Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) issued a statement last Friday threatening reprisal attacks against the Yemeni regime due to the government's recent operations against the group in the Marib governorate. True to form attacks against two military facilities in southern Yemen on 19 and 21 June left at least 11 people dead were reported in Aden and Zinjibar. The attacks against the intelligence service and a military command centre respectively were clear indications of the groups reach...or was it? The most recent fighting between AQAP and the Yemeni security forces has focused in Marib. Why then attack seemingly random targets in southern Yemen when there are hundreds of potential targets closer to home? There have been growing rumours of a Southern Movement, SM, (southern separatist group) militant wing operating in the south of the country and the most recent attacks could well have been orchestrated by the group, imaginatively coined, the Southern Resistance Brigades. Attacks against police checkpoints and military personnel in southern Yemen have increased recently and most have not been linked to AQAP. It could well be that the recent attacks and the scale of the operations have led the security forces to guess that it was AQAP. They have, after all, a long history of well planned and coordinated attacks in the country. However, the area of the attacks raises a large question mark. Could the SM be moving towards all out civil war? Mecasr has a sense that we may find out sooner rather than later.
