Rival militants killed in south Yemen clashes

(AFP)

15 August 2011

ADEN — Clashes between rival extremist groups on Monday left four fighters dead and seven others wounded in Yemen’s restive southern province of Abyan, witnesses said.

A group under the leadership of Abdellatif Sayyed, who has distanced himself from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, asked alleged members of AQAP to leave the town of Jaar.

But a witness said the latter, who are loyal to a local Al-Qaeda leader named Abu Ali Hadrami, refused, triggering a series of clashes that caused casualties on both sides.

Jaar is 12 kilometres (seven miles) north of the provincial capital of Zinjibar which was seized in May by Partisans of Sharia (Islamic Law), an organisation linked to the Al-Qaeda network.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is an affiliate of the global network accused of anti-US plots, including an attempt to blow up a US-bound aircraft on Christmas Day 2009.

Yemen is also the ancestral homeland of slain jihadist leader Osama bin Laden.