At least 42 people have died in violence near Yemen’s southern city of Zinjibar, most of which has fallen under the control of suspected Al-Qaeda militants, military and local sources said on Saturday.
Eleven people including top officers were killed in fierce clashes between the army and militants in Dofas, a village 15 kilometres (nine miles) south of Abyan’s provincial capital of Zinjibar, they said. “Al-Qaeda elements stationed in Dofas attacked army units there using machine-guns on Friday, killing two officers and four soldiers, and wounding nine others,” a military official in the village told AFP. Medics at a military hospital in the southern port city of Aden confirmed the casualty toll. A local official in Dofas said five members of the Islamist network were also killed and four wounded in the attack.
Also on Friday, an air raid and clashes with militants left 29 tribesmen killed and dozens wounded in eastern Zinjibar, tribal sources said, adding that several others went missing. Twelve of the tribesmen were killed and 20 others wounded in clashes with the militants, a top security official in the area told AFP. “Around 200 tribesmen came from the (coastal) village of Shaqra heading towards Zinjibar when they clashed with Al-Qaeda elements” on the city’s outskirts, Abdullah Naser al-Jadani said.
Tribal sources said the militants forced the tribesmen into a government building seized by the network, prompting the army to launch an air raid. Jadani said three tribesmen were “mistakenly” killed in the air strike while another nine were shot dead by Al-Qaeda militants.
