Yemen's air force carried out a strike on a suspected al-Qaeda training camp in south Yemen on Monday, killing a suspected local al-qaeda leader as well as another top militant, the defense ministry said.
"The air force carried out a strike against an al-Qaeda training camp in Moudia district," in Abyan province, said a brief statement from the ministry.
It did not say whether anyone was killed or injured in the raid.
However an offcial told AFP hat Jamil Nasser Abdullah al-Anbari, 25, who figured on a list of wanted militants, was one of two al-Qaeda leaders killed in the attack.
He did not disclose the name of the other militant.
The defense ministry’s 26sep.net news website had earlier reported that an air raid Sunday night against a "terrorist cell" in the Moudia region killed two senior al-Qaeda members.
"Our air force carried out a raid on terrorist elements who were planning attacks on vital installations (and) two al-Qaeda leaders were killed," said a statement on the defense ministry’s website.
It did not specify what installations were being targeted.
Yemen has intensified its operations against al-Qaeda , which claimed responsibility for a failed late-December attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner.
Earlier this month, a security official said 11 men were arrested in the capital Sanaa on suspicion of plotting attacks for al-Qaeda.
In February, security forces arrested three suspected al-Qaeda members and killed seven of its leaders, including the group’s top commander in Yemen, Qassem al-Rimi, and Abdullah Mehdar, an Al-Qaeda chief in Shabwa province, according to officials and a defense ministry website.
The United States has reportedly supplied Yemen with intelligence and other support in its operations against al-Qaeda.
Rebels complete withdrawal
Separately, the group said in an Internet statement that a militant — who it said had been active in raising funds in Saudi Arabia for fighters in Yemen, Iraq and Afghanistan — was killed in a clash with government forces in southern Yemen.
In addition to its conflict with al-Qaeda and southern separatists, Yemen is trying to bring an end to a northern insurgency that in November drew in Saudi Arabia. It sealed a truce with northern rebels last month.
The rebels said on Sunday they had completed their withdrawal from three districts near the border with Saudi Arabia, Al Arabiya reported.
A rebel spokesman said the insurgents had handed back state and military buildings to authorities, but warned the military to stay out of villages which had been rebel strongholds during the fighting, the news channel said.
While insurgent violence in north Yemen has faded, tension has escalated with separatists in the south despite an offer of talks by Sanaa, which faces international pressure to quell domestic unrest and focus on a bigger global threat: al-Qaeda.
State media said a gang leader driving a stolen car was killed on Saturday in a clash in Abyan. A southern opposition news website said the man was a separatist, and that he was shot after he resisted arrest at a checkpoint.
State media also reported that in southeastern Hadramout province a court began the trial of 11 suspected separatists on Sunday on charges including "threatening Yemen’s unity."
North and South Yemen united in 1990, but many in the south — home to most of Yemen’s oil industry — complain northerners have seized resources and discriminate against them.