Yemen will launch additional attacks against al Qaeda as long as its security is threatened by the terror network, Yemen's Interior Minister Muttahar al-Masri said in remarks published on Monday. Masri's comments came days after Yemen said six al Qaeda men were killed in an air strike in northern Yemen. Al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing said its fighters survived.
"The Yemeni government has been making many false claims ... against the Mujahideen leaders in the Arabian Peninsula," al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, said in a statement on an Islamist website. "The latest of these claims is that it killed six of them ... and we assure our Muslim nation that none of the Mujahideen were killed in that strike, but some have suffered mild injuries," it added.
"These strikes will not be the last so long as the security and stability of the country and its institutions is targetted by terrorist elements," the "September 26" newspaper cited Masri as saying.
