First Battle of Lawdar
2010 CE.
Shown on the map at 13.883°, 45.867°.
In August 2010, Yemeni security forces conducted a military operation in Lawdar, a town in Abyan Governorate, in response to several attacks by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Those attacks were preceded by an intensified wider insurgency against the government. The Yemeni army, under direct supervision by defense minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, besieged Lawdar on 20 August and urged its resident to evacuate, claiming it would raid neighbourhood harboring militants belonging to AQAP as well as the Southern Movement, a secular separatist coalition. Fighting broke out 22 August and continued into the next day until AQAP initiated a withdrawal from the town. The Yemeni government declared victory the following day, although militant activity persisted in Lawdar for several months. The siege was the first in a series of operations against AQAP, another occurring in the town of al-Huta in September. The operation displaced 3,000 civilians in Lawdar and triggered backlash from the Southern Movement, which maintained that it did not participate in the fighting.
Text from the Wikipedia article Siege of Lawdar (2010), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.