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Yemeni president orders more troops to fight al-Qaida: official

12 April 2012 18:16 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi decided to send more troops to the southern province of Abyan to fight resurgent al-Qaida militants, a government official said Thursday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"President Hadi has issued orders to deploy battalions of the Yemeni Counter Terrorism Unites and Special Operation Forces from Sanaa and Aden, as well as the Republican Guards in the southeast province of al-Bayda after four days of offensive against al-Qaida militants in Lauder town in Abyan," the official told Xinhua anonymously.

Yemen, which is struggling to end divisions in its army after the fall of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, has experienced a surge of terrorist violence in its southern and eastern provinces which have most of the country’s oil and gas stockpiles.

Hundreds of soldiers and militants have been killed since Monday in Lauder during ongoing battles between the Yemeni army and the al-Qaida militants that attempted to overrun the town.

In the southern regions, the militants launched almost daily attacks against the troops in several provinces. Earlier in the day, the interior ministry said al-Qaida gunmen targeted a security checkpoint in the southeastern province of Hadramout, killing eight policemen.

The attack came a few hours after the Yemeni air forces bombarded hideouts of the militants in Abyan, killing at least 18 terrorists, according to military sources.