SANAA // Suspected Al Qaeda gunmen killed five guards and captured others on Friday in an attack on a checkpoint outside the Yemeni presidential palace.
The assault capped a day of heavy violence in the country during which Yemen’s defence minister escape assassination just hours after government forces killed an Al Qaeda commander suspected of masterminding a wave of kidnap attempts targeting diplomats.
A security source said the president, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, was not at the palace at the time of the attack. Witnesses said the gun battle lasted for more than 20 minutes.
The attack came amid high tensions in the capital Sanaa, where a bombing wounded 11 police officers hours after security forces killed the Al Qaeda commander.
The defence minister, Mohammed Nasser Ahmad, and two senior security officers escaped unhurt when their convoy was ambushed by fighters in the south.
Mr Ahmad, the intelligence chief, Ali Hassan Al Ahmadi, and the military police chief, Awad Majwar Al Awlaqi, were travelling from Abyan province to Shabwa province, when they came under fire.
A security source said none of the top brass was hurt in the attack that came as they were returning from a trip to monitor an army offensive against Al Qaeda in Yemen’s restive south.
Clashes erupted after the ambush and lasted 15 minutes.
Al Qaeda blames the defence minister for leading a campaign that drove it from strongholds in southern Yemen, an area that Washington considers one of the main battlefields in its global campaign against militants.
The defence minister had faced at least five assassination attempts since December 2011, when Yemen’s new government was formed after a power-transfer deal under which Ali Abdullah Saleh, the long-ruling president, stepped down.
The attack came after a night-time operation in the capital, in which security forces killed a man who they say planned a series of attempts to kidnap western diplomats. That operation came amid a security alert in Sanaa that prompted the closure of the US embassy on Thursday as troops backed by US drones pressed an offensive in the south.
Shayef Mohammed Said Al Shabwani was “one of Al Qaeda’s most dangerous and wanted commanders ... suspected of involvement in abductions and killings of Yemeni police and foreigners”, said a Yemeni military spokesman.
Al Shabwani was stopped in a car close to the presidential palace with four other people, one of whom was also killed in an exchange of fire when they resisted arrest.
The other three were arrested, two of them wounded.
Security forces have been on high alert in Sanaa since the army launched a highly publicised offensive against Al Qaeda in its southern strongholds late last month, drawing open threats of retaliation.
Late Thursday, unidentified assailants opened fire on guards outside the Saudi Arabian embassy without hitting anyone. The culprits escaped after the drive-by shooting.
* Agence France-Presse with additional reporting by Reuters
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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