after the jihadi group announced the death of its leader in an American drone strike.
Witnesses
said al-Qaida gunmen in the southern city of Mukalla read out charges
before shooting the two men, one of whom was accused of guiding the
drone that killed commander Nasr al-Ansi and a media liaison known as
Muhannad Ghalab in April.
Al-Qaida
supporters posted pictures online that showed the two men blindfolded
on a sandy beach, said to be the site of a previous drone strike.
Another picture showed a body in bloody clothes lashed to a pole,
dangling off a bridge.
The
killings came a day after al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the
Yemeni affiliate is known, said its leader, Nasir al-Wahishi, was killed
in a U.S. drone strike last week.
Al-Qaida
captured Mukalla in April after Yemen's army splintered between allies
and opponents of Shiite rebels known as Houthis. But the city has proven
to be something of a death trap, with U.S. drone strikes in and around
Mukalla killing not only al-Wahishi and al-Ansi, but also a senior
religious ideologue, Ibrahim al-Rubaish.
In
series of online postings, al-Qaida members said one of the two men
shot dead Wednesday was a Saudi national loyal to the Islamic State
group, which controls vast regions of Iraq and Syria. They identified
him as Musaed al-Khaweitar and said he ran an al-Qaida-linked media
outlet and was close to top leaders.
The second man, identified as Abu Ayman al-Mutairi, is also believed to be Saudi.
Al-Qaida's
Yemen branch is widely seen as the terror network's most dangerous
offshoot. It claimed the attack on the offices of French magazine
Charlie Hebdo in January and has been linked to a number of attempts to
attack the U.S.
Source:AP
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