42 killed in clashes between Yemeni army, Al-Qaida

YEMENI military officials say 42 people have been killed in heavy clashes between the army and al-Qaida-linked militants in the country’s south.The officials say the military used warplanes and heavy artillery in its assault early Sunday on the town of al-Hurur in Abyan province, killing at least 30 militants.Al-Hurur is just outside the city of Jaar, which is one of many towns in southern Yemen that have been under the control of al-Qaida fighters since last year.The officials also say 12 government troops were killed Sunday in fighting in the town of al-Code and the provincial capital of Zinjibar.In the capital, Sanaa, President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, met with the new Yemeni president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.Meanwhile, Bulgaria’s ambassador to Yemen Boris Borisov managed to escape a kidnap attempt on Saturday in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, an interior ministry official told Xinhua on Sunday.“Unknown gunmen intercepted the car of the Bulgarian ambassador and tried to kidnap him at gunpoint while he was with his wife driving in a crowded street in central the capital Sanaa,” the official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.“The armed kidnappers smashed a window of the car. However, the ambassador resisted them and quickly forced his way to a nearby shopping center where he yelled to a police patrol asking for help, “ the official said.“The ambassador was slightly injured, but the kidnappers managed to escape,” the official said, blaming the kidnap attempt for a suspected cell affiliated with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Yemen has frequently seen kidnapping of foreigners by powerful tribesmen and terrorists who seek ransoms or other demands, including the release of prisoners. In March, the AQAP snatched a Saudi diplomat from the southern port city of Aden, a Swiss woman and a French aid worker from the country’s western port city of al-Hodayda. They later moved them to al-Qaida-held cities in southern provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, demanding a ransom and the release of the militants in Yemeni and Saudi prisons, according to the Yemeni officials.