17 dead as troops clash with al-Qaeda in Yemen

The Yemeni army has launched a brutal offensive against al-Qaeda Fresh clashes between al-Qaeda fighters and government forces in Yemen left 17 dead, military officials have said, as the army pushed on with an offensive to regain a key town in the country\'s south that fell to the militants over a year ago.
Officials said eight al-Qaeda fighters, four soldiers and five civilian volunteers fighting alongside the military were killed.
The army started a two-pronged attack on the town of Jaar on Friday as part of a broader assault to take back Zinjibar, the provincial capital of Abyan, which has also been under al-Qaeda control for more than a year.
Al-Qaeda-linked fighters took advantage of the 2011 uprising to overrun a swath of territory and several towns in the south, pushing out government forces and establishing their own rule. In recent weeks, the army has launched a concerted effort to uproot the militants from their strongholds, and is closely coordinating with a small contingent of US troops who are helping to guide the operations from inside Yemen.
Officials say US drones have been providing information to their forces.
The military officials said Yemeni warplanes pounded targets some three miles outside Jaar. Up to 70 percent of the town\'s residents have fled over the past months to escape the fighting.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the militants used suicide car bombs against military checkpoints and vehicles to hinder the army\'s advance and had called for reinforcements from neighbouring towns.
Yemen\'s new president, Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, took office in February as part of a US- and Saudi-backed deal aimed at ending the unrest. He has made fighting al-Qaeda one of his top priorities.
The official news agency Saba said that Ken Tovo, a US commanding general of special operations, met with Yemen\'s chief of staff Ahmed Ali al-Ashwal and discussed US aid to Yemen in combating terrorism.
Tovo later met with the commander of the Yemeni southern sector in Aden to discuss details of the operations in the south, a military statement said.
Unidentified assailants also shot at a US military instructor in Yemen on Sunday.
A US special forces commander toured the frontline in southern Yemen in a visit that highlighted the extent of Washington\'s support to a government fighting militants it sees as a threat not just the region but also to US soil.
Four Americans, part of a team of instructors in Yemen to train the Arab country\'s coastguard, were in the vehicle that was attacked in the Red Sea city of Hudaida.
Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic law) said its operatives waited for the Americans as they left their hotel and then attacked.
Three of them were unhurt and the other one was slightly injured, and the gunmen managed to escape the scene despite a security cordon.
US military instructors are helping train the Yemeni armed forces, who are waging a battle against al Qaeda-linked militants in southern Yemen, seen by the United States as a major threat to its security.
The attack was the latest in a series of security incidents in Hudaida over the past two months.
In March, a Swiss woman was kidnapped at gunpoint in Hudaida as she left a privately owned language institute where she taught English. This woman is being held by al-Qaeda who are demanding a large ransom for her return.  In April, a French official of the International Committee of the Red Cross was also kidnapped while traveling from northern Yemen to Hudaida.
A tribal source later said he had been transported to the southern town of Jaar, an Islamist militant stronghold, where he is still being held.
Meanwhile Yemen\'s defence minister, who is directly supervising the operations in the south, paid a 24-hour visit to Saudi Arabia.
A government official said Yemen was seeking military hardware aid from Saudi Arabia to enable it to keep up the momentum of operations against al-Qaeda.