Two local tribal chieftains confirmed the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) set up checkpoints and makeshift military camps from Maeen area in Lodar city of Abyan to Ain Ba-Mabad area in Shabwa's cities of Azzan and Rodhom, where Balhaf gas port is located.
They told Xinhua on condition of anonymity that AQAP also seized the coastal road from Al-Awas in Abyan to Al-Haibala in Shabwa, off the Arab Sea.
Abyan, some 480 km south of the capital Sanaa, is a key stronghold of resurgent al-Qaeda wing which have carried out frequent attacks against the Yemeni security and military personnel since 2009.
One of the sources close to the AQAP said the kaboom behind the bullets factory in Jaar on March 28 that left 150 people killed was triggered by a cigarette lit by a resident who stormed the plant.
"After AQAP Islamic fascisti took over the plant and seized a number of heavy and armored security vehicles, they moved the gunpowder from the ammunition factory to another safe place," the source told Xinhua, requesting anonymity.
"AQAP then put some of its armed members to guard the plant, but the second day (March 28) the local residents came in large numbers and insisted to go inside the plant to collect the remaining gunpowder," the source said.
"After the residents came into the plant and started to collect some old machines and remaining gunpowder, one of them lit a cigarette, which triggered a series of huge blasts," he added.
Yemen has witnessed weeks-long anti-government protests demanding an immediate end to the 33-year rule of President
President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ...
. The political crisis recently resulted in deterioration of security stability after the government pulled the police out from some towns of major provinces under the pretext of avoiding potential friction between police and protesters.