Militants targeted by air strikes in Yemen

Yemeni warplanes carried out air strikes yesterday on a southern town seized by hundreds of Islamic militants over the weekend, witnesses said, as the political crisis surrounding the embattled president descended into more bloodshed.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has clung to power despite months of daily protests, defections by key allies and international pressure to go, has repeatedly warned that Islamic militants and al-Qaeda would seize control of the country if he steps down.

At the same time, he has intensified a crackdown on protesters. Military units loyal to him carried out a fierce assault yesterday on the southern city of Taiz, which has been a hotbed of anti-government protests since the start of the uprising in early February.

Mr Saleh's opponents, including some in the military, have accused him of allowing the militant takeover of the small town of Zinjibar to try to bolster his argument that he is a key bulwark against al-Qaeda and win back support from countries such as the United States.

Fighter jets fired at the southern outskirts of the town, and loud explosions were followed by rising columns of smoke, said resident Ali Dahmas.

"It is also disturbing because the positions the army is targeting are residential areas," he said.

Military units battled the militants in Zinjibar overnight and into the morning in an attempt to clear the fighters from the town, where they hve blockaded themselves behind barricades and rocks since Friday.

The Islamists who seized Zinjibar are not members of the Yemen-based Al-Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsula.

They are former members of a group known as the Aden Army, which fought in Afghanistan against Soviet forces in the 1980s and returned to Yemen to side with Mr Saleh's government to put down a 1994 civil war with the south.