Yemen's army has regained control of one of al Qaida's key strongholds in the south which the militant group has held for more than a year, the state-run news agency said today.

At least 23 al-Qaida militants have been killed in fierce clashes in south Yemen, officials said today.

Forty-two people have been killed in heavy clashes between the army and al-Qaida-linked militants in the country’s south.

Fifteen al-Qaida-linked militants have been killed in a missile strike on their training camp in southern Yemen, according to military officials.

Nineteen people have been killed in clashes between Yemeni troops and al-Qaida militants in a strategic southern city, officials say.

Al-Qaida-linked militants staged a dawn attack on an army post in south Yemen today, setting off clashes which left 23 dead on both sides, Yemeni army officials said.

At least 2,000 displaced Yemenis have returned home to a restive area in the country’s south that has been under the control of al-Qaida-linked militants for more than seven months.

YEMENI air force jets hit an al-Qaeda stronghold town in the south of the country, killing seven civilians when they mistakenly struck the wrong mosque, a local official said yesterday.

A senior leader of Yemen’s al-Qaida branch has been killed in fighting in the nearly lawless south of the country, the Defence Ministry said.

Residents of a town in southern Yemen overrun by radical Islamists say government shelling has killed more than 20 militants in the past two days.

Yemen’s chaos deepened when munitions factory looters set off an accidental explosion that killed at least 78 in an area seized by Islamist militants exploiting the president’s rapidly dwindling power.

A POWERFUL blast at a factory making explosives and weapons in southern Yemen killed at least 78 people after the facility was briefly taken over by Islamic militants and then looted by residents of the area, officials said.

Yemen’s president, clinging to power despite weeks of protests, has scrapped his offer to step down by the end of the year.

Islamic militants seized control of a weapons factory, a strategic mountain and a nearby town in the southern Yemen province of Abyan today as a political stalemate in the capital causes security to unravel around the country.