Yemeni military aircraft crashed killing pilot

Jetfighter crashes in Yemen A Yemeni jet fighter crashed immediately after take-off during a training mission on Monday, killing the pilot, a Yemeni air force source told Arabstoday. The source said the Russian-made MiG-21 aircraft crashed inside al-Annad air base in the southern province of Lahj because of a technical failure.
The pilot, Colonel Atiq al-Akhali, was killed and a trainee was injured.
An anonymous source suggested that the Yemeni aircraft could have been targeted by al-Qaeda.
Al-Annad is the biggest air base in the country. It hosts a group of US military advisers helping Yemeni troops fighting the local al-Qaeda cells, considered by the US to be the network's most dangerous offshoot.
On Saturday, the Yemeni army  foiled a car bomb attack targeting the Anad air base. A car packed with explosives managed to breach several security checkpoints leading into the air base, but the car was stopped by army staff.
In a related context, a Yemeni court sentenced seven al-Qaeda suspects to a maximum five years in prison after the group planned attacks against security forces, foreign interests and state institutions. Heavy security forces were deployed to secure the court in Sanaa.
Originally, 12 defendants were tried on charges of "forming armed groups to carry out criminal acts, and planning attacks on military and government buildings and private and public property, and foreign diplomatic missions including the US Embassy, between 2009 and 2011."
Four were acquitted while seven others received sentences varying between one to five years in prison.
The trial comes as Yemeni President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi ordered trials for dozens of al-Qaeda suspects, who are among hundreds of suspected extremist militants that have been held without charges for over a year.
In the same context, a Yemeni intelligence officer died on Monday because of injuries he sustained after being shot on Saturday by two gunmen in a drive-by shooting in Hadhramaut, Eastern Yemen, a security source told Arabstoday.
The two gunmen are believed to belong to al-Qaeda, similarly to other assassination attempt incidents against security officials.
The victim, Saleh Badris, was shot several times in the chest. He was immediately rushed to hospital. His condition is unstable.
Al-Qaeda has threatened the Yemeni authorities on numerous occasions. The militants fear the efficiency of the Yemeni military, who defeated al-Qaeda last May and uprooted them from southern cities where they had taken control.