'Qaeda militants die' when car bomb goes off too soon

 (AFP) June 5, 2012

ADEN — Five Al-Qaeda militants died in southern Yemen on Tuesday when the car bomb they aimed to set off exploded prematurely, a local official said.

"The accidental explosion occurred in Shaqra (in Abyan province) and killed five extremist fighters," the official said.

Yemeni forces launched an all-out offensive on May 12 aimed at reclaiming the provincial capital Zinjibar and other towns and cities lost to Al-Qaeda over the past year.

Al-Qaeda sometimes uses car bombs against the army and its militia supporters.

On Monday, a suicide bomber blew up a car at a checkpoint in Abyan on Monday, killing four pro-army gunmen, a member of a pro-military auxiliary militia said.

Army foils al-Qaida plot in Yemen

SANAA, Yemen, June 5 (UPI) -- Yemeni security officers said the army thwarted an al-Qaida plot to seize Attaq in a push to establish militant control over a wider area.

With the military and the tribes pushing to regain control of both Jaar and Zinjibar, two towns in Abyan province that fell to al-Qaida last year, high ranking military officers told the Yemen Forum newspaper Tuesday the terror group was trying to spread out and open new fronts in neighboring provinces.

In Abyan, where clashes involving tribes and al-Qaida militants were ongoing, officers from the Republican Guards called for the dissolution of tribal militias, Mareb Press reported. Gen. Ahmed Ali Saleh -- former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's son -- predicted militias would turn on the state and support the southern secessionist movement.

Elsewhere, authorities reported an explosion near the ministries of Transport and Finance in Sanaa, Mareb Press reported. Preliminary reports pointed toward an accident rather than a terror attack, officials said.