Yemeni security forces kill al Qaeda cell leader

Yemeni security forces killed an al Qaeda leader in clashes and scoured rugged mountains in search of 25 militants who escaped capture during security operations in the Shabwa province south-east of the capital Sanaa. Yemeni security officials said that Abdullah al-Mehdar, identified as leader of an al Qaeda cell in Shabwa, was killed in a heavy exchange of fire overnight that partly destroyed his home, which security forces had surrounded on Tuesday.
Four militants were arrested on Tuesday while others escaped, the sources said. Two Yemeni soldiers were killed in Shabwa and four others wounded in a suspected retaliatory road ambush, security officials said. "Perhaps al Qaeda elements carried this out in retaliation for the security forces operation last night," one security official said.
US-led efforts to battle militancy are focused on Yemen after a Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda said it was behind a failed December 25 plot to bomb a US-bound plane. Yemen, fighting a resurgent al Qaeda in many provinces, also faces a Shia Houthi rebellion in the north and separatist sentiment in the south.
Saudi Arabia has been fighting rebels since the insurgents carried out a cross-border raid in November. Yemen's foreign ministry, whose government has flirted with the idea of dialogue with the Islamist militant network, said that any talks with al Qaeda would have to yield a renunciation of violence and would be aimed at countering militancy.
The United States and Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda will capitalise on Yemen's instability to spread its operations to the neighbouring kingdom and beyond. Violence also flared in north Yemen, where at least 15 Yemeni Shia rebels were killed over the past two days in clashes with pro-government tribesmen and in Yemeni security operations, the interior ministry said.
Both Saudi Arabia and Yemen have stepped up efforts against the rebels in recent days. A Saudi defence official said on Tuesday that Saudi forces had killed hundreds of rebels who infiltrated the country along the Yemen-Saudi border. Those clashes also killed four Saudi soldiers.