Tribal sources in northern Yemen said Monday that six fugitives of al-Qaida branch in the Arabian Peninsula, who had been declared dead by the Yemeni government in an air-strike last weekend, are alive, including the group's military commander Kasim al-Raimy, local media reported.
"The six militants attended on Saturday a banquet in Abydah tribe to thank God for their survival from the air raid that targeted their
two cars on Friday in a desert valley in the northern governorate of al-Jawf," local Marib Press quoted tribal sources close to al-Qaida
survival Aiydh al-Shabwani as saying.
Local witnesses also told Marib Press that they saw all the six members of the al-Qaida branch who were the target last Friday by a Yemeni warplane attending a banquet and they were not injured except that al-Raimy was slightly wounded in his abdomen due to the air raid.
Last Friday, the Yemeni Defense Ministry said that six members of al-Qaida group, including two top regional leaders, were killed in an air raid targeting their two cars in northern Yemen.
The ministry's website cited security official sources as saying that "the six al-Qaida militants were confirmed to be killed, including Kasim al-Raimy, the military commander of al- Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and Ammar Abadah, the leader of al- Qaida group in al-Jawf province."
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al-Qaida world network leader Osama bin Laden, has launched intensified military and security operations against the terrorist group, including a number of air raids, after the group boasted that it was behind the failed attempt to bomb Detroit-bound passenger plane.