Al-Qaida Executes 2 Accused Spies in Yemen After U.S. Attack

The retribution was gruesome – and not long in coming.

A day after al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen confirmed the death of a former senior lieutenant of Osama bin Laden in an apparent U.S. drone strike, online images surfaced of two accused “spies,” purportedly in advance of their executions, and two people subsequently were shown hanging from concrete overpasses.

Witnesses in the southern Yemen city of Mukalla, which is under the control of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, said two men were publicly shot after being denounced for providing information that led to the death of Nasir al-Wahishi. Al-Wahishi was described as al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader worldwide and was head of the organization’s Yemen franchise.

The al-Qaida organization in Yemen, one of the group’s most feared and lethal branches, announced al-Wahishi’s “martyrdom” on Tuesday, days after the strike that killed him. The White House confirmed his death, calling al-Wahishi an “experienced terrorist leader.”

Elsewhere in Yemen, medical officials said airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition seeking to restore Hadi to power struck a civilian convoy outside the port city of Aden, killing more than 30 people.

And at dusk, at least three explosions shook the capital, Sanaa, apparently targeting mosques and causing an undetermined number of casualties.

U.N.-backed consultations aimed at bringing at least a temporary halt to the fighting were underway in Geneva, although the warring parties are not in direct contact with one another.

The Muslim month of Ramadan begins Thursday, and international organizations appealed again for a humanitarian truce. A previous five-day lull allowed the delivery of some limited stocks of desperately needed food and medicine.

This article appeared in print on page 3 of the June 18th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.