Al Qaeda claimed Saturday that its militants killed dozens of Shia rebels in Yemen and tried to assassinate the US ambassador, as a new government was announced in the strife-torn country. The cabinet was formed Friday shortly before the UN Security Council slapped sanctions against influential former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and two rebel commanders for threatening peace.
In apparent retaliation on Saturday, Saleh's General People's Congress party sacked from its leadership Yemeni President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, following accusations he solicited the sanctions. Yemen has been dogged by instability since an Arab Spring-inspired uprising forced Saleh from power in February 2012, and the Shia Huthi rebels and al Qaeda have sought to step into the power vacuum.
In the latest violence, al Qaeda claimed twin attacks early Saturday that it said killed "dozens" of Huthis in the central region of Rada, where the Sunni Muslim jihadists have halted a rapid territorial advance by their Shia rivals. The turmoil has raised fears that the Arabian Peninsula nation, which neighbours oil-flush Saudi Arabia and lies on the key shipping route from the Suez Canal to the Gulf, may become a failed state.
Al Qaeda also said it had tried to kill the US ambassador to Yemen, Matthew Tueller, but the two bombs were detected "minutes before their detonation." The devices were planted Thursday outside the house of President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, the media arm of al Qaeda's Yemen branch said in a statement on Twitter.
There was no official confirmation of the failed plot. Washington, which sees Hadi as a key ally in the fight against al Qaeda, welcomed the launch of the new 36-member cabinet. "This multi-party cabinet must represent the strength of Yemeni unity over individual and partisan interests that may seek to derail the goals of a nation," US National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said.