Gulf of Aden Security Review - August 24, 2011

Yemen: Al Qaeda-linked militants attack military base in Abyan

Horn of Africa: Al Shabaab arrests three youths in Lower Shabelle region; Baidoa resident reports al Shabaab arrested imams from local mosques; al Shabaab bans loudspeakers for prayer in Jowhar; al Shabaab militants display captured vehicles in Gedo region

Yemen Security Brief

• Al Qaeda-linked militants operating in Abyan governorate attacked a military camp in Dofes. The militants were armed with rocket-launchers and automatic weapons. At least six Yemeni soldiers and an officer were killed, and thirty others were injured in the attack. Thirty militants were reported killed, including a Saudi, Abu Bakr, reportedly the local head of al Qaeda, and forty others were wounded.[1]

Horn of Africa Security Brief

• Al Shabaab arrested three youths in Barawe in Lower Shabelle region. The group accused the youths of spying for Transitional Federal Government (TFG) intelligence agencies.[2]

• A local resident in Baidoa, the capital of Bay region, reported that al Shabaab militants arrested the imams from three mosques in Baidoa’s Towba, al Qudus, and Hawl Wadag neighborhoods.[3]

• Al Shabaab in Jowhar in Middle Shabelle region ordered imams to keep the tahajjud prayer, which is a voluntary, nighttime prayer, secret. The group forbade the use of loudspeakers during that prayer.[4]

• Al Shabaab militants displayed six captured vehicles and trucks, taken from TFG forces in Busar, near Elwaq in Gedo region.[5]