Airstrikes on Al Qaeda hideouts, after attack on reinforcement troops

By Nasser Arrabyee/16/10/2010

Two soldiers at least were killed when Al Qaeda militants fired RPGs on reinforcement troops on their way to a mountainous area south of Yemen where a group of Al Qaeda militants are hiding, local sources said Saturday.

Three vehicles and two tanks were damaged when about 30 Al Qaeda militants attacked the military campaign in the area of Khadeer on their way to Mudia, the southern province of Abyan , the sources said.

Late afternoon Saturday, the fighter jets started to bomb the areas where Al Qaeda militants positioning in the mountainous area between Lawdar and Mudia, especially Al Dahma and Slamia.
Population of the close villages have started to displace to safer places as the fighting intensifies, the sources said.

The security sources confirmed that Al Qaeda militants attacked the reinforcement troops but denied the damage of vehicles and tanks. The security sources said that a car bomb driven by a terrorist went off before the campaign arrived to the place of explosion. The suicide bomber killed himself and the car was destroyed, said the security sources.

Separately, two intelligence officers were injured when they failed to defuse a bomb which was put in a parking car belonging to one of them in the city of Zunjubar.

The colonel Abaid Ali Mubarak, director of the political security in Ahwar district and when his colleagues were taken to hospital after they failed to defuse the bomb which was put in his car, local sources said.