ADEN — At least 16 people, including women and children, were killed Thursday in clashes in Yemen’s southern province of Abyan where Al-Qaeda and the army are battling for control of the restive territory.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a military official said six civilians, “three women, two children and one man, were killed in a Yemeni air raid on the town of Shuqra,” one of the last remaining Al-Qaeda bastions in Abyan.
The official did not confirm the ages of the children killed during the raid in which the intended target was militant fighters.

Another 10 people were killed in Shuqra in fierce clashes between militants and the army, a local official said.

“Clashes using machine guns between Al-Qaeda militants and the army, backed by local militiamen, left two soldiers dead and 11 wounded,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

He said eight militants were also killed in the fighting that began late Wednesday.

Shuqra is the only town in Abyan besides Mahfad which the extremists still hold.

On Tuesday, the military drove the jihadists out of the provincial capital of Zinjibar and Jaar, with Al-Qaeda gunmen believed to have fled east to Shuqra.

On Wednesday, nine civilians were killed by land mines planted by militant fighters in Zinjibar, according to local official Mohsen Saleh.

He said the civilians, who had fled the city last May after Al-Qaeda took control, died in two separate land mine explosions.

According to Zinjibar’s deputy mayor, hundreds of displaced residents have returned to the city since Tuesday to find their “homes flattened and the city destroyed.” — AFP