At least 40 killed as Yemen troops clash with Qaeda

Agencies/Sanaa

At least 40 people were killed in heavy fighting yesterday between the army and suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen’s southern province of Lahij, officials said.
“Twenty-eight soldiers were killed” in the fighting which erupted when the Islamist fighters attacked army positions in Mallah, a town in Lahij, an army officer on the ground told AFP.
An official in the Al Qaeda stronghold of Jaar, southeast of Lahij, said 12 militants were also killed.
The officer had earlier said 17 soldiers were killed and 11 others were missing and “believed dead.”
Reinforcements were brought into the area from Al Anad air base in Lahij as clashes continued throughout the day, the officer said.
“The air force and ground troops are now shelling an army post which Al Qaeda militants have managed to take over” in Mallah, he said.
Another military official said “two army tanks and three Al Qaeda vehicles were destroyed in the fighting, (while) Al Qaeda militants have seized several soldiers”.
The attackers targeted the 119th and 201st army brigades, involved in military operations aimed at regaining control over Zinjibar, the capital of Abyan province southeast of Lahij, which the militants overran last May.
In a text message received by AFP, the Al Qaeda-linked militants, who have named themselves Partisans of Shariah, claimed the attack which they declared as “Battle of Dignity”.
They said “30 soldiers” were killed in the fighting but did not say how many of their men had died.
On Friday, Al Qaeda members sabotaged a 320km gas pipeline linking Marib province to Balhaf terminal on the Gulf of Aden, all in the country’s restive south.
The pipeline attack came shortly after two US drone attacks in eastern Yemen targeted Al Qaeda suspects killing seven people, six of them militants, according to a local official in Shabwa province.
The army has been locked for months in deadly battles with the Partisans of Shariah who have exploited a central government weakened by a year of anti-regime protests to strengthen their grip.
They have launched deadly attacks against security forces, especially across south and southeast Yemen.
The Yemeni government has responded with air strikes on suspected Islamist hideouts, and the US has repeatedly used its drones to attack militants, who have seized several southern towns over the past year.
An officer in the security forces survived an assassination attempt in the city of Mukalla in Hadramout province yesterday when a bomb planted in his car exploded just after he got out, a security official said.
At the start of March, 185 soldiers were killed in a massive assault by Al Qaeda militants on an army camp near Zinjibar.
The US says the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is the most active branch of the global terror network.
Wary of Al Qaeda’s growing strength in Yemen, Washington backed Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s election as president in February under an Arab Gulf-brokered deal to ease his predecessor Ali Abdullah Saleh from power after a year of demonstrations against him.