Smoke rises after Saudi-led airstrikes hit a site in Sanaa, Yemen, on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2016. Airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen's Shiite rebels killed more than 32 people, including at least eight civilians in the capital, Sanaa. -
Photo by The Associated Press
SANAA, Yemen — The lifeless body of Yemen's top Salafi cleric in the southern port city of Aden was found disfigured Sunday hours after he was abducted following an anti-extremism sermon, security officials said.
The influential cleric, Samahan Abdel-Aziz, also known as Sheikh Rawi, had delivered a fiery sermon against al-Qaida and IS branches in Yemen on Friday, officials said. His body was found bloodied and bearing signs of torture in Sheikh Othman, an area largely controlled by extremists, they added.
Abdel-Aziz was kidnapped by gunmen outside his mosque late Saturday in the pro-government neighborhood of Bureiqa, authorities said.
Also Sunday, Saudi Arabia's Civil Defense said in a statement that a rocket fired from inside Yemen toward Saudi Arabia's southern border region of Najran landed on a Saudi home, killing an 11-year-old child and wounding nine others in the family.
Yemen's conflict pits a loose array of forces fighting on the side of the internationally recognized government against the Shiite rebels and troops loyal to a former president, who together control the capital and much of northern Yemen.