News - Yemen: Al-Qaeda Takfiri group released a video on Saturday showing a United Nations worker who was abducted in the Yemeni occupied governorates more than six months ago.

Five UN staff members were kidnapped in Yemen's southern province of Abyan, which is under US-Saudi occupation, in February while returning to the port city of Aden "after having completed a field mission," UN spokesperson Eri Kaneko told AFP at the time.

In Saturday's video message, apparently recorded on August 9, Akam Sofyol Anam, identified by SITE as Bangladeshi, urges "the UN, the international community, the humanitarian organizations, to please come forward... and meet the demands of my captors", without outlining the demands.

He said he was facing "serious health trouble", including heart problems, and needed "immediate medical support and hospitalization", according to SITE, which monitors extremist activity.

Armed and takfiri groups with their various names are spreading in the occupied areas and governorates, under the watchful eye of the occupation forces, which provided a foothold for these groups.

Takfiri groups, including al-Qaeda and Daesh, participate in the battle fronts with the Saudi-led coalition to fight the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees. From time to time they commit crimes against civilians and destroy Islamic shrines and monuments in the occupied governorates.

The United Nations had indicated, when announcing the kidnapping of its employees, that it was "in close contact with the authorities to secure their release", without disclosing who was responsible for the kidnapping.

Last March, a source in the occupied governorates said that an "armed group had kidnapped two employees of the Doctors Without Borders in eastern Yemen," after the humanitarian organization confirmed the "loss of contact" with them.

The Yemeni Army and Popular Committees were able to purify most of the Yemeni governorates of takfiri groups in 2014. According to the testimony of local residents, they saw the rest of those groups fleeing from Aden via boats, before returning with the forces of aggression and participating with it in fighting the Yemeni people and re-positioning them in the occupied governorates.

In November 2021, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Khaled Batarfi, admitted the group’s participation in the Saudi-led coalition in the fighting in the military battles that have been taking place in Yemen since 2015.

The al-Qaeda leader revealed that the group's members participated in the fighting in the ranks of the coalition against the Army and Popular Committees inside Yemen.

“Our forces have fought alongside legitimacy and the coalition against Houthis on 11 fronts in Yemen, especially in Marib and Al-Baidha, and our forces are still fighting,"  Batarfi said. "Our role in the fighting is obvious and no one can deny it.”

 

#Yemen #UN #Abyan #AlQaeda #Occupied Southern Governorates About 2 years