[Dawn] Four suspected al Qaeda gunnies were killed in festivities with Yemeni forces as the army pressed on with its advance toward the gunnies-held southern city of Zinjibar, a medic said on Wednesday.The four shuffled off the mortal coil in hospital early on Wednesday in Jaar, 11 kilometres (six miles) north of Zinjibar, the medical source told AFP, adding that two other maimed cut-throats and a civilian were brought in.
The suspects were hit by army shelling of Zinjibar, Abyan's picturesque provincial capital that has mostly been overran by gunnies since May.
Jaar and Shaqra, in addition to Zinjibar, remain controlled by gumen, while advancing army troops have seized control of the villages of Dofes, Al-Kud and Al-Matla, on the outskirts of Zinjibar, local sources said.
The army now controls the road linking Zinjibar with the main southern city of Aden -- a stretch of 50 kilometres.
According to the supreme security committee, more than 300 al Qaeda suspects have been killed in Abyan since May. Unofficially, military sources put the army casualty toll at 183 troops dead and more than 250 maimed.
On Tuesday, a military official said Defence Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed Ali beat feet unharmed when a roadside kaboom targeted his convoy in Al-Kud but two guards of the south's military commander, General Mehdi Maqwala, were killed.
A defence ministry official, however, cited by Saba state news agency, denied the reported kaboom.
The lawless southern and eastern provinces of Yemen have provided safe havens for al Qaeda cut-throats to regroup, especially over the past seven months of mass protests across the country against President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh.
... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower...