Yemen Qaeda offers gold bounty for al-Houthi

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has announced that it is offering 20 kilograms of gold to anyone who kills or captures the leader of Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

The AQAP, in a message posted online Wednesday, offered the bounty worth about $774,000 for the murder or arrest of Saleh and al-Houthi.

The announcement comes as Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with its military campaign against Yemen.

Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes against Yemen started on March 26 without a UN mandate in a bid to restore power to fugitive former President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a close ally of Riyadh.

Hadi stepped down in January and refused to reconsider the decision despite calls by the Houthi Ansarullah movement back then. The Houthis later said Hadi lost his legitimacy as president of Yemen after he escaped Sana’a to Aden in February.

On March 25, the embattled president fled Aden – where he had sought to set up a rival power base – to Riyadh after Ansarullah revolutionaries advanced on the port city.

Popular committees backed by the Ansarullah fighters are now advancing southward while they have also stepped up the fight against al-Qaeda terrorists and secured many areas.

Several hundred Yemenis have so far been killed and many more injured in the Saudi attacks in Yemen.