US drones killed 10 al Qaida militants – one believed to be a top bomb-maker - in separate strikes targeting moving vehicles in Yemen, officials and the country’s state-run agency said today.

YEMEN President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed a Gulf initiative last night to hand over power to his deputy as part of a proposal to end months of protests that have pushed the Arab country to the brink of civil war.

AT least 230 Yemeni soldiers were killed in fighting with militants linked to al-Qaida that led to the lifting of the siege of a brigade imposed three months ago, the defence ministry said yesterday.

Government forces and tribal fighters exchanged gun and artillery fire in Yemen’s capital Sanaa this morning in fresh fighting that killed at least 41 people.

Yemen authorities have accused a Shiite rebel group of kidnapping nine foreigners in the country's north.

SOMALI pirates have hijacked a Yemeni ship loaded with steel in the Gulf of Aden, in the Arabian Sea, officials said yesterday, a day after local sources said the gang holding a Saudi supertanker demanded a $15 million (€11.5m) ransom.

Thirty-seven Somali migrants drowned off the coast of Yemen when smugglers forced them to jump from boats to elude authorities, it is reported.

Rescuers were searching for eight missing soldiers today after a volcanic explosion rocked a tiny Yemeni island in the Red Sea.

THERE’S no stopping Ross Lewis and Dublin’s Chapter One — doubly acclaimed best chef and best restaurant in the country.

The government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi today announced a three-day official mourning period and cancelled all celebrations of Eid.

Four French tourists kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen have been freed, the Yemeni official news agency reported today.

A YEMENI shot dead an American and a Canadian working at a US oil firm in the Arab state yesterday and then killed himself, a Yemeni official said.

Yemeni investigators today said they strongly suspect a man who gunned down four American missionaries had links to the al-Qaida terror network.

The man suspected of killing three American missionaries and wounding another in southern Yemen is believed to have ties to a cell plotting attacks on foreigners and secular-minded politicians, officials say.

Yemeni foreign ministry officials said tonight the shipment of North Korean-made Scud missiles seized by the US navy at gun point had been freed and was headed for port in Yemen.

AN explosion set a French oil supertanker ablaze off the coast of Yemen yesterday, triggering conflicting explanations of an internal blast and a bomb attack from a small boat.