SANAA, Yemen — Suspected al-Qaeda suicide bombers disguised in military uniforms stormed into an army base in southern Yemen on Friday, killing 14 soldiers and wounding more than 20, Yemeni officials said.
The dawn assault on the coastal base in Abyan province involved four suicide bombers in an army pickup laden with explosives and a gunbattle with soldiers who were caught sleeping.
The attack highlights the increasingly brazen tactics used by militants in this impoverished Arab Peninsula country and the many challenges Yemen’s new leadership faces as it struggles, with U.S. help, to route militants and bring security to the nation.
Washington considers Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemeni branch of the network is known, to be the group’s most dangerous offshoot, and holds it responsible for several failed attacks on U.S. territory.
The attack came a day after suspected U.S. drone strikes killed at least seven al-Qaida-linked militants in the same area in the south. It also followed a recent visit to Abyan by Yemen’s Defense Minister Gen. Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, which was meant to showcase the military’s strength in a province where the group last year controlled entire cities and towns.
In June, Yemeni troops backed by U.S. airpower and advisers drove al-Qaeda militants out of southern cities and into mountain refuges. Earlier, the militants had seized large swaths of territory in Abyan during a security vacuum left by last year’s uprising against the country’s longtime authoritarian leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemeni security officials said they believe militants have a hit list of officials in the new government that came to power this year. They expressed fears that al-Qaeda has also infiltrated military ranks and has informants who report on military movements. The security officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Saleh, Yemen’s former president, was toppled in the country’s uprising — the fourth longtime Arab ruler to fall as a result of the Arab Spring. But constant friction between Saleh’s remaining supporters and those of his former deputy who is now president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, have added to the volatile mix.
