016 during his speech about his future plans.