![Yemeni soldiers pose with supporters from local tribes during a search for al-Qaeda elements in the Abyan province town of Loder on April 25th, 2012. The Interior Ministry recently announced it is recruiting 3,000 members of the tribal popular committees into the Yemeni forces. [AFP PHOTO/STR]](/cnmi_am/images/2017/07/05/8646-Yemen-abyan-tribes-700_496.webp)
Yemen's Interior Ministry recently announced that 3,000 members of the popular committees in Abyan province will be joining the Yemeni forces.
The popular committees are armed militias comprised of local tribesmen, who have been battling al-Qaeda alongside the Yemeni army, primarily in the southern provinces of Shabwa and Abyan.
The ministry will train and deploy the new recruits to help maintain security.
The move comes in appreciation of the efforts of the popular committees in ridding Abyan of al-Qaeda, in support of last year's Arab coalition operation, said deputy Abyan governor Abdulaziz al-Hamza.
"Establishing security and stability is the priority for Abyan leadership before attending to other relief and development tasks," he told Al-Mashareq.
The recruitment of members of the popular committees coincides with the Abyan governor's announcement of the creation of a special operations battalion that will maintain security in Zinjibar, Abyan's provincial capital, he added.
Abyan governor Maj. Gen. Abu Bakr Hussein Salem and Maj. Gen. Fadhl Baash, who commands the special operations forces in Aden, Abyan, Lahij and al-Daleh, commissioned the new special operations battalion on Tuesday (July 4th).
Salem stressed the need to clamp down on all outliers seeking to undermine the province's security.
Meanwhile, Shabwa security agencies on Tuesday arrested a terror cell that had been planning to assassinate local and security officials in the city of Ataq.
Shabwa police chief Brig. Gen. Awad Massoud al-Dahboul said security agencies "had arrested two cell members, though the cell leader managed to escape".
They also seized a vehicle containing explosives which the cell had been using.
1.5 million from northern Yemen and a few hundred traitors from the Arab south have no effect. Many people in our beloved northern Yemen and beloved Arab south know quite well that the pro-Iran al-Houthi family and their allies in the ousted al-Sanhani won’t surrender easily. This is because the Iranian al-Houthi militias and the ousted al-Sanhani militias have looted and stolen hundreds of billions and thousands of cars, as well as large amounts of heavy weapons from state camps. They have also obtained countless Iranian rockets, landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
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