[YEMENONLINE.INFO] The fighting in the Gol al-Rayda and Azan districts of Shabwa province started early Wednesday morning and continued for hours, leaving 10 soldiers and 13 attackers dead. Military losses included General Mohsen Saeed al-Ghazali, an aide to Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmad, who just days ago survived an ambush while returning from an area in the south which the army has attempted to clear of al Qaeda elements.Earlier this month, Yemen's army captured key districts in Abyan
...a governorate of Yemen. The region was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army terrorist group until it dropped the name and joined al-Qaeda. Its capital is Zinjibar. In March 2011, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula declared the governate an
Islamic Emirateafter seizing control of the region. The New York Times fastidiously reported that those in control, while Islamic hard boyz, are not in fact al-Qaeda, but something else that looks, tastes, smells, and acts the same. Yemeni government forces launched an effort to re-establish control of the region when President-for-Life Saleh was tossed and the carnage continues...
province. After that, many of the fighters, from al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and its affiliate Ansar al-Sharia
...a Salafist militia which claims it is not part of al-Qaeda, even though it works about the same and for the same ends. There are groups of the same name in Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, with the Libyan and Tunisian versions currently most active...
, fled to the mountains and turned to hit-and-run tactics against security forces and government facilities across the country.