Five al-Qaida militants killed in airstrike in south Yemen

SANAA, Apr 15- At least five al-Qaida militants were killed in an air strike in Yemen’s southeast province of al- Bayda on Saturday, security sources said.

At least five members of the al-Qaida group were killed when a U.S. drone raided the militants’ vehicle at al-Zahir district in al-Bayda, a security official said.

Al-Bayda province, some 170 km southeast of the capital Sanaa, has witnessed in the past few months a remarkable progress by the Yemeni government against Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Islamic Law), a local arm of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula ( AQAP).

The AQAP has overrun several cities in southern Yemen following security vacuum during last year’s political upheaval. Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi said fighting terrorism tops his daily agenda.

Earlier in the day, five soldiers and 10 militants were killed on Saturday morning when the AQAP militants attacked a security checkpoint on the outskirts of the southern port city of Aden.

Meanwhile, fighting between government troops and terrorist militants in the neighboring flashpoint province of Abyan continued Saturday for the fifth straight day, with death toll in the fighting increasing to more than 200.

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