Yemen air strikes kill 4 civilians, 6 gunmen

ADEN: Four civilians and six gunmen were killed Tuesday in a series of air raids that targeted extremists who have taken control of most of Yemen's southern city of Zinjibar, officials and a medic said.

The defence ministry's 26sep.net news website meanwhile cited a military source as saying that 40 "terrorists from al Qaeda" had been killed and dozens others wounded in Zinjibar since Monday, and that two soldiers were killed and 20 wounded in the fighting.

Three civilians were killed when an air strike hit the home of a top Yemeni official on the outskirts of Zinjibar, an official in Jaar, Mohsen Salem Saeed, told AFP.

"The home of the deputy head of the parliament, Mohammed Ali al-Shadadi, was hit by an air strike that killed three family members and injured seven," Saeed told AFP.

"I don't know why Shadadi's home was targeted," he said.

Shadadi had pledged support for protesters who have for six months been calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is hospitalised in Riyadh for wounds sustained in a bomb blast at his palace compound last month.

Yemeni military aircraft carried out several strikes on Tuesday against positions held by Islamists linked to al Qaeda in Zinjibar and its outskirts, another official in Jaar said.

A medical official meanwhile said that one civilian was killed and three others were wounded in the raids on Zinjibar.

Four militants were killed in a strike that targeted them in the nearby town of Jaar, a source on the ground in the town said.

The second official in Jaar said another raid on the road linking Jaar to Zinjibar killed two other militants.

Yemeni forces have been engaged in fierce fighting with militants of the Partisans of Sharia movement who seized much of Zinjibar in late May.

The Sanaa government says the militants are allied with al Qaeda but the opposition accuses it of playing up a jihadist threat in a desperate attempt to keep Saleh in power.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011